This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
MR. McADAMS CONVERSES
129

the room, or he would have been found there when the door was broken open."

"A third time still, that is not sufficient; for that must have been equally true of whoever took the stone—yet the stone, as we know, was taken and no one was found there."

McAdams thought for several moments. "Certainly," he said at last, "among seven men all selected for their fidelity you will not claim that a universal conspiracy could be possible. Whatever the reason or the inducement, some—if only one—of those seven would have remained faithful; and the whereabouts of all seven at the time this robbery occurred is accounted for by all the others. For they all give evidence that, at the time of the robbery, they were all in the outer rooms of the Javanese suite and the