most diminutive of
full-grown thieves, Billy Cann,--most diminutive but at the same time
most expert,--was not doubted by some minds which were apt to doubt
till conviction had become certainty. The traveller who had left the
Scotch train at Dumfries had been a very small man, and it was a
known fact that Mr. Smiler had left London by train, from the Euston
Square station, on the day before that on which Lizzie and her party
had reached Carlisle. If it were so, if Mr. Smiler and Billy Cann had
both been at work at the hotel, then,--so argued they who opposed the
Bunfit theory,--it was hardly conceivable that the robbery should
have been arranged by Lord George. According to the Bunfit theory,
the only thing needed by the conspirators had been that the diamonds
should be handed over by Lady Eustace to Lord George in such a way
as to escape suspicion that such transfer had been made. This might
have been done with very little trouble,--by simply leaving the box
empty, with the key in it. The door of the bedroom had been opened
by skilful professional men, and the box had been forced by the use
of tools which none but professional gentlemen would possess. Was it
probable that Lord George would have committed himself with such men,
and incurred the very heavy expense of paying for their services,
when he was,--according to the Bunfit theory,--able to get at the
diamonds without any such trouble, danger, and expenditure? There
was a young detective in the force, very clever,--almost too clever,
and certainly a little too fast,--Gager by name, who declared that
the Bunfit theory "warn't on the cards." According to Gager's
information, Smiler was at this moment a broken-hearted man,--ranging
between mad indignation and suicidal despondency, because he had been
treated with treachery in some direction. Mr. Gager was as fully
convinced as Bunfit that the diamonds had not been in the box. There
was bitter, raging, heart-breaking disappointment about the diamonds
in more quarters than one. That there had been a double robbery Gager
was quite sure;--or rather a robbery in which two sets of thieves had
been concerned, and in which one set had been duped by the other set.
In this affair Mr. Smiler and poor little Billy Cann had been the
dupes. So far Gager's mind had arrived at certainty. But then how had
they been duped, and who had duped them? And who had employed them?
Such a robbery would hardly have been arranged and executed ex