"I suppose," murmured Mattock, staring reflectively out of the window, "I suppose the ducks like it." "You listen to me, and look at this! You know a warrant by this time, don't you? And d'you know what you'll get, with your record, if I use it? Marchmont Avenue, Hampstead, at the house of Oscar Raegenssen--burglary and assault--five years." Mattock regarded the paper in the detective's hand calmly. Then he looked at Teal. James Mattock, convicted criminal and sometime jail-bird though he was, had once been a gentleman, according to Teal's own description, and the fact gave him an immeasurable pull over the detective. Teal, blunt and burly, a man of the people who had won his rank from the academy of the beat, felt uncomfortable under the steady once-over of the self-possessed clerk. "You know," said Mattock kindly, "your tact would make an angel weep." Teal had one pose which never failed to conceal his embarrassment. His heavy-lidded eyes half-closed, his whole figure relaxed--he looked as if he were on the point of falling asleep on his feet. Everything in the world seemed to bore him to tears. "All right, Jimmy," he said wearily. "We can't make you squeal if you don't want to. The only thing that struck me was that giving us a bit of help now would cut a lot of ice. I mean, we could give you a hand in return--maybe go blind a trifle the next time you skated near trouble." "There won't be a next time," was Mattock's uncompromising retort. "All clear, then, Jimmy. But don't forget what I said. The offer's always open." It seemed to Teal that Mattock had watched the whole performance with cynical enjoyment, and the clerk's answer verified that impression. "If _you're_ ever in trouble, Teal," he said, "go along to a music-hall manager. If you get an audition, and your form's up to to-day's, your fortune's made." Feeling that he had not had the best of the encounter, Teal stalked into the inner office, where detectives were already at work examining the filing cabinets and the drawers of the roll-top desk. Mr. Teal's attention, however, was attracted by the massive safe, and he stood for a time before it, hands in the pockets of his waterproof, his lower jaw functioning monotonously. Then he turned to one of the men. "Has this been touched, Topham?" "No, sir." "Not a hand been laid on it?" Topham appealed to his colleagues, and the reply was a fairly confident negative. "Of course, it's difficult to swear that nobody's touched it without thinking." Teal nodded. From his waistcoat pocket he produced a powerful lens in a chamois bag, polished it on his handkerchief, and subjected the surface of the door to a prolonged scrutiny. Secondly, he studied the lock, and then he called one of the men over. "Take a look at it," he advised. "Now, you see the faint scratches by the keyhole? D'you notice any new ones?"