There are always exceptions, of course. It is difficult
for the uninitiated to realize that men go in for crime as a means of
livelihood, and are trained to become expert even as others are trained
to succeed in respectable professions. Many grades go to make up a
successful gang, and I had great hope of recognizing some youngster's
face at the club which would give me a clue to the gang which had worked
this robbery.
"You're the very man I was thinking about," said Quarles when I was shown
into the dining-room. "You have come to tell me that you are on these
hotel robberies. Sit down, Wigan. How goes the inquiry?"
"You are wrong, professor. I was on the job for a day and a half, but
I'm off it again. I am investigating the theft of a jeweled chalice."
"Left in a cheap safe in an insecure vestry, I suppose," he said
in a tone of disgust. "Serves them right. Such things should be
kept in a bank."
I explained that it was only kept in the vestry safe until it could be
returned to the bank, but the fact did not seem to impress him.
He made no suggestion that we should adjourn to that empty room, where we
had discussed so many cases.
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