"This safe is not to be touched, you understand? By anybody. If you allow the handle to be turned, there will be trouble. Come along, Sault." The handcuffs were unnecessary. They were also inadequate. In the darkness of the car-- "I am very sorry, inspector--I have broken these things--I was feeling for a handkerchief and forgot." They did not believe him, but at the police station they found that he had spoken the truth. The bar of the cuff had been wrenched open, the steel catch of the lock torn away. "I did it absentmindedly," said Ambrose shamefaced. They put him into a cell where he went instantly to sleep. The handcuffs became a famous exhibit which generations of young policemen will look upon with awe and wonder. II Sunday morning, and the bells of the churches calling to worship. Fog, thin and yellow, covered the streets. All the lamps in Jan Steppe's study were blazing, he had the African's hatred of dim lights and there was usually one lamp burning in the room he might be using, unless the sun shone. He paced up and down the carpet, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his mind busy. He was too well-equipped a man to see danger in any other direction than where it lay. In moments of peril, he was ice. He could not be cajoled or stampeded into facing imaginary troubles, nor yet to turn his back upon the real threat. All his life he had been a fighter and had grown rich from his victories. Struggle was a normal condition of existence. Nothing had come to him that he had not planned and worked for, or to gain which he had not taken considerable risks. The risks now were confined to Ambrose Sault and his fidelity to the trust which had been forced upon him by circumstances. He was satisfied that Ambrose would not speak. If he did-- Steppe chewed on an unlighted cigar. The removal of Moropulos meant an inconvenience Sault scarcely counted. The Greek was a nuisance and a danger, whilst his extravagance and folly had brought his associates to the verge of ruin. When the police arrested Ambrose Sault they took possession of the house in which he had been found. Amongst other things seized, was the safe upon which Moropulos had pasted a typewritten notice in his whimsical language: TO BURGLARS AND ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN -------------------- CAUTION Any attempt to open this safe, except by the employment of the correct code word, will result in the destruction of the safe's contents. _DON'T TURN THE HANDLE_