“Come ahead, Larry,” said Mr. Newton.
 
“Will the people in the house let us?” asked the boy, to whom the idea of anyone going through a private residence in this free and easy fashion seemed strange.
 
“I guess they won’t mind,” replied the reporter. “You see we newspaper men have to go ahead and do things. If we waited every time for someone to give us permission we’d never get any stories.”
 
“But maybe they’ll stop us,” objected Larry.
 
“You leave that to me,” spoke Mr. Newton. “I’ll make it all right if anyone objects.”
 
With Larry following, he started upstairs, where, as one of the detectives had informed him, the thieves had made an entrance. As they were going up they were met by a well-dressed man.
 
“Here! Where are you going?” he asked.
 
“I’m a reporter from the Leader,” said Mr. Newton. “I want to get a correct account of this robbery.”
 
“We don’t want any reporters in here,” said the215 man sharply. “We don’t want this thing in the papers at all. You have no right in here. I order you out!”
 
Larry was beginning to get frightened. He had yet to see how a seasoned reporter meets a rebuff of this kind.
 
“I’m very sorry,” began Mr. Newton in a smooth tone. “I’m sure the Leader doesn’t want to annoy anyone. We are just as sorry as you are about this robbery, but we are only doing you a service.”
 
“How doing us a service?” replied the man. “If you call blazing a lot of untruths about the matter all over, why I suppose it is.”
 
“Pardon me,” interposed Mr. Newton, “but the Leader is not a yellow journal. It does not publish fakes. It always tries to get at the truth. Sometimes, as in a case of this sort, where we are refused information, we have to get it from the next best source. Sometimes, I admit, we may be given the wrong information.
 
“But I’ll tell you how we can help you. You want to recover the jewelry, of course?”
 
“Seeing that we are going to offer a reward for it you might guess so,” replied the man sarcastically.
 
“So much the better,” resumed Mr. Newton. “Now if we publish an account of the robbery in the paper, and give a description of the jewelry, it will aid you in recovering it.”
 
216 “I don’t see how.”
 
“Because the Leader is read by a large number of persons. They will see an account of this; they will look over the list of jewelry stolen. Among others who will see it are pawnbrokers, to whom the thieves, it is most likely, will offer the stuff for sale.”
 
“Well?”
 
“No one who reads an account of the crime and a description of the jewelry will be willing to lend any money on it. They will be on the lookout, and as soon as any of the stuff is offered them they will notify the police. Then the officers will come, arrest the men, and your jewelry will be recovered.”
 
“Of course, I didn’t think of that,” said the man. “In that case perhaps we might give you an account of the affair.”
 
“I think it would be best to,” remarked Mr. Newton, with a wink at Larry.
 
“You may follow me,” said the man who had at first objected to the reporter getting any information. “I’ll show you where the thieves got in, and then I’ll give you a list of the things that are missing.”
 
Larry and Mr. Newton followed the man’s lead. He took them through a long hall and to the rear of the house. He stopped at a small window over a porch and said:
 
“There’s where they got in. At least so the217 police think. There are marks on the window sill.”
 
“So there are,” observed Mr. Newton.
 
“The thieves evidently climbed up the porch pillars,” said the man.
 
“I hardly think so,” returned Mr. Newton.
 
“But the police say so,” spoke the man.
 
“They’re not always right,” responded the reporter. “I would say they climbed that tree and, from the low branch dropped on the roof. Then they opened the window. You can see where the limb has been freshly broken and where leaves and twigs from the branch have fallen on the roof.”
 
“That’s so, I’d never have noticed that,” said the man. “You ought to be a detective.”
 
“I’d rather be a reporter,” said Mr. Newton.
 
“Well, at any rate, they got in,” went on Mr. Robertson, as he said his name was. “Then they proceeded to help themselves and they got considerable. Some of the officers think the thieves had help from the servants or else they would not have gotten in so easily.”
 
“This was not an inside job,” said Mr. Newton thoughtfully.
 
“What makes you think it wasn’t?”
 
“Because if it............