“He’s deep—you’re right,” he said, admiringly. “Uncommonly deep. I never thought he’d pull it off. Though personally, mark you, I think he’s a fool. They’ll fight like cat and dog.” He rang a bell on his desk then opening a drawer he dropped the necklace inside.
“Bring me a formal receipt form,” he said to the assistant. “Have you got the other paper?” he asked, as he affixed the firm’s signature to the receipt, and the flashy individual produced it from his pocket.
“Here it is,” he announced. “Put ’em both in an envelope together and address it to Joe. I’m going along; I’ll post it.”
“Will you have a small tiddley before you go?” Mr. Johnson opened a formidable-looking safe, disclosing all the necessary-looking ingredients for the manufacture of small tiddleys.
“I don’t mind if I do,” conceded the other. “Here’s the best—and to the future Mrs. Joe.”
A moment or two later he passed through the outer office and was swallowed up in the crowd. And it was not till after lunch that day that Mr. Johnson got the shock of his life—when he opened one of the early evening papers.
“_A most daring outrage was carried out last night at the office of Messrs. Smith and Co., the well-known financial and insurance brokers. At a late hour this morning, some time after work was commenced, the night watchman was discovered bound and securely gagged in a room at the top of the premises. Further investigation revealed that the safe had been opened—evidently by a master hand—and the contents rifled. The extent of the loss is at present unknown, but the police are believed to possess several clues._”
And at the same time that Mr. Johnson was staring with a glassy stare at this astounding piece of news, a tall, spare man with lazy blue eyes, stretched out comfortably in the corner of a first-class carriage, was also perusing it.
“Several clues,” he murmured. “I wonder! But it was a very creditable job, though I say it myself.”
Which seemed a strange soliloquy for a well-dressed man in a first-class carriage. And what might have seemed almost stranger, had there been any way of knowing such a recondite fact, was that in one of the mail bags reposing in the back of the train, a mysterious transformation had taken place. For a letter which had originally contained two documents and had been addressed to J. Perrison, Esq., now contained three and was consigned to Miss Sybil Daventry. Which merely goes to show how careful one should be over posting letters.