“DEAR VANDERKEMP,—Further to my note to Mr. Schoofs re your call here on Wednesday morning, 26th inst., the business on which I wish to see you has turned out to be more urgent than I at first believed, and I shall therefore have to ask you to advance the hour of your interview, and also to leave London for Paris—not Stockholm—immediately after it. I shall return to the office after dinner on Tuesday evening, 25th inst., and shall be glad if you will call there at 8.30 p.m., when I shall give you your instructions. This will enable you to catch the 9.30 p.m. for Paris, via Southampton and Havre. “I wish to impress on you that as the business in question is exceptionally confidential, you will oblige me by keeping your change of plans to yourself. “Yours truly, “R. A. DUKE.” Inspector French was keenly interested, but he recognised with exasperation how inconclusive the letter was as evidence. Either it had been sent to Vanderkemp as he stated, in which case he might be innocent, or the man had written it himself, in which case he certainly was guilty, it was true that in this instance an envelope was forthcoming which bore a London E.C. postmark and the correct date, but here again there was no proof that this was really the covering in which the letter had come. These points passed through the Inspector’s mind, but he banished them as matters to be thought out later, and turned once more to his companion. “I shall keep this, if you don’t mind,” he declared. “Please proceed.” “I carried out the instructions in the letter,” Vanderkemp resumed. “The change of hours necessitated my leaving Amsterdam by the night train on the 24th, and I spent the following day at my hotel in London, and in doing a matinee. At 8.30, with my luggage, I reached Hatton Garden. I found the outer office was in darkness, but a light shone out of the doorway of the inner office. Mr. Gething was there alone. He told me to come in and shut the door, and I did so, and sat down in the clients’ arm-chair. Mr. Gething was seated at Mr. Duke’s desk, which was open.” “Was the safe open?”