He waited until without a sound the heavy door of the safe swung open and George had put his hand inside to extract the contents, and then, without a word, he passed through the door, closing it behind him. The two men sat up tensely and listened. They heard nothing more until the soft thud of the outer door told them that their remarkable visitor had departed. They exchanged glances--interest on the one face, amusement on the other. “That is a remarkable man,” said Callidino. The other nodded. “Most remarkable,” he said, “and more remarkable will it be if we get out of Hatton Garden to-night with the loot.” It would seem that the “more than most” remarkable happening of all actually occurred, for none saw the jewel thieves go, and the smashing of Gilderheim’s jewel safe provided an excellent alternative topic for conversation to the prospect of Sunstar for the Derby. CHAPTER II. SUNSTAR’S DERBY There it was again! Above the babel of sound, the low roar of voices, soft and sorrowful, now heard, now lost, a vagrant thread of gold caught in the drab woof of shoddy life gleaming and vanishing.… Gilbert Standerton sat tensely straining to locate the sound. It was the “Melody in F” that the unseen musician played. “There’s going to be a storm.” Gilbert did not hear the voice. He sat on the box-seat of the coach, clasping his knees, the perspiration streaming from his face. There was something tragic, something a little terrifying in his pose. The profile turned to his exasperated friend was a perfect one--forehead high and well-shaped, the nose a little long, perhaps, the chin strong and resolute. Leslie Frankfort, looking up at the unconscious dreamer, was reminded of the Dante of convention, though Dante never wore a top-hat or found a Derby Day crowd so entirely absorbing. “There’s going to be a storm.” Leslie climbed up the short step-ladder, and swung himself into the seat by Gilbert’s side. The other awoke from his reverie with a start. “Is there?” he asked, and wiped his forehead. Yet as he looked around it was not the murky clouds banking up over Banstead that held his eye; it was this packed mass of men and women, these gay placards extolling loudly the honesty and the establishment of “the old firm,” the booths on the hill, the long succession of canvas screens which had been erected to advertise somebody’s whisky, the flimsy-looking stands on the far side of the course, the bustle, the pandemonium and the vitality of that vast, uncountable throng made such things as June thunderstorms of little importance. “If you only knew how the low brows are pitying you,” said Leslie Frankfort, with good-natured annoyance, “you would not be posing for a picture of ‘The Ruined Gambler.’ My dear chap, you look for all the world, sitting up here with your long, ugly mug adroop, like a model for the coloured plate to be issued with the Christmas Number of the _Anti-Gambling Gazette_. I suppose they have a gazette.”