“The folds tell me that,” said Meadows. “You may not get a conviction against Cuccini; the two burglars will come up before a judge, but to charge Cuccini means the whole story of the snake coming out, and that means a bigger kick than I’m prepared to laugh away—I am inclined to let Cuccini go for the moment.” Manfred nodded. He sat with the embossed sheets on his knee. “Written from various places,” he went on. It was curious to see him, his fingers running swiftly along the embossed lines, his eyes fixed on vacancy. “So far I’ve learnt nothing, except that in his spare time Barberton amused himself by translating native fairy stories into English and putting them into Braille for use in the blind school. I knew, of course, that he did that, because I’d already interviewed his sister, who is the mistress of the girls’ section.” He had gone through half a dozen letters when he rose from the table and walked across to the safe. “I have a notion that the thing we’re seeking is not here,” he said. “It is hardly likely that he would allow a communication of that character to be jumbled up with the rest of the correspondence.” The safe door was open and the steel drawer at the back had been pulled out. Evidently it was from this receptacle that the letters had been taken. Now the drawer was empty. Manfred took it out and measured the depth of it with his finger. “Let me see,” said Gonsalez suddenly. He groped along the floor of the safe, and presently he began to feel carefully along the sides. “Nothing here,” he said. He drew out half a dozen account books and a bundle of documents which at first glance Manfred had put aside as being personal to the owner of Rath Hall. These were lying on the floor amidst the mass of molten metal that had burnt deep holes in the carpet. Leon examined the books one by one, opening them and running his nail along the edge of the pages. The fourth, a weighty ledger, did not open so easily—did not, indeed, open at all. He carried it to the table and tried to pull back the cover. “Now, how does this open?” The ledger covers were of leather; to all appearance a very ordinary book, and Leon was anxious not to disturb so artistic a camouflage. Examining the edge carefully, he saw a place where the edges had been forced apart. Taking out a knife, he slipped the thin blade into the aperture. There was a click and the cover sprang up like the lid of a box. “And this, I think, is what we are looking for,” said Gonsalez. The interior of the book had been hollowed out, the edges being left were gummed tight, and the receptacle thus formed was packed close with brown papers; brown, except for one, which was written on a large sheet of foolscap, headed: “Bureau of the Ministry of Colonies, Lisbon.” Barberton had superimposed upon this long document his Braille writing, and now one of the mysteries was cleared up.