"Not even my secretary."
"Some servant—some member of your family?"
"I tell you, Señor, not one person in all the world knew that combination except myself," Señor Rodriguez insisted.
"Your secretary—a servant—some member of your family might have seen you unlock the safe some time, and thus learned the combination?"
Señor Rodriguez did not quite know whether to be annoyed at Mr. Grimm's persistence, or to admire the tenacity with which he held to this one point.
"You must understand, Señor Grimm, that many state documents are kept in the safe," he said finally, "therefore it is not advisable that any one should know the combination. I have made it an absolute rule, as did my predecessors here, never to unlock the safe in the presence of another person."
"State documents!" Mr. Grimm's lips silently repeated the words. Then aloud: "Perhaps there's a record of the combination somewhere? If you had died suddenly, for instance, how would the safe have been opened?"
"There would have been only one way, Señor—blow it open. There is no record."
"Well, if we accept all that as true," observed Mr. Grimm musingly, "it would seem that you either didn't put the money into the safe at all, or—please sit down, there's nothing personal in this—or else the money was taken out of the safe without it being unlocked. This last would have been a miracle, and this is not the day of miracles, therefore—!"
Mr. Grimm's well modulated voice trailed off into silence. Señor Rodriguez came to his feet with a blaze of anger in his eyes; Mr. Grimm was watching him curiously.