I found myself avoiding the more recent occurrence at the White Cat. I was still too close to it to have gained any perspective. On that subject I was able to think clearly of only one thing: that I would have to tell Margery in the morning, and that I would have given anything I possessed for a little of Edith's diplomacy with which to break the bad news. It was Edith who broke the news to me that the moths had got into my evening clothes while I was hunting in the Rockies, by telling me that my dress-coat made me look narrow across the shoulders and persuading me to buy a new one and give the old one to Fred. Then she broke the news of the moths to Fred!
I was ready for bed when Wardrop came back and rapped at my door. He was still dressed, and he had the leather bag in his hand.
"Look here," he said excitedly, when I had closed the door, "this is not my bag at all. Fool that I was. I never examined it carefully."
He held it out to me, and I carried it to the light. It was an ordinary eighteen-inch Russia leather traveling-bag, tan in color, and with gold-plated mountings. It was empty, save for the railroad schedule that still rested in one side pocket. Wardrop pointed to the empty pocket on the other side.
"In my bag," he explained rapidly, "my name was written inside that pocket, in ink. I did it myself--my name and address."
I looked inside the pockets on both sides: nothing had been written in.
"Don't you see?" he asked excitedly. "Whoever stole my bag had this one to substitute for it. If we can succeed in tracing the bag here to the shop it came from, and from there to the purchaser, we have the thief."
"There's no maker's name in it," I said, after a casual examination. Wardrop's face fell, and he took the bag from me despondently.
"No matter which way I turn," he said, "I run into a blind alley. If I were worth a damn, I suppose I could find a way out. But I'm not. Well, I'll let you sleep this time."
At the door, however, he turned around and put the bag on the floor, just inside.
"If you don't mind, I'll leave it here," he said. "They'll be searching my room, I suppose, and I'd like to have the bag for future reference."
He went for good that time, and I put out the light. As an afterthought I opened my door perhaps six inches, and secured it with one of the pink conch-shells which flanked either end of the stone hearth. I had failed the night before: I meant to be on hand that night.