said
he.

Hugo pondered.

Mr. Galpin put the watch in his waistcoat-pocket, and, tearing the
hundred-pound note in two halves, placed one half in the left breast
pocket of his coat, and the other half in the right breast pocket of his
coat.

'Could you have opened that vault,' Hugo asked, 'if both keys had been
lost?'

'No, sir, I could not. It's such people as you who are ruining my
profession, sir.'

'You think the vault is impregnable?'

'Yes, sir,' said Mr. Galpin. 'I should say its name was just about as
near being Gibraltar as makes no matter.'

'I was only wondering,' Hugo mused aloud, 'only wondering.... Ah, well,
I won't trouble you with my fancies.'

'As you wish, sir. Good-bye.'

'Good-bye, Mr. Galpin. And thank you!'

'Thank _you_, sir,' said Mr. Galpin, and disappeared.

'Simon,' Hugo ordered immediately afterwards, handing Simon the token,
'run down and get me the best gold watch in the place.'

Throughout the morning Hugo's thoughts were far away. Most frequently
they were in Belgium, but now and then they paid a strange
incomprehensible visit with Ravengar to the vault.

While he was lunching under the dome, Albert Shawn came in with the
early edition of the _Evening Herald_, containing a prominent item
headed, 'Feared Suicide of Mr. Louis Ravengar.' The paper stated that
Mr. Ravengar had gone to Dover on the previous evening, had been seen to
board the Calais steamer, and had been missed soon after the boat had
left the harbour. His hat, umbrella, rug, and bag had been found on
deck. As the night was quite calm, there could be no other explanation
than that of suicide. The _Evening Herald_ gave a sympathetic biography
of Mr. Ravengar ('one of our proprietors'), and attributed his suicide
to a fit of depression caused by the entirely groundless rumours which
had circulated during the late afternoon connecting him with the
scandalous disturbances at Hugo's sale.

Hugo dropped the organ of public opinion.

'H'm!' he observed to Albert.

'I'm not surprised, sir,' said Albert.

'Aren't you?' said Hugo. 'Then, there's nothing more to be said.'

Since Louis Ravengar had certainly been talking with Hugo that selfsame
morning, it was obviously impossible that he should have committed
suicide in the English Channel some twelve hours earlier. Why, then,
had he arranged for this elaborate deception to be practised? What was
his scheme? His voice through the telephone had been so quiet, so