There was no difficulty at all; and after a moment's hesitation he stepped lightly down, ready with an excuse that he was seeking Harry, if he should meet any one; but the excuse was not needed. He walked softly and boldly into the passage, turned to his right, and entered the back room, which acted as Van Heldre's private office and study. The keys lay where he knew them to be--in a drawer, which he opened and took them out, and then walked straight along the glazed passage to the office. The door yielded to the key, and he entered. The inner office was locked, but that was opened by a second key, and the safe showed dimly by the reflected lights which shone through the barred window. "How easy these things are!" said Pradelle to himself, as he unlocked the safe; "enough to tempt a man to be a burglar." The iron door creaked faintly as he drew it open, and then began to feel about hastily, and with the perspiration streaming from his forehead. Books in plenty, but no notes. With an exclamation of impatience, he drew out a little match-box, struck a light, and saw that there was an iron drawer low down. The flame went out, but he had seen enough, and stooping he dragged out the drawer, thrust in his hand, which came in contact with a leaden paper weight, beneath which, tied round with tape, was a bundle of notes. "Hah!" he muttered with a half laugh, "I can't stop to count you. Yes, I must, or they'll miss 'em. It's tempting though. Humph! tied both--" _Thud_! One heavy blow on the back of Victor Pradelle's head which sent him staggering forward against the door of the safe: then he felt in a confused, half-stunned way that something had been snatched from his hand. A dead silence followed, during which his head swam, but he had sufficient sense left to totter across the outer office, and along the passage to the garden yard. How he got outside into the little lane he could not afterwards remember, his next recollection being of sitting down on the steps by the water-side bathing his face. Five minutes before Harry Vine had been in that very spot, from which he turned to go home. "Let him say what he likes," muttered the young man; "I must have been mad to listen to him. Why--" Harry Vine stopped short, for a thought had struck him like a flash. How it was--why he should have such a suspicion he could not tell; but a terrible thought had seemed to burn into his brain. Then he felt paralysed as he shivered, and uttering an ejaculation full of rage and anger, he started off at a run towards Van Heldre's place. "Nonsense!" he said to himself, and he checked his headlong speed. "What folly!" He walked on past a group of seamen, who had just quitted a public-house, and was about to turn up the lane which led to his home, when the thought came once more. "Curse him!" he said, half aloud, "I'd sooner kill him," and hurrying back, he made straight for the lane behind Van Heldre's.