Fay rubbed his wrists and stared at his oakum-stained nails. He dropped his cuffs and stood back. He waited with fast beating heart. The man before him was fencing like a clever fiend. He already had drawn speech where silence was golden. Fay remembered with a pang that the Hatton Gardens affair was not the only one he had been guilty of perpetrating in the Metropolitan District of London. There was a little matter of turning a museum off in Kensington Gardens. There was the Monica affair where a diamond salesman had lost a pint of uncut stones.
Sir Richard guessed what was passing in the cracksman’s mind. He smiled with sudden warmth. His head came forward as his right hand reached out. “You think this is a police trap, Fay,â€� he said sincerely. “It isn’t at all. It’s an attempt to call upon the highest talent in the world—in his own particular line. We all have specialties. Mine is trying to
raise better dahlias than my neighbor. Yours is opening strong-boxes which American safe-makers have branded as burglar-proof. That big crib in Hatton Gardens was an American box, wasn’t it?�
“How should I know?� asked Fay.
“Well, it was! It was made by the Seabold people of Hartford. Guaranteed fire-proof and burglar-proof and non-pickable. It didn’t burn up, but everything else happened to it.�
Fay smiled openly. He liked Sir Richard better for the remark. He grew more at ease as he waited. “Well,� he suggested, “I’m here with you, and you’ve got something for me to do. I can guess that much. Does it concern a Seabold safe?�
“It most certainly does!�
Fay stared at the three boxes. He furrowed his brow. They were not part of any American safe he had ever known. They were more like the tin-cases which middle-aged drabs carried about the Law Courts or the Brokerage Houses. Their locks could have been opened with a hair-pin.
“You’ll have to explain, chief.�
Sir Richard swung open his coat and drew from the inner pocket a small notebook. He thumbed the pages and paused at one. “Seabold Safe Corporation, Limited,� he said. “They placed a number of their strong-boxes in England and the Continent. Their salespeople were very enterprising. We have a record, from their own files, of seven. Four of the seven were smaller than the one in Hatton Gardens. The lock, or whatever it is called, was different.�