“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—”
“Two hundred! You said fifty would do.”
“Yes, but then I said a hundred, and now I think two will be better. Easier paid back. You can work more spiritedly with large sums than with small. You’ve got to do this, Harry Vine, so no nonsense.”
Harry was silent.
“When you have the notes, you will lock all up as before, and then if they are missing before we return them, which is not likely, who can say that you have been there? Bah! don’t be so squeamish. You’ve got to do that to-night. You have promised, and you shall. It is for your good, my lad.”
“Yes, and yours,” said Harry gloomily.
“Of course. Emancipation for us both.”
Harry was silent, and soon after they rose and strolled back to the old house, where through the open window came the strains of music, and the voices of Madelaine and Louise harmonised in a duet.