ERNEST BRAMAH Ultimate Collection: 20+ Novels & Short Stories in One Volume. Bramah Ernest
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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?”
“Yes, so I imagine. The practice is to carry the box to your private lair and there unlock it and do your business. Then you lock it up again and take it back to your safe.”
“Steady! our first man,” whispered Carrados hurriedly. “Here, look at this with me.” He opened a paper—a prospectus—which he pulled from his pocket, and they affected to study its contents together.
“You were about right, my friend,” muttered Mr Carlyle, pointing to a paragraph of assumed interest. “Hat, stick and spectacles. 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. By the time the detective had reached his wavy chestnut hair, large and rather ragged moustache, and sandy, freckled complexion, the first man had completed his business and was leaving the place.
“It isn’t an exchange lay, at all events,” said Mr Carlyle. “His inner case is only half the size of the other and couldn’t possibly be substituted.”
“Come up now,” said Carrados, rising. “There is nothing more to be learned down here.”
They requisitioned the lift and on the steps outside the gigantic keyhole stood for a few minutes discussing an investment as a couple of trustees or a lawyer and a client who were parting there might do. Fifty yards away, a very large silk hat with a very curly brim marked the progress of the bookmaker towards Piccadilly.
The lift in the hall behind them swirled up again and the gate clashed. The second man walked leisurely out and sauntered away without a backward glance.
“He has gone in the opposite direction,” exclaimed Mr Carlyle, rather blankly. “It isn’t the ‘lame goat’ nor the ‘follow-me-on,’ nor even the homely but efficacious sand-bag.”
“What colour were his eyes?” asked Carrados.
“Upon my word, I never noticed,” admitted the other.
“Parkinson would have noticed,” was the severe comment.
“I am not Parkinson,” retorted Mr Carlyle, with asperity, “and, strictly as one dear friend to another, Max, permit me to add, that while cherishing an unbounded admiration for your remarkable gifts, I have the strongest suspicion that the whole incident is a ridiculous mare’s nest, bred in the fantastic imagination of an enthusiastic criminologist.”
Mr Carrados received this outburst with the utmost benignity. “Come and have a coffee, Louis,” he suggested. “Mehmed’s is only a street away.”
Mehmed proved to be a cosmopolitan gentleman from Mocha whose shop resembled a house from the outside and an Oriental divan when one was within. A turbaned Arab placed cigarettes and cups of coffee spiced with saffron before the customers, gave salaam and withdrew.
“You know, my dear chap,” continued Mr Carlyle, sipping his black coffee and wondering privately whether it was really very good or very bad, “speaking quite seriously, the one fishy detail—our ginger friend’s watching for the other to leave—may be open to a dozen very innocent explanations.”
“So innocent that to-morrow I intend taking a safe myself.”
“You think that everything is all right?”
“On the contrary, I am convinced that something is very wrong.”
“Then why——?”
“I shall keep nothing there, but it will give me the entrée. I should advise you, Louis, in the first place to empty your safe with all possible speed, and in the second to leave your business card on the manager.”
Mr Carlyle pushed his cup away, convinced now that the coffee was really very bad.
“But, my dear Max, the place—‘The Safe’—is impregnable!”
“When I was in the States, three years ago, the head porter at one hotel took pains to impress on me that the building was absolutely fireproof. I at once had my things taken off to another hotel. Two weeks later the first place was burnt out. It was fireproof, I believe, but of course the furniture and the fittings were not and the walls gave way.”
“Very ingenious,” admitted Mr Carlyle, “but why did you really go? You know you can’t humbug me with your superhuman sixth sense, my friend.”
Carrados smiled pleasantly, thereby encouraging the watchful attendant to draw near and replenish their tiny cups.
“Perhaps,” replied the blind man, “because so many careless people were satisfied that it was fireproof.”
“Ah-ha, there you are—the greater the confidence the greater the risk. But only if your self-confidence results in carelessness. Now do you know how this place is secured, Max?”
“I am told that they lock the door at night,” replied Carrados, with bland malice.
“And hide the key under the mat to be ready for the first arrival in the morning,” crowed Mr Carlyle, in the same playful spirit. “Dear old chap! Well, let me tell you——”
“That force is out of the question. Quite so,” admitted his friend.
“That simplifies the argument. Let us consider fraud. There again the precautions are so rigid that many people pronounce the forms a nuisance. I confess that I do not. I regard them as a means of protecting my own property and I cheerfully sign my name and give my password, which the manager compares with his record-book before he releases the first lock of my safe. The signature is burned before my eyes in a sort of crucible there, the password is of my own choosing and is written only in a book that no one but the manager ever sees, and my key is the sole one in existence.”
“No duplicate or master-key?”
“Neither. 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? And, finally, how is he possibly to determine beforehand whether there is anything in my safe to repay so elaborate a plant?” Mr Carlyle concluded in triumph and was so carried away by the strength of his position that he drank off the contents of his second cup before he realized what he was doing.
“At the hotel I just spoke of,” replied Carrados, “there was an attendant whose one duty in case of alarm was to secure three iron doors. On the night of the fire he had a bad attack of toothache and slipped away for just a quarter of an hour to have the thing out. There was a most up-to-date system of automatic fire alarm; it had been tested only the day before and the electrician, finding some part not absolutely to his satisfaction, had taken it away and not had time to replace it. The night watchman, it turned out, had received leave to present himself a couple of hours later on that particular night, and the hotel fireman, whose duties he took over, had missed being notified. Lastly, there was a big riverside blaze at the same time and all the engines were down at the other end of the city.”
Mr Carlyle committed