The man in bed turned his face to me again, smiled a bit shamefacedly, and chuckled.
“Well, if you people want to call your seventy-five-thousand-dollar loss stuff , I guess I can stand it for twenty-five thousand.”
“So it adds up to a hundred thousand?” I asked.
“Yes. None of them were insured to their full value, and some weren’t insured at all.”
That was very usual. I don’t remember ever having anybody admit that anything stolen from them was insured to the hilt—always it was half, or, at most, three-quarters covered by the policy.
“Suppose you tell me exactly what happened,” I suggested, and added, to head off another speech that usually comes: “I know you’ve already told the police the whole thing, but I’ll have to have it from you.”
“Well, we were getting dressed to go to the Bauers’ last night. I brought my wife’s and daughter’s jewelry—the valuable pieces—home with me from the safe-deposit box. I had just got my coat on, and had called to them to hurry up with their dressing when the doorbell rang.”
“What time was this?”
“Just about half past eight. I went out of this room into the sitting-room across the passageway, and was putting some cigars in my case when Hilda”—nodding at the blonde maid—“came walking into the room, backwards. I started to ask her if she had gone crazy, walking around backwards, when I saw the robber. He—”
“Just a moment.” I turned to the maid. “What happened when you answered the bell?”