your lamps were lit, of course?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“There are some very singular points here,” said Holmes, smiling. “Is it not extraordinary that a burglar—and a burglar who had had some previous experience—should deliberately break into a house at a time when he could see from the lights that two of the family were still afoot?”
“He must have been a cool hand.”
“Well, of course, if the case were not an odd one we should not have been driven to ask you for an explanation,” said young Mr. Alec. “But as to your ideas that the man had robbed the house before William tackled him, I think it a most absurd notion. Wouldn’t we have found the place disarranged, and missed the things which he had taken?”