“When I persuaded Angel to give you a chance to get away on the night the ‘Borough Lot’ was arrested, I hoped I could get you to agree with me that the money should be handed to Miss Kent when the word was found. I knew in my inmost heart that this was a forlorn hope,” he went on, “that there is no gold in the quartz of your composition. You are just beast all through.” He paced the floor of the hall for a minute or two, then he stopped. “Connor,” he said suddenly, “you tried to take my life the other night. I have a mind to retaliate. You may go ahead and puzzle out the word that unlocks that safe. Get it by any means that suggest themselves to you. Steal it, buy it--do anything you wish. The day you secure the key to Reale’s treasure I shall kill you.” He talked like a man propounding a simple business proposition, and the lawyer, who in his early youth had written a heavy little paper on “The Congenital Criminal,” listened and watched, and, in quite a respectable way, gloated. Jimmy picked up his hat and coat from a chair, and nodding to the lawyer, strolled out of the hall. In the vestibule where the one commissionaire had been were six. Every man was a non-commissioned officer, and, as was apparent from his medals, had seen war service. Jimmy noted the belt about each man and the dangling revolver holster, and approved of the lawyer’s precaution. “Night guard, sergeant-major?” he asked, addressing one whose crowned sleeve showed his rank. “Day and night guard, sir,” replied the officer quietly. “Good,” said Jimmy, and passed out into the street. And now only the lawyer and Connor remained, and as Jimmy left, they too prepared for departure. The lawyer was mildly interested in the big, heavy criminal who walked by his side. He was a fairly familiar type of the bull-headed desperado. “There is nothing I can explain?” asked Spedding, as they stood together in the vestibule. Connor’s eyes were on the guard, and he frowned a little. “You don’t trust us very much,” he said. “I don’t trust you at all,” said the lawyer. CHAPTER VI THE RED ENVELOPE Mr. Spedding, the admirable lawyer, lived on Clapham Common, where he owned the freehold of that desirable residence, “High Holly Lodge.” He was a bachelor, with a taste for bridge parties and Madeira. Curious neighbors would have been mystified if they had known that Mr. Spedding’s repair bill during the first two years of his residence was something well over three thousand pounds. What they _did_ know was that Mr. Spedding “had the builders in” for an unconscionable time, that they were men who spoke in a language entirely foreign to Clapham, and that they were housed during the period of renovation in a little galvanized iron bungalow erected for the purpose in the grounds.