Ernest Bramah

“ Carrados smiled and nodded and resumed his former expression, which was merely that of an uninterested gentleman waiting patiently for another. It is something of an attainment to watch closely without betraying undue curiosity, but others of the senses—hearing and smelling, for instance—can be keenly engaged while the observer possibly has the appearance of falling asleep.
“Now,” announced Mr Carlyle, returning briskly to his friend’s chair, and drawing on his grey suede gloves. ”

“ Mr Carlyle cut open the envelope.
“My dear Friends,—Aren’t you glad? Aren’t you happy at this moment? Ah yes; but not with the true joy of regeneration that alone can bring lightness to the afflicted soul. Pause while there is yet time. Cast off the burden of your sinful lusts, for what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? ”

“ If a key is lost it takes a skilful mechanic half-a-day to cut his way in. Then you must remember that clients of a safe-deposit are not multitudinous. All are known more or less by sight to the officials there, and a stranger would receive close attention. Now, Max, by what combination of circumstances is a rogue to know my password, to be able to forge my signature, to possess himself of my key, and to resemble me personally? ”

“ 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 to him a gummed slip for the purpose. The precaution against one acquiring particulars of another client might well be deemed superfluous in his case. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The one insignificant fact upon which turned the following incident in the joint experiences of Mr Carlyle and Max Carrados was merely this: that having called upon his friend just at the moment when the private detective was on the point of leaving his office to go to the safe deposit in Lucas Street, Piccadilly, the blind amateur accompanied him, and for ten minutes amused himself by sitting quite quietly among the palms in the centre of the circular hall while Mr Carlyle was occupied with his deed-box in one of the little compartments provided for the purpose. ”

“ Mr Carlyle’s feeling was one of unconfessed perplexity. So far the incident was utterly trivial in his eyes; but he knew that the trifles which appeared significant to Max had a way of standing out like signposts when the time came to look back over an episode. Carrados’s sightless faculties seemed indeed to keep him just a move ahead as the game progressed.
“Is there really anything in it, Max?” he asked at length.
“Who can say?” replied Carrados. “At least we may wait to see them go. Those tin deed-boxes now. There is one to each safe, I think?” ”

“ Up till the Friday in last week I held your wealth in the hollow of my ungodly hand and rejoiced in my nefarious cunning, but on that day as I with my guilty female accomplice stood listening with worldly amusement to the testimony of a converted brother at a meeting of the Salvation Army on Clapham Common, the gospel light suddenly shone into our rebellious souls and then and there we found salvation. ”

“ Possibly he was not desirous of encountering Draycott’s embarrassed gratitude again, for in less than a minute they heard the swirl of his departing car.
“Never mind, my dear sir,” Mr Carlyle assured his client, with impenetrable complacency. “Never mind. I will remain instead. Perhaps I had better make myself known to Sir Benjamin at once.”
The director turned on him the pleading, trustful look of a cornered dormouse.
“He is in the basement,” he whispered. “I shall be in the boardroom—if necessary.” ”

“ Put into my hand half-an-hour ago inside an envelope that ought to be here and as safe as in the Bank of England. What’s the game, I say? Here, Johnny, hurry and let me into my safe.”
Discipline and method had for the moment gone by the board. There was no suggestion of the boasted safeguards of the establishment. The manager added his voice to that of the client, and when the attendant did not at once appear he called again.
“John, come and give Mr Berge access to his safe at once.”
“All right, sir,” pleaded the harassed key-attendant; hurrying up with the burden of his own distraction. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What we have done to complete the unrighteous scheme upon which we had laboured for months has only been for your own good, dear friends that you are, though as yet divided from us by your carnal lusts. Let this be a lesson to you. Sell all you have and give it to the poor—through the organization of the Salvation Army by preference—and thereby lay up for yourselves treasures where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal. ”

“ It isn’t a cloakroom. John, let this gentleman out.”
The attendant and Mr Berge were returning from their quest. The inner box had been opened and there was no need to ask the result. The bookmaker was shaking his head like a baffled bull.
“Gone, no effects,” he shouted across the hall. “Lifted from ‘The Safe,’ by crumb!”
To those who knew nothing of the method and operation of the fraud it seemed as if the financial security of the Capital was tottering. An amazed silence fell, and in it they heard the great grille door of the basement clang on the inopportune foreigner’s departure. ”

“ When ordinary safes were being carried bodily away with impunity or ingeniously fused open by the scientifically equipped cracksman, nervous bond-holders turned with relief to the attractions of an establishment whose modest claim was summed up in its telegraphic address: “Impregnable.” To it went also the jewel-case between the lady’s social engagements, and when in due course “the family” journeyed north—or south, east or west—whenever, in short, the London house was closed, its capacious storerooms received the plate-chest as an established custom. ”

“ Mrs Harry, with quite ridiculous ease, got photographs of the necessary page or two of the record-book. I don’t doubt that for weeks before then everyone who entered the place had been observed, but the photographs linked them up with the actual men into whose hands the ‘Actor’s’ old keys had passed—gave their names and addresses, the numbers of their safes, their passwords and signatures. The rest was easy.”
“Yes, by Jupiter; mere play for a man like that,” agreed Mr Carlyle, with professional admiration. ”

“ Carrados took out his pocket-book, produced an envelope bearing an American stamp, and from it extracted an unmounted print.
“Here is the photograph,” he announced. “The man is called Ulysses K. Groom, but he is better known as ‘Harry the Actor.’ You will find the description written on the back.”
Five minutes later, when they were alone, Mr Carlyle expressed his opinion of the transaction.
“You are an unmitigated humbug, Max,” he said, “though an amiable one, I admit. But purely for your own private amusement you spring these things on people.” ”

“ The ground floor was occupied by the ordinary offices of the company; all the strong-rooms and safes lay in the steel-cased basement. This was reached both by a lift and by a flight of steps. In either case the visitor found before him a grille of massive proportions. Behind its bars stood a formidable commissionaire who never left his post, his sole duty being to open and close the grille to arriving and departing clients. Beyond this, a short passage led into the round central hall where Carrados was waiting. ”

“ He is a clean-shaven, pink-faced old boy. I believe—yes, I know the man by sight. He is a bookmaker in a large way, I am told.”
“Here comes the other,” whispered Carrados.
The bookmaker passed across the hall, joined on his way by the manager whose duty it was to counterlock the safe, and disappeared along one of the passages. The second man sauntered up and down, waiting his turn. Mr Carlyle reported his movements in an undertone and described him. He was a younger man than the other, of medium height, and passably well dressed in a quiet lounge suit, green Alpine hat and brown shoes. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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 fingernails, the set of the ears. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The smart and inventive turn of the modern Yank has made him a specialist in ingenious devices, straight or crooked. Unpickable locks and invincible lock-pickers, burglar-proof safes and safe-specializing burglars, come equally from the States. ”

“ At one end a flannel shirt cuff protruded in limp dejection; at the other an ancient collar, with the grotesque attachment known as a “dickey,” asserted its presence. No wonder the manager frowned his annoyance. “The Safe” was in low enough repute among its patrons at that moment without any burlesque interlude to its tragic hour.
“Yes, yes,” he whispered, attempting to lead the would-be depositor away, “but you are under a mistake. This is not——”
“It was a safety deposit? Goot. Mine bag—I would deposit him in safety till the time of mine train. Ja? ”

“ I propose remaining here for a few minutes longer.”
“Certainly,” agreed Mr Carlyle, taking the nearest chair and eyeing Carrados as though he had a shrewd suspicion of something more than met the ear. “I believe some very interesting people rent safes here. We may encounter a bishop, or a winning jockey, or even a musical comedy actress. Unfortunately it seems to be rather a slack time.”
“Two men came down while you were in your cubicle,” remarked Carrados casually. “The first took the lift. ”