be abandoned.

Mrs. Ireland had all the money she wanted; the theft occurred six months
ago, and not a single bank-note was ever traced to her pocket; moreover,
she must have had an accomplice, since some one else was in the
manager's room that night; and if that some one else was her accomplice,
why did she risk betraying him by speaking loudly in the presence of
James Fairbairn, when it would have been so much simpler to turn out
the light and plunge the hall into darkness?

"You are altogether on the wrong track," sounded a sharp voice in direct
answer to Polly's thoughts--"altogether wrong. If you want to acquire my
method of induction, and improve your reasoning power, you must follow
my system. First think of the one absolutely undisputed, positive fact.
You must have a starting-point, and not go wandering about in the realms
of suppositions."

"But there are no positive facts," she said irritably.

"You don't say so?" he said quietly. "Do you not call it a positive fact
that the bank safe was robbed of L5000 on the evening of March 25th
before 11.30 p.m."

"Yes, that is all which is positive and--"

"Do you not call it a positive fact," he interrupted quietly, "that the
lock of the safe not being picked, it must have been opened by its own
key?"

"I know that," she rejoined crossly, "and that is why every one agreed
that James Fairbairn could not possibly--"

"And do you not call it a positive fact, then, that James Fairbairn
could not possibly, etc., etc., seeing that the glass partition door was
locked from the inside; Mrs. Ireland herself let James Fairbairn into
her husband's office when she saw him lying fainting before the open
safe. Of course that was a positive fact, and so was the one that proved
to any thinking mind that if that safe was opened with a key, it could
only have been done by a person having access to that key."

"But the man in the private office--"

"Exactly! the man in the private office. Enumerate his points, if you
please," said the funny creature, marking each point with one of his
favourite knots. "He was a man who might that night have had access to
the key of the safe, unsuspected by the manager or even his wife, and a
man for whom Mrs. Ireland was willing to tell a downright lie. Are there
many men for whom a woman of the better middle class, and an
Englishwoman, would be ready to perjure herself? Surely not! She might
do it for her husband. The public thought she had.