adventurous but not a hopeful attention to these particulars.
Submitting the problem of the tawny man to his own ingenuity, he was
constantly putting before himself the question: How shall I set about
robbing this place? and he had already dismissed force as
impracticable. Nor, when it came to the consideration of fraud, did
the simple but effective safeguards which Mr. Carlyle had specified
seem to offer any loophole.
"As I am blind I may as well sign in the book," he suggested, when the
manager passed him a gummed slip for the purpose. The precaution
against one acquiring particulars of another client might well be
deemed superfluous in his case.
But the manager did not fall into the trap.
"It is our invariable rule in all cases, sir," he replied courteously.
"What word will you take?" Parkinson, it may be said, had been left in
the hall.
"Suppose I happen to forget it? How do we proceed?"
"In that case I am afraid that I might have to trouble you to
establish your identity," the manager explained. "It rarely happens."
"Then we will say 'Conspiracy.'"
The word was written down and the book closed.
"Here is your key, sir. If you will allow me--your key-ring--"
A week went by and Carrados was no nearer the absolute solution of the
problem he had set himself. He had, indeed, evolved several ways by
which the contents of the safes might be reached, some simple and
desperate, hanging on the razor-edge of chance to fall this way or
that; others more elaborate, safer on the whole, but more liable to
break down at some point of their ingenious intricacy. And setting
aside complicity on the part of the manager--a condition that Carrados
had satisfied himself did not exist--they all depended on a relaxation
of the forms by which security was assured. Carrados continued to have
several occasions to visit the safe during the week, and he "watched"
with a quiet persistence that was deadly in its scope. But from
beginning to end there was no indication of slackness in the
business-like methods of the place; nor during any of his visits did
the "tawny man" appear in that or any other disguise. Another week
passed; Mr. Carlyle was becoming inexpressibly waggish, and Carrados
himself, although he did not abate a jot of his conviction, was
compelled to bend to the realities of the situation. The manager, with
the obstinacy of a conscientious man who had become obsessed with the
pervading note of security, excused himself from discussing abstract
methods of fraud. Carrados was not in a position to formulate a
detailed charge; he withdrew from active investigation, content to
await his time.
It came, to be precise, on a certain Friday morning, seventeen days
after his first visit to "The Safe." Returning late on the Thursday
night, he was informed that a man giving the name of Draycott had
called to see him. Apparently the matter had been of some importance
to the visitor for he had returned three hours later on the chance of
finding Mr. Carrados in. Disappointed in this, he had left a note.
Carrados cut open the envelope and ran a finger along the following
words:--
"_Dear Sir_,--I have to-day consulted Mr. Louis Carlyle, who thinks
that you would like to see me. I will call again in the morning, say
at nine o'clock. If this is too soon or otherwise inconvenient I
entreat you to leave a message fixing as early an hour as possible.
"Yours faithfully,
"_Herbert Draycott_.
"_P.S._--I should add that I am the renter of a safe at the Lucas
Street depository. _H.D._"
A description of Mr. Draycott made it clear that he was not the
West-End bookmaker. The caller, the servant explained, was a thin,
wiry, keen-faced man. Carrados felt agreeably interested in this
development, which seemed to justify his suspicion of a plot.
At five minutes to nine the next morning Mr. Draycott again presented
himself.
"Very good of you to see me so soon, sir," he apologized, on Carrados
at once receiving him. "I don't know much of English ways--I'm an
Australian--and I was afraid it might be too early."
"You could have made it a couple of hours earlier as far as I am
concerned," replied Carrados. "Or you either for that matter, I
imagine," he added, "for I don't think that you slept much last
night."
"I didn't sleep at all last night," corrected Mr. Draycott. "But it's
strange that you should have seen that. I understood from Mr. Carlyle
that you--excuse me if I am mistaken, sir--but I understood that you
were blind."
Carrados laughed his admission lightly.
"Oh yes," he said. "But never mind that. What is the trouble?"
"I'm afraid it means more than just trouble for me, Mr. Carrados." The
man had steady, half-closed eyes, with the suggestion of depth which
one notices in the eyes of those whose business it is to look out over
great expanses of land or water; they were turned towards Carrados's
face with quiet resignation in their frankness now. "I'm afraid it
spells disaster. I am a working engineer from the Mount Magdalena
district of Coolgardie. I don't want to take up your time with outside
details, so I will only say that about two years ago I had an
opportunity of acquiring a share in a very promising claim--gold, you
understand, both reef and alluvial. As the work went on I put more and
more into the undertaking--you couldn't call it a venture by that
time. The results were good, better than we had dared to expect, but
from one cause and another the expenses were terrible. We saw that it
was a bigger thing than we had bargained for and we admitted that we
must get outside help."
So far Mr. Draycott's narrative had proceeded smoothly enough under
the influence of the quiet despair that had come over the man. But at
this point a sudden recollection of his position swept him into a
frenzy of bitterness.
"Oh, what the blazes is the good of going over all this again!" he
broke out. "What can you or anyone else do anyhow? I've been robbed,
rooked, cleared out of everything I possess," and tormented by
recollections and by the impotence of his rage the unfortunate
engineer beat the oak table with the back of his hand until his
knuckles bled.
Carrados waited until the fury had passed.
"Continue, if you please, Mr. Draycott," he said. "Just what you
thought it best to tell me is just what I want to know."
"I'm sorry, sir," apologized the man, colouring under his tanned skin.
"I ought to be able to control myself better. But this business has
shaken me. Three times last night I looked down the barrel of my
revolver, and three times I threw it away.... Well, we arranged that I
should come to London to interest some financiers in the property. We
might have done it locally or in Perth, to be sure, but then, don't
you see, they would have wanted to get control. Six weeks ago I landed
here. I brought with me specimens of the quartz and good samples of
extracted gold, dust and nuggets, the clearing up of several weeks'
working, about two hundred and forty ounces in all. That includes the
Magdalena Lodestar, our lucky nugget, a lump weighing just under seven
pounds of pure gold.
"I had seen an advertisement of this Lucas Street safe-deposit and it
seemed just the thing I wanted. Besides the gold, I had all the papers
to do with the claims--plans, reports, receipts, licences and so on.
Then when I cashed my letter of credit I had about one hundred and
fifty pounds in notes. Of course I could have left everything at a
bank, but it was more convenient to have it, as it were, in my own
safe, to get at any time, and to have a private room that I could take
any gentlemen to. I hadn't a suspicion that anything could be wrong.
Negotiations hung on in several quarters--it's a bad time to do
business here, I find. Then, yesterday, I wanted something. I went to
Lucas Street, as I had done half-a-dozen times before, opened my safe,
and had the inner case carried to a room.... Mr. Carrados, it was
empty!"
"Quite empty?"
"No." He laughed bitterly. "At the bottom was a sheet of wrapper
paper. I recognized it as a piece I had left there in case I wanted to
make up a parcel. But for that I should have been convinced that I had
somehow opened the wrong safe. That was my first idea."
"It cannot be done."
"So I understand, sir. And, then, there was the paper with my name
written on it in the empty tin. I was dazed; it seemed impossible. I
think I stood there without moving for minutes--it was more like
hours. Then I closed the tin box again, took it back, locked up the
safe and came out."
"Without notifying anything wrong?"
"Yes, Mr. Carrados." The steady blue eyes regarded him with pained
thoughtfulness. "You see, I reckoned it out in that time that it must
be someone about the place who had done it."
"You were wrong," said Carrados.
"So Mr. Carlyle seemed to think. I only knew that the key had never
been out of my possession and I had told no one of the password. Well,
it did come over me rather like cold water down the neck, that there
was I alone in the strongest dungeon in London and not a living soul
knew where I was."
"Possibly a sort of up-to-date Sweeney Todd's?"
"I'd heard of such things in London," admitted Draycott. "Anyway, I
got out. It was a mistake; I see it now. Who is to believe me as it
is--it sounds a sort of unlikely tale. And how do they come to pick on
me? to know what I had? I don't drink, or open my mouth, or hell
round. It beats me."
"They didn't pick on you--you picked on them," replied Carrados.
"Never mind how; you'll be believed all right. But as for getting
anything back--" The unfinished sentence confirmed Mr. Draycott in his
gloomiest anticipations.
"I have the numbers of the notes," he suggested, with an attempt at
hopefulness. "They can be stopped, I take it?"
"Stopped? Yes," admitted Carrados. "And what does that amount to? The
banks and the police stations will be notified and every little
public-house between here and Land's End will change one for the
scribbling of 'John Jones' across the back. No, Mr. Draycott, it's
awkward, I dare say, but you must make up your mind to wait until you
can get fresh supplies from home. Where are you staying?"
Draycott hesitated.
"I have been at the Abbotsford, in Bloomsbury, up to now," he said,
with some embarrassment. "The fact is, Mr. Carrados, I think I ought
to have told you how I was placed before consulting you, because I--I
see no prospect of being able to pay my way. Knowing that I had plenty
in the safe, I had run it rather close. I went chiefly yesterday to
get some notes. I have a week's hotel bill in my pocket, and"--he
glanced down at his trousers--"I've ordered one or two other things
unfortunately."
"That will be a matter of time, doubtless," suggested the other
encouragingly.
Instead of replying Draycott suddenly dropped his arms on to the table
and buried his face between them. A minute passed in silence.
"It's no good, Mr. Carrados," he said, when he was able to speak. "I
can't meet it. Say what you like, I simply can't tell those chaps that
I've lost everything we had and ask them to send me more. They
couldn't do it if I did. Understand sir. The mine is a valuable one;
we have the greatest faith in it, but it has gone beyond our depth.
The three of us have put everything we own into it. While I am here
they are doing labourers' work for a wage, just to keep going ...
waiting, oh, my God! waiting for good news from me!"
Carrados walked round the table to his desk and wrote. Then, without a
word, he held out a paper to his visitor.
"What's this?" demanded Draycott, in bewilderment. "It's--it's a
cheque for a hundred pounds."
"It will carry you on," explained Carrados imperturbably. "A man like
you isn't going to throw up the sponge for this set-back. Cable to
your partners that you require copies of all the papers at once.
They'll manage it, never fear. The gold ... must go. Write fully by
the next mail. Tell them everything and add that in spite of all you
feel that you are nearer success than ever."
Mr. Draycott folded the cheque with thoughtful deliberation and put it
carefully away in his pocket-book.
"I don't know whether you've guessed as much, sir," he said in a queer
voice, "but I think that you've saved a man's life to-day. It's not
the money, it's the encouragement ... and faith. If you could see
you'd know better than I can say how I feel about it."
Carrados laughed quietly. It always amused him to have people explain
how much more he would learn if he had eyes.
"Then we'll go on to Lucas Street and give the manager the shock of
his life," was all he said. "Come, Mr. Draycott, I have already rung
up the car."
But, as it happened, another instrument had been destined to apply
that stimulating experience to the manager. As they stepped out of the
car opposite "The Safe" a taxicab drew up and Mr. Carlyle's alert and
cheery voice hailed them.
"A moment, Max," he called, turning to settle with his driver, a
transaction that he invested with an air of dignified urbanity which
almost made up for any small pecuniary disappointment that may have
accompanied it. "This is indeed fortunate. Let us compare notes for a
moment. I have just received an almost imploring message from the
manager to come at once. I assumed that it was the affair of our
colonial friend here, but he went on to mention Professor Holmfast
Bulge. Can it really be possible that he also has made a similar
discovery?"
"What did the manager say?" asked Carrados.
"He was practically incoherent, but I really think it must be so. What
have you done?"
"Nothing," replied Carrados. He turned his back on "The Safe" and
appeared to be regarding the other side of the street. "There is a
tobacconist's shop directly opposite?"
"There is."
"What do they sell on the first floor?"
"Possibly they sell 'Rubbo.' I hazard the suggestion from the legend
'Rub in Rubbo for Everything' which embellishes each window."
"The windows are frosted?"
"They are, to half-way up, mysterious man."
Carrados walked back to his motor-car.
"While we are away, Parkinson, go across and buy a tin, bottle, box or
packet of 'Rubbo.'"
"What is 'Rubbo,' Max?" chirped Mr. Carlyle with insatiable
curiosity.
"So far we do not know. When Parkinson gets some, Louis, you shall be
the one to try it."
They descended into the basement and were passed in by the
grille-keeper, whose manner betrayed a discreet consciousness of
something in the air. It was unnecessary to speculate why. In the
distance, muffled by the armoured passages, an authoritative voice
boomed like a sonorous bell heard under water.
"What, however, are the facts?" it was demanding, with the causticity
of baffled helplessness. "I am assured that there is no other key in
existence; yet my safe has been unlocked. I am given to understand
that without the password it would be impossible for an unauthorized
person to tamper with my property. My password, deliberately chosen,
is 'anthropophaginian,' sir. Is it one that is familiarly on the lips
of the criminal classes? But my safe is empty! What is the
explanation? Who are the guilty persons? What is being done? Where are
the police?"
"If you consider that the proper course to adopt is to stand on the
doorstep and beckon in the first constable who happens to pass, permit
me to say, sir, that I differ from you," retorted the distracted
manager. "You may rely on everything possible being done to clear up
the mystery. As I told you, I have already telephoned for a capable
private detective and for one of my directors."
"But that is not enough," insisted the professor angrily. "Will one
mere private detective restore my £6000 Japanese 4-1/2 per cent.
bearer bonds? Is the return of my irreplaceable notes on 'Polyphyletic
Bridal Customs among the mid-Pleistocene Cave Men' to depend on a
solitary director? I demand that the police shall be called in--as
many as are available. Let Scotland Yard be set in motion. A searching
inquiry must be made. I have only been a user of your precious
establishment for six months, and this is the result."
"There you hold the key of the mystery, Professor Bulge," interposed
Carrados quietly.
"Who is this, sir?" demanded the exasperated professor at large.
"Permit me," explained Mr. Carlyle, with bland assurance. "I am Louis
Carlyle, of Bampton Street. This gentleman is Mr. Max Carrados, the
eminent amateur specialist in crime."
"I shall be thankful for any assistance towards elucidating this
appalling business," condescended the professor sonorously. "Let me
put you in possession of the facts--"
"Perhaps if we went into your room," suggested Carrados to the
manager, "we should be less liable to interruption."
"Quite so; quite so," boomed the professor, accepting the proposal on
everyone else's behalf. "The facts, sir, are these: I am the
unfortunate possessor of a safe here, in which, a few months ago, I
deposited--among less important matter--sixty bearer bonds of the
Japanese Imperial Loan--the bulk of my small fortune--and the
manuscript of an important projected work on 'Polyphyletic Bridal
Customs among the mid-Pleistocene Cave Men.' Today I came to detach
the coupons which fall due on the fifteenth; to pay them into my bank
a week in advance, in accordance with my custom. What do I find? I
find the safe locked and apparently intact, as when I last saw it a
month ago. But it is far from being intact, sir! It has been opened,
ransacked, cleared out! Not a single bond, not a scrap of paper
remains."
It was obvious that the manager's temperature had been rising during
the latter part of this speech and now he boiled over.
"Pardon my flatly contradicting you, Professor Bulge. You have again
referred to your visit here a month ago as your last. You will bear
witness of that, gentlemen. When I inform you that the professor had
access to his safe as recently as on Monday last you will recognize
the importance that the statement may assume."
The professor glared across the room like an infuriated animal, a
comparison heightened by his notoriously hircine appearance.
"How dare you contradict me, sir!" he cried, slapping the table
sharply with his open hand. "I was not here on Monday."
The manager shrugged his shoulders coldly.
"You forget that the attendants also saw you," he remarked. "Cannot we
trust our own eyes?"
"A common assumption, yet not always a strictly reliable one,"
insinuated Carrados softly.
"I cannot be mistaken."
"Then can you tell me, without looking, what colour Professor Bulge's
eyes are?"
There was a curious and expectant silence for a minute. The professor
turned his back on the manager and the manager passed from
thoughtfulness to embarrassment.
"I really do not know, Mr. Carrados," he declared loftily at last. "I
do not refer to mere trifles like that."
"Then you can be mistaken," replied Carrados mildly yet with decision.
"But the ample hair, the venerable flowing beard, the prominent nose
and heavy eyebrows--"
"These are just the striking points that are most easily
counterfeited. They 'take the eye.' If you would ensure yourself
against deception, learn rather to observe the eye itself, and
particularly the spots on it, the shape of the finger-nails, the set
of the ears. These things cannot be simulated."
"You seriously suggest that the man was not Professor Bulge--that he
was an impostor?"
"The conclusion is inevitable. Where were you on Monday, Professor?"
"I was on a short lecturing tour in the Midlands. On Saturday I was in
Nottingham. On Monday in Birmingham. I did not return to London until
yesterday."
Carrados turned to the manager again and indicated Draycott, who so
far had remained in the background.
"And this gentleman? Did he by any chance come here on Monday?"
"He did not, Mr. Carrados. But I gave him access to his safe on
Tuesday afternoon and again yesterday."
Draycott shook his head sadly.
"Yesterday I found it empty," he said. "And all Tuesday afternoon I
was at Brighton, trying to see a gentleman on business."
The manager sat down very suddenly.
"Good God, another!" he exclaimed faintly.
"I am afraid the list is only beginning," said Carrados. "We must go
through your renters' book."
The manager roused himself to protest.
"That cannot be done. No one but myself or my deputy ever sees the
book. It would be--unprecedented."
"The circumstances are unprecedented," replied Carrados.
"If any difficulties are placed in the way of these gentlemen's
investigations, I shall make it my duty to bring the facts before the
Home Secretary," announced the professor, speaking up to the ceiling
with the voice of a brazen trumpet.
Carrados raised a deprecating hand.
"May I make a suggestion?" he remarked. "Now, I am blind. If,
therefore--?"
"Very well," acquiesced the manager. "But I must request the others to
withdraw."
For five minutes Carrados followed the list of safe-renters as the
manager read them to him. Sometimes he stopped the catalogue to
reflect a moment; now and then he brushed a finger-tip over a written
signature and compared it with another. Occasionally a password
interested him. But when the list came to an end he continued to look
into space without any sign of enlightenment.
"So much is perfectly clear and yet so much is incredible," he mused.
"You insist that you alone have been in charge for the last six
months?"
"I have not been away a day this year."
"Meals?"
"I have my lunch sent in."
"And this room could not be entered without your knowledge while you
were about the place?"
"It is impossible. The door is fitted with a powerful spring and a
feather-touch self-acting lock. It cannot be left unlocked unless you
deliberately prop it open."
"And, with your knowledge, no one has had an opportunity of having
access to this book?"
"No," was the reply.
Carrados stood up and began to put on his gloves.
"Then I must decline to pursue my investigation any further," he said
icily.
"Why?" stammered the manager.
"Because I have positive reason for believing that you are deceiving
me."
"Pray sit down, Mr. Carrados. It is quite true that when you put the
last question to me a circumstance rushed into my mind which--so far
as the strict letter was concerned--might seem to demand 'Yes' instead
of 'No.' But not in the spirit of your inquiry. It would be absurd to
attach any importance to the incident I refer to."
"That would be for me to judge."
"You shall do so, Mr. Carrados. I live at Windermere Mansions with my
sister. A few months ago she got to know a married couple who had
recently come to the opposite flat. The husband was a middle-aged,
scholarly man who spent most of his time in the British Museum. His
wife's tastes were different; she was much younger, brighter, gayer; a
mere girl in fact, one of the most charming and unaffected I have ever
met. My sister Amelia does not readily--"
"Stop!" exclaimed Carrados. "A studious middle-aged man and a charming
young wife! Be as brief as possible. If there is any chance it may
turn on a matter of minutes at the ports. She came here, of course?"
"Accompanied by her husband," replied the manager stiffly. "Mrs. Scott
had travelled and she had a hobby of taking photographs wherever she
went. When my position accidentally came out one evening she was
carried away by the novel idea of adding views of a safe deposit to
her collection--as enthusiastic as a child. There was no reason why
she should not; the place has often been taken for advertising
purposes."
"She came, and brought her camera--under your very nose!"
"I do not know what you mean by 'under my very nose.' She came with
her husband one evening just about closing time. She brought her
camera, of course--quite a small affair."
"And contrived to be in here alone?"
"I take exception to the word 'contrived.' It--it happened. I sent out
for some tea, and in the course--"
"How long was she alone in here?"
"Two or three minutes at the most. When I returned she was seated at
my desk. That was what I referred to. The little rogue had put on my
glasses and had got hold of a big book. We were great chums, and she
delighted to mock me. I confess that I was startled--merely
instinctively--to see that she had taken up this book, but the next
moment I saw that she had it upside down."