FROM SERGEANT BULMER TO CHIEF INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE.
London, July 10th.
INSPECTOR THEAKSTONE--Your letter and inclosure came safe to hand.Wise men, they say, may always learn something even from a fool.By the time I had got through Sharpin's maundering report of his own folly, I saw my way clear enough to the end of the Rutherford Street case, just as you thought I should.In half an hour's time I was at the house.The first person I saw there was Mr.Sharpin himself.
"Have you come to help me?" says he.
"Not exactly," says I."I've come to tell you that you are suspended till further notice.""Very good," says he, not taken down by so much as a single peg in his own estimation."I thought you would be jealous of me.
It's very natural and I don't blame you.Walk in, pray, and make yourself at home.I'm off to do a little detective business on my own account, in the neighborhood of the Regent's Park.Ta--ta, sergeant, ta--ta!"With those words he took himself out of the way, which was exactly what I wanted him to do.
As soon as the maid-servant had shut the door, I told her to inform her master that I wanted to say a word to him in private.
She showed me into the parlor behind the shop, and there was Mr.
Yatman all alone, reading the newspaper.
"About this matter of the robbery, sir," says I.
He cut me short, peevishly enough, being naturally a poor, weak, womanish sort of man.
"Yes, yes, I know," says he."You have come to tell me that your wonderfully clever man, who has bored holes in my second floor partition, has made a mistake, and is off the scent of the scoundrel who has stolen my money.""Yes, sir," says I."That _is_ one of the things I came to tell you.But I have got something else to say besides that.""Can you tell me who the thief is?" says he, more pettish than ever.
"Yes, sir," says I, "I think I can."
He put down the newspaper, and began to look rather anxious and frightened.
"Not my shopman?" says he."I hope, for the man's own sake, it's not my shopman.""Guess again, sir," says I.
"That idle slut, the maid?" says he.
"She is idle, sir," says I, "and she is also a slut; my first inquiries about her proved as much as that.But she's not the thief.""Then, in the name of Heaven, who is?" says he.
"Will you please to prepare yourself for a very disagreeable surprise, sir?" says I."And, in case you lose your temper, will you excuse my remarking that I am the stronger man of the two, and that if you allow yourself to lay hands on me, I may unintentionally hurt you, in pure self-defense."He turned as pale as ashes, and pushed his chair two or three feet away from me.
"You have asked me to tell you, sir, who has taken your money," Iwent on."If you insist on my giving you an answer--""I do insist," he said, faintly."Who has taken it?""Your wife has taken it," I said, very quietly, and very positively at the same time.
He jumped out of the chair as if I had put a knife into him, and struck his fist on the table so heavily that the wood cracked again.
"Steady, sir," says I."Flying into a passion won't help you to the truth.""It's a lie!" says he, with another smack of his fist on the table--"a base, vile, infamous lie! How dare you--"He stopped, and fell back into the chair again, looked about him in a bewildered way, and ended by bursting out crying.
"When your better sense comes back to you, sir," says I, "I am sure you will be gentleman enough to make an apology for the language you have just used.In the meantime, please to listen, if you can, to a word of explanation.Mr.Sharpin has sent in a report to our inspector of the most irregular and ridiculous kind, setting down not only all his own foolish doings and sayings, but the doings and sayings of Mrs.Yatman as well.In most cases, such a document would have been fit only for the waste paper basket; but in this particular case it so happens that Mr.Sharpin's budget of nonsense leads to a certain conclusion, which the simpleton of a writer has been quite innocent of suspecting from the beginning to the end.Of that conclusion I am so sure that I will forfeit my place if it does not turn out that Mrs.Yatman has been practicing upon the folly and conceit of this young man, and that she has tried to shield herself from discovery by purposely encouraging him to suspect the wrong persons.I tell you that confidently; and I will even go further.I will undertake to give a decided opinion as to why Mrs.Yatman took the money, and what she has done with it, or with a part of it.Nobody can look at that lady, sir, without being struck by the great taste and beauty of her dress--"As I said those last words, the poor man seemed to find his powers of speech again.He cut me short directly as haughtily as if he had been a duke instead of a stationer.