Discipline and method had for the moment gone by the board.  There was no suggestion of the boasted safeguards of the establishment.  The manager added his voice to that of the client, and when the attendant did not at once appear he called again.

“John, come and give Mr. Berge access to his safe at once.”

“All right, sir,” pleaded the harassed key-attendant, hurrying up with the burden of his own distraction.  “There’s a silly fathead got in what thinks this is a left-luggage office, so far as I can make out—­a foreigner.”

“Never mind that now,” replied the manager severely, “Mr. Berge’s safe:  No. 01724.”

The attendant and Mr. Berge went off together down one of the brilliant colonnaded vistas.  One or two of the others who had caught the words glanced across and became aware of a strange figure that was drifting indecisively towards them.  He was obviously an elderly German tourist of pronounced type—­long-haired, spectacled, outrageously garbed and involved in the mental abstraction of his philosophical race.  One hand was occupied with the manipulation of a pipe, as markedly Teutonic as its owner; the other grasped a carpet-bag that would have ensured an opening laugh to any low comedian.

Quite impervious to the preoccupation of the group, the German made his way up to them and picked out the manager.

“This was a safety deposit, nicht wahr?”

“Quite so,” acquiesced the manager loftily, “but just now—­”

“Your fellow was dense of comprehension.”  The eyes behind the clumsy glasses wrinkled to a ponderous humour.  “He forgot his own business.  Now this goot bag—­”

Brought into fuller prominence, the carpet-bag revealed further details of its overburdened proportions.  At one end a flannel shirt cuff protruded in limp dejection; at the other an ancient collar, with the grotesque attachment known as a “dickey,” asserted its presence.  No wonder the manager frowned his annoyance.  “The Safe” was in low enough repute among its patrons at that moment without any burlesque interlude to its tragic hour.

“Yes, yes,” he whispered, attempting to lead the would-be depositor away, “but you are under a mistake.  This is not—­”

“It was a safety deposit?  Goot.  Mine bag—­I would deposit him in safety till the time of mine train. Ja?”

“Nein, nein!” almost hissed the agonized official.  “Go away, sir, go away!  It isn’t a cloakroom.  John, let this gentleman out.”

The attendant and Mr. Berge were returning from their quest.  The inner box had been opened and there was no need to ask the result.  The bookmaker was shaking his head like a baffled bull.

“Gone, no effects,” he shouted across the hall.  “Lifted from ’The Safe,’ by crumb!”

To those who knew nothing of the method and operation of the fraud it seemed as if the financial security of the Capital was tottering.  An amazed silence fell, and in it they heard the great grille door of the basement clang on the inopportune foreigner’s departure.  But, as if it was impossible to stand still on that morning of dire happenings, he was immediately succeeded by a dapper, keen-faced man in severe clerical attire who had been let in as the intruder passed out.