Harry stretched out his hand unwillingly, and it was taken and held.
“I shall hold you to it now, my lad. Now, then, when is it to be?”
“Oh, first opportunity.”
“No: it’s going to be now—to-night—as soon as it’s dark.”
“Nonsense, it must be some day—when Crampton is not there.”
“That means it will not be done at all, for Crampton never leaves; you told me so. Look here, Harry Vine, if you borrow the amount then, and it’s missed, of course you are asked directly, and there you are. No, my lad, you’ll have to go to-night.”
“But it will be like housebreaking.”
“Bah! You’ll go quietly in by the back way, make your way along the passage to Van Heldre’s room, take the keys down from the hook—”
“How did you know that the keys hung there?”
“Because, my dear little man, I have wormed it all out of you by degrees. To continue; you will go down the glass passage, open the office door, go to the safe, open that, get the two hundred—”