"Now what's the trouble?" he demanded with a trace of asperity. "Can't you forget that Graeme business and—"
"Oh, it's not that." Bannerman dismissed the troubles of Mr. Graeme with an airy wave of a pudgy hand. "That's not my funeral, nor yours…. Only I've been worried, of late, by your utterly careless habits."
Maitland looked his consternation. "In heaven's name, what now?" And grinned as he joined hands before him in simulated petition. "Please don't read me a lecture just now, dear boy. If you've got something dreadful on your chest wait till another day, when I'm more in the humor to be found fault with."
"No lecture." Bannerman laughed nervously. "I've merely been wondering what you have done with the Maitland heirlooms."
"What? Oh, those things? They're safe enough—in the safe out at
Greenfields."
"To be sure! Quite so!" agreed the lawyer, with ironic heartiness. "Oh, quite." And proceeded to take all Madison Square into his confidence, addressing it from the window. "Here's a young man, sole proprietor of a priceless collection of family heirlooms,—diamonds, rubies, sapphires galore; and he thinks they're safe enough in a safe at his country residence, fifty miles from anywhere! What a simple, trustful soul it is!"
"Why should I bother?" argued Maitland sulkily. "It's a good, strong safe, and—and there are plenty of servants around," he concluded largely.
"Precisely. Likewise plenty of burglars. You don't suppose a determined criminal like Anisty, for instance, would bother himself about a handful of thick-headed servants, do you?"
"Anisty?"—with a rising inflection of inquiry.
Bannerman squared himself to face his host, elbows on table. "You don't mean to say you've not heard of Anisty, the great Anisty?" he demanded.