"Will you permit me for a moment," the Duke interposed. "The safe, I believe, Mr. Ducaine, was secured with a code lock, the word of which was known to-whom?"
"Yourself, sir, Colonel Ray, and myself."
The Duke nodded.
"If I remember rightly," he said, "the code word was never mentioned, but was written on a piece of paper, glanced at by each of us in turn, and immediately destroyed."
"That is quite true, sir."
"Now, do you believe, Mr. Ducaine," the Duke continued, "that it was possible for any one else except us the to have attained to the knowledge of that word."
"I do not sir," I admitted.
"Do you believe that it was possible for any one to have opened the safe without the knowledge of that word?"
"Without breaking it open, no, sir."
"There were no signs of the lock having been tampered with when you went to it in the morning?" "None, sir."