“ ‘ Mr. Phelps, sir!’ said he, looking at me in bewilderment.
“ ‘I came down to see if my coffee was ready.’
“ ‘I was boiling the kettle when I fell asleep, sir.’ He looked at me and then up at the still quivering bell with an ever-growing astonishment upon his face.
“ ‘If you was here, sir, then who rang the bell?’ he asked.
“ ‘The bell!’ I cried. ‘What bell is it?’
“ ‘It’s the bell of the room you were working in.’
“A cold hand seemed to close round my heart. Someone, then, was in that room where my precious treaty lay upon the table. I ran frantically up the stair and along the passage. There was no one in the corridors, Mr. Holmes. There was no one in the room. All was exactly as I left it, save only that the papers which had been committed to my care had been taken from the desk on which they lay. The copy was there, and the original was gone.”
Holmes sat up in his chair and rubbed his hands. I could see that the problem was entirely to his heart. “Pray, what did you do then?” he murmured.
“I recognized in an instant that the thief must have come up the stairs from the side door. Of course I must have met him if he had come the other way.”
“You were satisfied that he could not have been concealed in the room all the time, or in the corridor which you have just described as dimly lighted?”
“It is absolutely impossible. A rat could not conceal himself either in the room or the corridor. There is no cover at all.”