"The most magnificent stones on this side of the water--a FEW rubies! It's been Maddon's life hobby.

Every child in New York knows that! A few--yes, there's only a few--but those few are worth a fortune.

He trusts me, the man has been like a father to me, and--" "So you are the very last to be suspected," observed old Isaac suavely.
"Have I not told you that?
There is nothing to fear.

Did we not arrange everything so nicely--eh, my young friend?
See, it was to-night that Maddon gives a little reception to his friends, and did you not say that the rubies would be taken from the safe-deposit vault this afternoon since his friends always clamoured to see them as a very fitting conclusion to an evening's entertainment?
And did you not say that you very naturally had access to the safe in the library where you worked, and that he would not notice they were gone until he came to look for them some time this evening?
I think you said all that.

And what suspicion let alone proof, would attach itself to you?
You were out of the room once when he, too, was absent for perhaps half an hour.