"It looks impossible, I'm free to admit," he agreed. "But, just the same, I wake every morning cold with fear, and run to the 'phone to make sure the cabinet's safe. If I could think of any further safeguards, I would certainly employ them." I looked at Godfrey searchingly, for it seemed to me that he must be jesting. He smiled as he caught my glance. "I was never more in earnest in my life, Lester," he said. "You don't appreciate this fellow as I do. He's a genius; nothing is impossible to him. He disdains easy jobs; when he thinks a job is too easy, he makes it harder, just as a sporting chance. He has been known to warn people that they kept their jewels too carelessly, and then, after they had put them in a safer place, he would go and take them." "That seems rather foolish, doesn't it?" I queried. "Not from his point of view. He doesn't steal because he needs money, but because he needs excitement." "You know who he is, then?" I demanded. "I think I do--I hope I do; but I am not going to tell even you till I'm sure. I'll say this--if he is who I think he is, it would be a delight to match one's brains with his. We haven't got any one like him over here--which is a pity!" I was inclined to doubt this, for I have no romantic admiration for gentlemen burglars, even in fiction. However picturesque and chivalric, a thief is, after all, a thief. Perhaps it is my training as a lawyer, or perhaps I am simply narrow, but crime, however brilliantly carried out, seems to me a sordid and unlovely thing. I know quite well that there are many people who look at these things from a different angle, Godfrey is one of them. I pointed out to him now that, if his intuitions were correct, he would soon have a chance to match his wits with those of the Great Unknown. "Yes," he agreed, "and I'm scared to death--I have been ever since I began to suspect his identity. I feel like a tyro going up against a master in a game of chess--mate in six moves!" "I shouldn't consider you exactly a tyro," I said, drily. "It's long odds that the Great Unknown will," Godfrey retorted, and bade me good-bye. Except for that chance meeting, I saw nothing of him, and in this I was disappointed, for there were many things about the whole affair which I did not understand. In fact, when I sat down of an evening and lit my pipe and began to think it over, I found that I understood nothing at all. Godfrey's theory held together perfectly, so far as I could see, but it led nowhere. How had Drouet and Vantine been killed? Why had they been killed? What was the secret of the cabinet? In a word, what was all this mystery about? Not one of these questions could I answer; and the solutions I guessed at seemed so absurd that I dismissed them in disgust. In the end, I found that the affair was interfering with my work, and I banished it from my mind, turning my face resolutely away from it whenever it tried to break into my thoughts.