Frantically Paula pushed herself across the seat, under the driving wheel, and leaped out to the pavement. She was facing straight down the dark alley, and heard Bill's footsteps on stone. Paula remembered only afterwards that she had choked back a scream of, "Bill!" for too many things happened at once.

Over the side door of Bernstein et Cie. there flashed on a large but dull-burning electric bulb under a round and flat tin shade. Bill, in the darkness, had run past the door by eight or ten feet; Paula saw him whip round as the light appeared.

Then came the nightmare.

The side door, an ordinary-sized door, was flung open. Out stumbled a man with a felt hat pulled down on his head. Clutched heavily under his left arm but partly across his body was a familiar object from which the light struck a dull gleam — especially on the frieze of monkeys' heads. The burglar alarm stopped, and silence smote like a blow in the face.

The man, adjusting his burden, ran for the mouth of the alley. Out of the side door plunged Colonel Duroc and H.M., one stoutish and one very stout man getting in each other's way.

But Bill, the instant that door opened, had taken off like a sprinter. His head was crouched low, Paula could see the expression on his face, lips drawn back of the teeth; he would get Iron Chest or get a bullet. Miraculously Bill dodged past H.M. and the Colonel, overtook his quarry— and dived at him with a Rugby tackle from behind.

Only Iron Chest's sneering luck, again as Paula remembered afterwards, saved him then. Bill's right hand hooked round the runner's right knee, and strove to send his arm round to the elbow. But he made exactly the same mistake as had the policeman in Brussels. Bill's left hand darted up to seize that accursed, maddening chest, and his fingers slipped on a too-smooth surface.

Off-balance and dragged face-forward, Bill would still have kept his grip on the right knee if the burglar's trousers had held. Six inches of some thin material ripped off under Bill's hand. The solid phantom kicked viciously backwards into his adversary's left shoulder; Bill, still groping, fell heavily on his side and rolled over on his back.

Even then they might have nabbed him, if H.M. and Duroc had been quick enough. Iron Chest was staggering and almost down. Yet he half turned behind. Paula caught the gleam on a snub-nosed but heavy revolver, and he fired almost pointblank at Bill's body.

And now the hobgoblin, little more than a black silhouette, raced for the mouth of the alley and came face to face with Paula.

They were about four feet apart. There was just enough light, perhaps, for her to have seen his face. But her vision was concentrated all on those shiny monkeys; her mind flew past to Bill. Blank face's gun hand, encased in a rubber glove, snaked up over the chest and he fired two shots at Paula's head.

Whereupon, again heaving his burden, he ran hard a few feet up the rue du Statut. But he did not turn right, into the rue du Midi. Instead he whipped to the left, taking the steep street instead of the broad stone steps which led down into the rue Waller.

Suddenly police whistles seemed to be shrilling from everywhere.

Paula stood rigid. In this nightmare she had not time even to be frightened when the hobgoblin fired at her. Two flashes, two reports, had been no more than grotesque incidents, seeming quite natural at the time. But she saw that Bill was immediately on his feet. Bill raced to the mouth of the alley, glanced left and right without seeing any quarry, and then hurried to Paula.

At the same time Colonel Duroc, in full uniform and cap, plunged out with a red and frantic face and stared round. Momentarily he glanced back to shout to someone invisible in the alley. Now he spoke only French.

"Inspector Mendoza, where is the Commandant?"

"My Colonel, I don't know! He has not been here at all."

"Our men were to have been placed so that not even a snake could have left! Where are they?"

"My Colonel, the Commandant was to have given the orders. You know the Commandant. He does not show himself at all. Myself, I am lying on top of the wall at the back of the alley. I dare not give the orders until . . ."

"My God!" whispered the Colonel, and lifted both arms to the sky. He paused. His gruff voice thundered out like a fog horn, yet with every word clear.

"Listen, all agents of police. Listen, police. Our man is departed into the rue Waller! After him, all of you! All!"

Now the street was alive and drumming to the sound of running feet. There were ghostly glimpses of white helmets, white belts, white truncheons in hand. Among them flashed a number of sprinters who could easily overtake the fugitive.

The Colonel still shouted.

"Throw a line across the end of the rue Waller! He must not get out, into the market up one side, or down. Keep him in the rue Waller, and he is trapped. We have him!"

A thunder of running footsteps whacked so fast that its turmoil was dying away. Up from the Grand Socco poured Arabs in jalebahs, Arabs in robes, Arabs in ordinary clothes but wearing the red tarboosh. Few people on earth can grow more excited about a street row.

"Ten thousand pesetas," yelled Duroc, first in French and then in Arabic, "to the man who has him!"

The turmoil went mad.

"I am an executive, an administrator!" fumed the Colonel, flinging out his arms to empty air. "And yet . . . Forward!" he cried, and himself raced in the crowd towards the rue Waller.

During all this, Bill Bentley had run across the street and seized Paula. Two questions were thrown at once and by each of them, sounding together.

"Are you all right?"

"Are you all right?"

"Yes!"

"Yes!"

Frantically Bill ran his hands over her face, her hair, her arms and shoulders, her breast and stomach, while she tried to laugh.

"Darling," she said, "are you sure? I mean, about you?"

"Yes, not a scratch."

This, strictly speaking, was not quite true. There was a blackish smear on the left shoulder of his shirt, covering a long purpling bruise underneath. His right sleeve was torn, with blackish stone scratchings oozing blood. A trouser knee was torn, and both wrists scratched on their underside. But it was all so little as to be nothing, even if Paula did not think so.

"Bill, you are hurt! We must wash those and put iodine — " She paused, remembering Bill's loathing of what he called being fussed over, and said no more.

It was unnecessary to say more. Out of the alley lumbered Sir Henry Merrivale, his hat gone and his bald head gleaming. His look was evilly dispirited, half-abased, and altogether bad. He approached Paula with the same old question.

"You all right, my dolly?"

"Of course I am!" smiled Paula. In the reaction she wasn't, but she would have died rather than admit it. She spoke in the same calm voice she had used after a thousand-pound H.E. bomb had fallen two doors away.

In fact, both she and Bill had instantly sprung apart before they heard H.M's footsteps near them. An outsider, seeing this British couple in street or restaurant, would have said that they might feel a dull domestic comfort, but they could never possibly be emotional.

"And you, son," said H.M. Adjusting his spectacles, he peered at Bill. The latter, though his look could not conceal bitter disappointment, showed himself unhurt.

"Now that's very interestin'," growled H.M. "Come with me, both of you!"

The tumult now boiled at its highest down in the rue Waller. Policemen, heaven knows why, persisted in blowing their whistles. There was a high neighing and heavy stamping of frightened horses in a nearby stable. But H.M. led Paul and Bill into the alley.

Now they could see that the wall opposite the door of Bernstein et Cie. was composed of very small shops. Each consisted only of a lower cross door and an upper cross door. Fold back the upper door and your lower door became a counter with all the stock in a small space behind the seller. Now all doors were shut and locked into a long row of dirty grey-or-brown-painted upright boards.

Taking an electric torch from his pocket, H.M. directed its strong beam along the lower boards and the ground.

"Son," he said to Bill, "do you mind getting your clothes messed up again?"

"Not a bit. Why?"

"Well, fall down and show me exactly where you were when Iron Chest took a shot at you."

Bill studied the ground, but much study was not necessary under H.M.'s moving light. The stone-paved alley was thick with dirt as well as grit, and they could see the marks where Bill had been thrown and dragged. There lay a flimsy piece of light-brown material torn from the unknown's trouserleg.

Nodding approval, Bill first lay down on his right side, where Paula had seen him fall, and then rolled over on his back with his left shoulder touching grimy grey boards; just as before.

"Now!" grunted H.M.

Sending the beam of the torch along Bill's length, he next lifted it and played it along the boards above. All could see the bullet hole, clean-drilled in grey wood except for a slight furring on the right side because the goblin had Fired backwards and partly sideways,

"No, don't get up.- Look!" admonished H.M. "Now, I saw that gun. It's the American revolver they call a Colt's Banker's Special, .38, very short barrel, but heavy fire power and deadly at short range. This humourous feller shot at you . , . well, not exactly at pointblank range, but very close. And yet look at the bullet hole! ... he missed you by two feet."

Bill scrambled up from the ground.

"And you, my dolly," said H.M., turning to Paula, "are you certain you don't feel any powder specklings on your forehead? No, not powder burns. But this was only four feet away from you. Usually there are stings from unburnt powder grains after a near miss."

"There aren't any," she answered positively.

"D'ye see, then? The bullets must have gone wild over your head."

For the first time, in the wearing away of shock, Paula imagined the crash of a bullet into her forehead or face.

"There aren't . . ." she whispered. Her knees were trembling,

Bill immediately put his arm round her. Partly to divert attention, Bill began cursing himself with round, vile, expressive oaths particular to Tangier. Then he stopped short.

"It's my own fault," he added more soberly. "If I'd hit him with a clean tackle for both knees, he'd have gone over flat. But, no. Oh, no. I had to make a grab for that chest. Even then I might have done it. But the damned iron was polished; kind of film on it, like polished steel; my fingers slipped on it, and down I went. But if I'd had any sense! The rewa —" again Bill stopped.

H.M. grunted, pulling at his underlip. Momentarily he turned away, to inspect a chalk drawing on the wall of Bernstein et Cie. This drawing was not exactly of the most proper variety.

"No, son," said H.M., "it wasn't your fault. It was pure cussedness. Just as it's happened every other time." He turned back, and his diffidence was explained by this look of secret guilt. "Burn it, what about me? I was standin' here as paralyzed as a straw ghoul —and so was the Colonel — with my eyes bulging out because I thought you'd got him."

"If I'd got him! Lord If I'd got him!"

H.M. sent the beam of the torch round the alley, including the chalk drawing on a yellow wall. He switched off the torch and dropped it into his pocket. Now the only light burned dully over the side door.

"Son," said H.M. in a heavy, serious voice, "I want you to think. And think hard, just the same as you did at Colonel Duroc's place this afternoon."

"Well, sir?"

Bill's eyes were shining again, and Paula's heart sank as she saw the detective fever burn once more.

"For about ten hours," said H.M., with the beginning of a martyred look, "the Colonel kept pourin' reports down my throat. I know more about Iron Chest than his own mother, except I don't know who he is. Now consider! In twelve spectacular burglaries, thirteen if we include tonight, Iron Chest has been seen making his getaway no less than nine times. In every instance he's fired shots, sometimes several shots, at people who weren't quite close enough to nab him." "Yes?" prompted Bill.

"And yet, with all that gunplay, what's the result? With the exception of a poor-devil policeman in Brussels, who recovered, and a powerful woman in Madrid who wanted the reward, and got a hip wound, Iron Chest hasn't hit a single person for all his shootin'. How do you explain that? Hey?"

Bill, pondering, shifted from one foot to the other. He rubbed the side of his jaw with a grimy hand.

"Do you think it's important, sir?"

"Important? Cor! Remember, he's performed only three miracles, he vanished smack out of a street in Brussels. He made a table-full of diamonds vanish in Paris. Here in Tangier he seems to have vanished with all his kit and possessions. Yet, other times, he's seen and he's kept firing without much result."

"Putting aside the idea that he's simply a rotten bad shot," observed Bill, "you could have it another way. As, for instance, when he shot at me. He took a snap shot at me: off-balance, half-turning, and weighted with that heavy chest. More or less the same with Paula; he was still half-staggering. It all comes down to this: why does he insist on carrying that damned chest? Is it a kind of mascot he thinks will bring luck?"

H.M. sniffed.

" 'Tisn't as easy as that, son. Or Iron Chest bein' a loony, which he's not. I formed sort of a different opinion from my first one." H.M. glanced back at the lighted side door, inside which someone seemed to lurk. "Anyway, regarding the jiggery-pokery the police played here tonight . . ."

Satiric lines appeared round Bill's mouth.

"If you'll pardon me saying it, sir," he said, "it was fairly obvious what you and the police would do. Also, what Iron Chest would do."

H.M.'s face turned slightly purple.

"What d'ye mean, obvious?" he demanded.

"It was tolerably certain Iron Chest would have a go at Bernstein and Company," said Bill. "First, he'd burgled their branch at Brussels, and he can't have a very high opinion of their locks. Second, for weeks it's been in the newspapers that a West African potentate, the Sultan of Somewhere, I forget, was bringing one hundred uncut diamonds to Tangier, and handing over the little grey shapeless masses to Bernstein and Company to be cut and polished as a necklace for his third and final wife."

"Uh-huh," agreed H.M. in a strangled voice. "Anything else?"

Bill tried to look deprecating, but failed.

"Iron Chest, I decided, would reason thus: 'They'll think I mean to be low and reconnoitre for a night or two, as I usually do; therefore I'll hit 'em tonight.' You, on the other hand, would reason: 'He may not strike tonight; but, in case it's a double bluff, we'd better have that jeweller's heavily covered just the same.' Proof, sir? I was here when the fireworks began."

H.M. put his head on one side.

"Y'know, son," he observed thoughtfully, "I told the Colonel this evening you had a lot of grey matter floatin' about unperceived. I say, son." He coughed. "I'm not interested in rewards. Y'know, when they talked about fees or rewards in America, I got so frothing mad they had to pull me down from the ceiling, and they couldn't understand it. Still, if you'd like to take a hand in this . . . hey?"

Paula glanced quickly at Bill. Bill, in a somewhat over-heroic attitude, did not even look at her.

"I'm afraid I can't sir. You see," he said, telling lies with the fluency made necessary by his job, "there's a lot of extra work at the consulate I've got to handle. Decisions, you know, And, since —er—I've got a lot of influence over the consul . . ."

"Sure," said H.M., "you mean your wife has got a smackin' influence over you." Then H.M. became equally dramatic, attempting a far-off look of melancholy in a narrow alley. "Some wives are tyrants. Awful tyrants. Instead of bootin' 'em in the stern . .

"I'm not a tyrant!" said Paula, indignant and rather shocked. "You ask Bill if I am. He's p-perfectly free to do anything he likes, and he knows it."

Now she was becoming noble. And yet, though she was now very calm, horror seemed to crawl inside her skin.

Never, never again must she meet that hobgoblin with no face and a pistol with a two-inch barrel, or she would go mad or do something silly. Nor must Bill ever meet him again. Put all this together and mix it —still, her curiosity was stronger than her fear.

"Sir Henry," she asked hesitantly, "what happened here tonight? Why were you and the Colonel inside the jeweller's with Iron Chest? Where was Juan Alvarez? And those hundred diamonds - how many did Iron Chest steal?"

An expression almost of serenity crossed H.M.'s unmentionable face.

"Not one ruddy diamond," he said. "Not one jewel. Not one peseta or anything else."

"Wow!" said Bill, and gleefully slapped a torn knee and winced.

"Y'see," H.M. explained, "early in the evening Duroc phoned 'young' M, Bernstein, who's about fifty and the last of an old family who've had a jeweller's in Paris since the eighteenth century. But he's a fine feller, and he helped us to the limit. He drove down here with us, gave the Colonel all his keys, and sent away the night watchman. Bernstein wanted to stay, but the Colonel chucked him off his own premises. Bernstein was sort of . . . Cor! I forgot! He'll be sittin' by a telephone now."

H.M. wheeled majestically round towards the side door behind them. His bass voice was pitched in that strange, highfalutin' way with which he spoke any foreign language.

"Monsieur L'Inspecteur Mendoza!" he called.

Out under the overhead lamp stepped briskly a tall, bony, rather handsome man with a narrow line of black moustache. His felt hat showed heavy dark hair with grey at the temples; he was well dressed in civilian clothes, and smoked a cigarette rather nervously.

Oui, Seer Henri?"

Since Inspector Mendoza was reputed to be the latest conquest of Ilone Scherbatsky—plump, kindly Hone, who gave keef parties and was generous in every sense —Paula regarded him with interest. Paula had never been jealous of Ilone because Bill secretly but savagely hated all Russians, even {which was very unfair) White Russians like Ilone.

H.M, attempted to put polish on his taxi-driver French.

"Be good enough," he entoned like a soothsayer, "to telephone to M. Bernstein and tell him that he need no longer be in the apples."

"Pardon me, Sir Henry?"

"Ah, bah! It is an expression of slang. So-and-so it! Have the kindness to inform M. Bernstein that the robbery has failed and not a jewel is missing."

"Very good, Sir Henry," said Mendoza, and disappeared back into the doorway.

"But what happened?" Paula insisted again.

"Can't you guess, my dolly? For nearly three mortal hours, ever since it got good and dark at nine o'clock, Duroc and I hid in Bernstein's private office. Look!" H.M. pointed. "That side door leads to it. It's partitioned off from the front of the shop. The safe is against the wall opposite the side door; and, on the left, there's a pretty big cupboard. That's where Duroc and I hid.

"Y'see, the place was all dark. The cupboard door," H.M continued, "was open only about half an inch. I got all the view there was, because Duroc couldn't move me. His language was shockin'. Oh, my dolly! If your pure ears were ever stained by that stupefyin', godless . . ."

Paula giggled. H.M., glaring at her over his spectacles, climbed down from his virtuous pedestal.

"All right!" he growled. "Iron Chest got there about a quarter to midnight. He found that opening the side door was as easy as shellin' peas. What he didn't know, and we did, was the little trick Bernstein had kept there for years."

"Trick?" interposed Bill. "What trick?"

"Y'see, the main burglar alarm ain't attached to the door or windows." The old reprobate was faintly amused. "It works from hidden button, set flush with the floor, in front of the safe and just under the lock. Even in daylight it's hard to spot. Iron Chest prowled in with a torch. He put down the chest, which had the burglin' tools —you'd be surprised how small and light the kit was—packed inside in velvet. He didn't open 'em; just looked at 'em and put 'em back. He prowled over to the safe with his torch, and then . . . whang!

"Burn me, I never knew a burglar alarm could possibly be so loud!

"For a couple of seconds I was as petrified as the Colonel. Then this little bounder, who was wrestling and cursin' at me because he wanted to get out of the cupboard first -that was my right, wasn't it?-got both of us stuck in the door. Iron Chest got his burden together, put the torch in his pocket and pulled out a short-nosed Colt's Banker's Special, and hared out. You know the rest. Except that something seems to have gone wonky with the police net outside."

H.M. made a noise deep in his throat.

Then, shaking his head in a dissatisfied kind of way, he walked to the mouth of the alley and then out into the middle of the rue du Statut. Paula and Bill followed. Far down in the rue Waller, it was almost quiet except for the noise of footsteps and the occasional thud of a horse hoof. H.M, the corners of his mouth turned down, was surveying the folding steel framework across the front of Bernstein et Cie. His gaze moved to the shop next door, down towards the Grand Socco: a very grimy shop window across which ran the enamelled letters, "Luisa Bonomi," and under them, in Spanish and French, "Masks and Costumes." Then H.M. turned round.

"Sir Henry," said Paula, "that rue Waller really is a trap if they put a cordon across the far end. Do you think they'll catch him?"

"No, my dolly," replied H.M., pulling at his underlip. "Y'see, they don't know what they're looking for."

"You mean, for whom they're looking?"

"No, no, no!" H.M. made fussed gestures. "I mean just exactly that —they don't know what they're looking for,"

As Paula and Bill exchanged puzzled glances, H.M. held up a big hand.

"And as a specific instance of what I mean, I'll show you," he declared. "We've never once had even a tolerable description of Iron Chest, have we? Right! Now both of you saw him tonight, and at close range. Describe him!"

There was a silence.

"Do you know," Bill suddenly remarked, and scratched what was left of thick brown hair after an army-style haircut, "that for the life of me I can't remember. I grabbed his knee; nothing to describe about that. When he took a shot at me I was lying on my back, eyes in the wrong direction, and all I saw was a flash. No; I can't describe him."

"Well, I can't," Paula said defensively. "He was a-a dark silhouette. Anyway, I was looking at that dreadful iron chest with the monkeys. I rather think he had a hat on."

"I'm not askin' for any Bertillon measurements." H.M. spoke patiently. "Only the general details. Was he tall or short? Fat or thin? Anything at all about the face?"

"I don't know," both Bentleys answered together, after a long silence.

"Then there you are," said H.M. wearily. "It's the same with other people. But why don't they know? Solve that, and you've got half the answer. Even providin'," he added, "it was Iron Chest we saw tonight." At this cryptic announcement, as though he still concealed much, H.M. made a violent gesture.

"Lord love a duck, no!" Again he forestalled their thoughts. "I'm not being one of these feathcr-wittcd goops who've got the right answer but let corpses go on fallin' all over the place because they won't tell the police anything until everybody's been polished off. I think I've got half the answer, that's all. And I'll tell the Colonel fast enough tomorrow. Or even tonight, if he's not so mad that flames are spurtin' up from under his collar. Y'see . . ."

He broke off, because the subject of his talk was strutting down the short distance towards them. Only in the figurative sense did flames spurt up from under Colonel Duroc's collar. His short, stoutish figure in the khaki uniform carried real dignity. Formally he kissed Paula's hand, and shook hands with Bill.

"Well!" he said in English, and with an effort. "We have lost our man again. Yet every door, every shutter in the rue Waller was locked on the inside. Four of our fastest runners, Arab policemen, passed Iron Chest, saw him, and stood in a line under a lamp street at the end of the rue Waller. But no, no, no! Again he performs a vanish trick," Colonel Duroc paused for breath. "And who is responsible for this?"

"Now don't you look at me!" blared H.M. He appealed to the others with power of sympathy. "I get myself almost murdered again, bein' cloth-witted enough to drive down in the Colonel's car. Haa, that reminds me. You promised I could have what I wanted. I know just how to travel in this town. Do 1 get what I want?"

The Colonel waved his hand grandly.

"It shall arrive," he announced, "by special plane from Lisbon tomorrow morning. But, my friend . . . No, no, I did not mean you." He raised his voice. "Mendoza!"

Out of the side door hurried tall Inspector Mendoza, with his bony handsome face and narrow line of moustache, and hurried along the alley to the street. Flinging away what was presumably still another cigarette, he stood uneasily at attention.

Colonel Duroc, as though his throat changed gears, shifted into French.

"Inspector Mendoza," he purred in a soft voice. "You were second in command to Commandant Alvarez of the men outside the jeweller's. Myself, I was inside that office accursed since nine o'clock. Our men were huddled into doorways, crouched everywhere in the wrong places, without orders. Since the Commandant did not see fit to appear, and indeed has not yet favoured us with his presence, why did you not give orders yourself?"

"I have told you, my Colonel, I did not dare! Pardon me; the Commandant is a martinet . . ,"

Duroc's purring voice seemed to creep nearer.

"Yet a dozen telephones were near you, Mendoza. Did it not occur to you to telephone to the Central Office, and send men out in search of him?"

"My Colonel, I did! At least ten times!"

"Ah, you did? Very well. . . And then? Come, I can well understand your wish not to speak badly of a colleague." The Colonel's tone altered. "But it is I who command you!" he cried, sticking out his stomach. "Speak!"

Now Mendoza rattled out syllables so fast that Paula and Bill had to strain their ears.

"I believe, my Colonel, that the Commandant had arranged to meet a young lady, a Miss Maureen 'Olmes, at the restaurant Caravel to dine at seven-thirty."

"The restaurant Caravel? But... no matter! A man may dine at seven-thirty, and yet report for duty at nine hours!"

"True, my Colonel. However, according to the waiters and the boss, the Commandant arrives too early. At half-past seven he is still inscrutable. When the lady does not arrive at eight hours, his fingers drum the table and his boots strike the floor. At eight-thirty, when still she is not arrived, the Commandant calls for glasses of brandy. And, according to the waiters ... By blue, how this man can drink! Now, if I may digress . . ." "Continue, continue!"

"It seems that the young lady, in some fashion, thought the Commandant told her to meet him at the restaurant Ciro, in the rue Raphael."

"The restaurant Ciro!" muttered the Colonel, striking his hands together. "Yes, this is true. I have heard her say it myself."

"Then the rest is not much. When the Commandant does not appear at eight-thirty, this young lady throws plates on the floor and bursts into tears. Henri and all his staff try to console her. Yet she leaps into a taxi and returns to your own home, my Colonel, on the Old Mountain."

"And the Commandant?"

"Well, then, they have found him in his own flat. He is unconscious and black-drunk."

In the heavy, vibrant silence which followed, bill Bentley whispered in his wife's ear.

"Has Juan Alvarez really fallen for the American girl you told me about?"

"Bill, I'm sure of it!"

"Fine. Do him good to go out and get blind for once. Good old Juan!"

Unfortunately the meditating Duroc overheard this. He turned round.

Then that is good, Mr. Bentley?" he inquired, in a soft and sarcastic tone. "Through the negligence of Commandant Alvarez, and the weakness of this Mendoza, it is good that we have lost a certain capture of Iron Chest? It is good that we have lost our best —stop; our only—opportunity to catch him? Regard — " he swept his arm round, his gruff voice rising—"here is a city of money. Stuffed and bursting with money . . . Fortunes made overnight . . . Already becoming well known as a jewel centre, and banks everywhere! Yet now we have no notion of where Iron Chest will strike, even where he is. That is good, eh?"

"Who-ah, there!" interposed the voice of Sir Henry Merrivale, who was sitting on the curb with his head in hishands. 'The more I think over this, the less I see you have to grouse about." "Indeed, my friend?"

"Yes. You haven't lost your great or only opportunity. You havent even had your big opportunity. Did the feller get any of the Sultan's hundred diamonds, a fortune in themselves? No. You prevented the burglary, didn't you?"

Colonel Duroc puffed out his chest and expelled a sigh of relief.

'There is much in what you say, yes. But this talk of our biggest opportunity . . ."

"That's because you don't understand Iron Chest, son. He's half to three parts full of vanity. You've scratched his vanity, and scratched it hard. You talk a lot of gibberish about not knowing 'where Iron Chest will strike.' Oh, my eye! I dunno when, of course, except that it'll be soon. But I can tell you just exactly where."

"This is so, then? Very well; where will he attack?"

"Why, curse it all, there," retorted H.M., turning round to stab one finger towards the locked steel framework of Bernstein et Cie. "He'll have another go at those diamonds, just to show you. He'll do it, Colonel, if you put fifty coppers round the safe. What's more, I'm bettin' he'll get away with it."

Then H.M. spoke in a hollow voice. "But, burn me," he said, "how in blazes is Iron Chest going to do it?"

"Probably you are right," mused the Colonel. "But, at the moment," he added ominously, "I think of what I will say to Commandant Alvarez next morning!"