“Have you, though? You haven’t been slow on the job if you only started this morning. Maybe dear Adelbert has met his match this time. The outer study is the one with the Chinese crockery in it⁠—big glass cupboard between the windows. Then behind his desk is the door that leads to the inner study⁠—a small room where he keeps papers and things.”

“Is he not afraid of burglars?”

“Adelbert is no coward. His worst enemy couldn’t say that of him. He can look after himself. There’s a burglar alarm at night. Besides, what is there for a burglar⁠—unless they got away with all this fancy crockery?”

“No good,” said Shinwell Johnson with the decided voice of the expert. “No fence wants stuff of that sort that you can neither melt nor sell.”