For some moments he gossiped cheerfully of his new power-boat, Bannerman attending to the inconsequent details with an air of abstraction. Once or twice he appeared about to interrupt, but changed his mind: but because his features were so wholly infantile and open and candid, the time came when Maitland could no longer ignore his evident perturbation. "Now what's the trouble?" he demanded with a trace of asperity. "Can't you forget that Graeme business and--" "Oh, it's not that." Bannerman dismissed the troubles of Mr. Graeme with an airy wave of a pudgy hand. "That's not my funeral, nor yours.... Only I've been worried, of late, by your utterly careless habits." Maitland looked his consternation. "In heaven's name, what now?" And grinned as he joined hands before him in simulated petition. "Please don't read me a lecture just now, dear boy. If you've got something dreadful on your chest wait till another day, when I'm more in the humor to be found fault with." "No lecture." Bannerman laughed nervously. "I've merely been wondering what you have done with the Maitland heirlooms." "What? Oh, those things? They're safe enough--_in_ the safe out at Greenfields." "To be sure! Quite so!" agreed the lawyer, with ironic heartiness. "Oh, quite." And proceeded to take all Madison Square into his confidence, addressing it from the window. "Here's a young man, sole proprietor of a priceless collection of family heirlooms,--diamonds, rubies, sapphires galore; and he thinks they're safe enough _in_ a safe at his country residence, fifty miles from anywhere! What a simple, trustful soul it is!" "Why should I bother?" argued Maitland sulkily. "It's a good, strong safe, and--and there are plenty of servants around," he concluded largely. "Precisely. Likewise plenty of burglars. You don't suppose a determined criminal like Anisty, for instance, would bother himself about a handful of thick-headed servants, do you?" "Anisty?"--with a rising inflection of inquiry. Bannerman squared himself to face his host, elbows on table. "You don't mean to say you've not heard of Anisty, the great Anisty?" he demanded. "I dare say I have," Maitland conceded, unperturbed. "Name rings familiar, somehow." "Anisty,"--deliberately, "is said to be the greatest jewel thief the world has ever known. He has the police of America and Europe by the ears to catch him. They have been hot on his trail for the past three years, and would have nabbed him a dozen times if only he'd had the grace to stay in one place long enough. The man who made off with the Bracegirdle diamonds, smashing a burglar-proof vault into scrap-iron to get 'em--don't you remember?" "Ye-es; I seem to recall the affair, now that you mention it," Maitland admitted, bored. "Well, and what of Mr. Anisty?"