Jimmy had the red envelope in his hand and was examining it closely. It was heavily sealed with the lawyer’s own seal, and bore the inscription in Reale’s crabbed, illiterate handwriting, “Puzzle Ideas.” He weighed it and pinched it. There was a little compact packet inside.
“I shall open this,” said Jimmy decisively. “You, of course, have already examined it.”
The lawyer made no reply.
Jimmy broke the seal of the envelope. Half his mind was busy in speculation as to its contents, the other half was engaged with the lawyer’s plans. Jimmy was too experienced a man to be deceived by the complaisance of the smooth Mr. Spedding. He watched his every move. All the while he was engaged in what appeared to be a concentrated examination of the packet his eyes never left the lawyer. That Spedding made no sign was a further proof in Jimmy’s eyes that the coup was to come.
“We might as well examine the envelope upstairs as here,” said the lawyer. The other man nodded, and followed him from the cell. Spedding closed the steel door and locked it, then turned to Jimmy.
“Do you notice,” he said with some satisfaction, “how skilfully this chamber is constructed?” He waved his hand round the larger vault, at the iron racks and the shiny black boxes.
Jimmy was alert now. The lawyer’s geniality was too gratuitous, his remarks a trifle inapropos. It was like the lame introduction to a story which the teller was anxious to drag in at all hazards.
“Here, for instance,” said the lawyer, tapping one of the boxes, “is what appears to be an ordinary deed box. As a matter of fact, it is an ingenious device for trapping burglars, if they should by any chance reach the vault. It is not opened by an ordinary key, but by the pressure of a button, either in my room or here.”
He walked leisurely to the end of the vault, Jimmy following.
For a man of his build Spedding was a remarkably agile man. Jimmy had underrated his agility.