But Simmonds had come to see that Grady was tottering on his throne; he realised, perhaps, that his own head was not safe; and he had made up his mind to pin his faith to Godfrey as the only one at all likely to lead him out of the maze.  And Godfrey laid the greatest stress upon the necessity of keeping the cabinet under lock and key; so under lock and key it was kept.  As for Grady, I do not believe that, even at the last, he realised the important part the cabinet had played in the drama.

But while the Boule cabinet failed to focus the attention of the public, and while most of the reporters promptly forgot all about it, I was amused at the pains which Godfrey took to inform the fugitive as to its whereabouts and as to how it was guarded.  Over and over again, while the other papers wondered at his imbecility, he told how it had been placed in the strongest cell at the Twenty-third Street station; a cell whose bars were made of chrome-nickle steel which no saw could bite into; a cell whose lock was worked not only by a key but by a combination, known to one man only; a cell isolated from the others, standing alone in the middle of the third corridor, in full view of the officer on guard, so that no one could approach it, day or night, without being instantly discovered; a cell whose door was connected with an automatic alarm over the sergeant’s desk in the front room; a cell, in short, from which no man could possibly escape, and which no man could possibly enter unobserved.

Of the Boule cabinet itself Godfrey said little, saving his story for the denouement which he seemed so sure would come; but the details which I have given above were dwelt upon in the Record, until, happening to meet Godfrey on the street one day, I protested that he would only succeed in frightening the fugitive away altogether, even if he still had any designs on the cabinet, which I very much doubted.  But Godfrey only laughed.

“There’s not the slightest danger of frightening him away,” he said.  “This fellow isn’t that kind.  If I am right in sizing him up, he’s the sort of dare-devil whom an insuperable difficulty only attracts.  The harder the job, the more he is drawn to it.  That’s the reason I am making this one just as hard as I can.”

“But a man would be a fool to attempt to get to that cabinet,” I protested.  “It’s simply impossible.”

“It looks impossible, I’m free to admit,” he agreed.  “But, just the same, I wake every morning cold with fear, and run to the ’phone to make sure the cabinet’s safe.  If I could think of any further safeguards, I would certainly employ them.”

I looked at Godfrey searchingly, for it seemed to me that he must be jesting.  He smiled as he caught my glance.

“I was never more in earnest in my life, Lester,” he said.  “You don’t appreciate this fellow as I do.  He’s a genius; nothing is impossible to him.  He disdains easy jobs; when he thinks a job is too easy, he makes it harder, just as a sporting chance.  He has been known to warn people that they kept their jewels too carelessly, and then, after they had put them in a safer place, he would go and take them.”