A startled cry from the farther end of the passage arrested their attention.

“Mr. Carrados,” called Hollyer, “oh, come at once.”

At the open door of the other bedroom stood the lieutenant, his eyes still turned towards something in the room beyond, a little empty bottle in his hand.

“Dead!” he exclaimed tragically, with a sob, “with this beside her.  Dead just when she would have been free of the brute.”

The blind man passed into the room, sniffed the air, and laid a gentle hand on the pulseless heart.

“Yes,” he replied.  “That, Hollyer, does not always appeal to the woman, strange to say.”

THE LAST EXPLOIT OF HARRY THE ACTOR

The one insignificant fact upon which turned the following incident in the joint experiences of Mr. Carlyle and Max Carrados was merely this:  that having called upon his friend just at the moment when the private detective was on the point of leaving his office to go to the safe deposit in Lucas Street, Piccadilly, the blind amateur accompanied him, and for ten minutes amused himself by sitting quite quietly among the palms in the centre of the circular hall while Mr. Carlyle was occupied with his deed-box in one of the little compartments provided for the purpose.

The Lucas Street depository was then (it has since been converted into a picture palace) generally accepted as being one of the strongest places in London.  The front of the building was constructed to represent a gigantic safe door, and under the colloquial designation of “The Safe” the place had passed into a synonym for all that was secure and impregnable.  Half of the marketable securities in the west of London were popularly reported to have seen the inside of its coffers at one time or another, together with the same generous proportion of family jewels.  However exaggerated an estimate this might be, the substratum of truth was solid and auriferous enough to dazzle the imagination.  When ordinary safes were being carried bodily away with impunity or ingeniously fused open by the scientifically equipped cracksman, nervous bond-holders turned with relief to the attractions of an establishment whose modest claim was summed up in its telegraphic address:  “Impregnable.”  To it went also the jewel-case between the lady’s social engagements, and when in due course “the family” journeyed north—­or south, east or west—­whenever, in short, the London house was closed, its capacious storerooms received the plate-chest as an established custom.  Not a few traders also—­jewellers, financiers, dealers in pictures, antiques and costly bijouterie, for instance—­constantly used its facilities for any stock that they did not require immediately to hand.