Jones' across the back. No, Mr. Draycott, it'sawkward, I dare say, but you must make up your mind to wait until youcan 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 oughtto have told you how I was placed before consulting you, because I--Isee no prospect of being able to pay my way. Knowing that I had plentyin the safe, I had run it rather close. I went chiefly yesterday toget some notes. I have a week's hotel bill in my pocket, and"--heglanced down at his trousers--"I've ordered one or two other thingsunfortunately."
"That will be a matter of time, doubtless," suggested the otherencouragingly.
Instead of replying Draycott suddenly dropped his arms on to the tableand buried his face between them. A minute passed in silence.
"It's no good, Mr. Carrados," he said, when he was able to speak. "Ican't meet it. Say what you like, I simply can't tell those chaps thatI've lost everything we had and ask them to send me more. Theycouldn'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 herethey 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 aword, he held out a paper to his visitor.
"What's this?" demanded Draycott, in bewilderment. "It's--it's acheque for a hundred pounds."
"It will carry you on," explained Carrados imperturbably. "A man likeyou isn't going to throw up the sponge for this set-back. Cable toyour partners that you require copies of all the papers at once.They'll manage it, never fear. The gold ... must go. Write fully bythe next mail. Tell them everything and add that in spite of all youfeel that you are nearer success than ever."
Mr. Draycott folded the cheque with thoughtful deliberation and put itcarefully away in his pocket-book.
"I don't know whether you've guessed as much, sir," he said in a queervoice, "but I think that you've saved a man's life to-day. It's notthe money, it's the encouragement ... and faith. If you could seeyou'd know better than I can say how I feel about it."
Carrados laughed quietly. It always amused him to have people explainhow much more he would learn if he had eyes.
"Then we'll go on to Lucas Street and give the manager the shock ofhis life," was all he said. "Come, Mr. Draycott, I have already rungup the car."
But, as it happened, another instrument had been destined to applythat stimulating experience to the manager. As they stepped out of thecar opposite "The Safe" a taxicab drew up and Mr. Carlyle's alert andcheery voice hailed them.
"A moment, Max," he called, turning to settle with his driver, atransaction that he invested with an air of dignified urbanity whichalmost made up for any small pecuniary disappointment that may haveaccompanied it. "This is indeed fortunate. Let us compare notes for amoment. I have just received an almost imploring message from themanager to come at once. I assumed that it was the affair of ourcolonial friend here, but he went on to mention Professor HolmfastBulge. Can it really be possible that he also has made a similardiscovery?"
"What did the manager say?" asked Carrados.
"He was practically incoherent, but I really think it must be so. Whathave you done?"
"Nothing," replied Carrados. He turned his back on "The Safe" andappeared to be regarding the other side of the street. "There is atobacconist'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 orpacket of 'Rubbo.'"
"What is 'Rubbo,' Max?" chirped Mr. Carlyle with insatiablecuriosity.
"So far we do not know. When Parkinson gets some, Louis, you shall bethe one to try it."
They descended into the basement and were passed in by thegrille-keeper, whose manner betrayed a discreet consciousness ofsomething in the air. It was unnecessary to speculate why. In thedistance, muffled by the armoured passages, an authoritative voiceboomed like a sonorous bell heard under water.
"What, however, are the facts?" it was demanding, with the causticityof baffled helplessness. "I am assured that there is no other key inexistence; yet my safe has been unlocked. I am given to understandthat without the password it would be impossible for an unauthorizedperson to tamper with my property. My password, deliberately chosen,is 'anthropophaginian,' sir. Is it one that is familiarly on the lipsof the criminal classes? But my safe is empty! What is theexplanation? Who are the guilty persons? What is being done? Where arethe police?"
"If you consider that the proper course to adopt is to stand on thedoorstep and beckon in the first constable who happens to pass, permitme to say, sir, that I differ from you," retorted the distractedmanager. "You may rely on everything possible being done to clear upthe mystery. As I told you, I have already telephoned for a capableprivate detective and for one of my directors."
"But that is not enough," insisted the professor angrily. "Will onemere private detective restore my L6000 Japanese 4-1/2 per cent.bearer bonds? Is the return of my irreplaceable notes on 'PolyphyleticBridal Customs among the mid-Pleistocene Cave Men' to depend on asolitary director? I demand that the police shall be called in--asmany as are available. Let Scotland Yard be set in motion. A searchinginquiry must be made. I have only been a user of your preciousestablishment for six months, and this is the result."
"There you hold the key of the mystery, Professor Bulge," interposedCarrados quietly.
"Who is this, sir?" demanded the exasperated professor at large.
"Permit me," explained Mr. Carlyle, with bland assurance. "I am LouisCarlyle, of Bampton Street. This gentleman is Mr. Max Carrados, theeminent amateur specialist in crime."
"I shall be thankful for any assistance towards elucidating thisappalling business," condescended the professor sonorously. "Let meput you in possession of the facts--"
"Perhaps if we went into your room," suggested Carrados to themanager, "we should be less liable to interruption."
"Quite so; quite so," boomed the professor, accepting the proposal oneveryone else's behalf. "The facts, sir, are these: I am theunfortunate possessor of a safe here, in which, a few months ago, Ideposited--among less important matter--sixty bearer bonds of theJapanese Imperial Loan--the bulk of my small fortune--and themanuscript of an important projected work on 'Polyphyletic BridalCustoms among the mid-Pleistocene Cave Men.' Today I came to detachthe coupons which fall due on the fifteenth; to pay them into my banka week in advance, in accordance with my custom. What do I find? Ifind the safe locked and apparently intact, as when I last saw it amonth ago. But it is far from being intact, sir! It has been opened,ransacked, cleared out! Not a single bond, not a scrap of paperremains."
It was obvious that the manager's temperature had been rising duringthe latter part of this speech and now he boiled over.
"Pardon my flatly contradicting you, Professor Bulge. You have againreferred to your visit here a month ago as your last. You will bearwitness of that, gentlemen. When I inform you that the professor hadaccess to his safe as recently as on Monday last you will recognizethe importance that the statement may assume."
The professor glared across the room like an infuriated animal, acomparison heightened by his notoriously hircine appearance.
"How dare you contradict me, sir!" he cried, slapping the tablesharply 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 wetrust 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'seyes are?"
There was a curious and expectant silence for a minute. The professorturned his back on the manager and the manager passed fromthoughtfulness to embarrassment.
"I really do not know, Mr. Carrados," he declared loftily at