ten
o'clock
Entrance had been made through the trap-door , two more doors had been opened , and then the desk had been ransacked . Mr. Cutler afterward explained that at this time he had no precise idea what had been stolen , and did not know where the cameo had been left on the previous evening . Mr. Claridge had himself undertaken the cleaning , and had been engaged on it , the assistant said , when he left . There was no doubt , however , after Mr. Claridge 's arrival at ten o'clock -- the cameo was gone . Mr. Claridge , utterly confounded at his loss , explained incoherently , and with curses on his own carelessness , that he had locked the precious article in his desk on relinquishing work on it the previous evening , feeling rather tired , and not taking the trouble to carry it as far as the safe in another part of the house . The police were sent for at once , of course , and every investigation made , Mr. Claridge offering a reward of five hundred pounds for the recovery of the cameo . The affair was scribbled off at large in the earliest editions of the evening papers , and by noon all the world was aware of the extraordinary theft of the Stanway Cameo , and many people were discussing the probabilities of the case , with very indistinct ideas of what a sardonyx cameo precisely was .