remember? In the first place he said
he couldn't give him the code until after ten o'clock, which is probably
the hour the pawnbrokers open for business."

McNorton nodded again.

"Then do you remember that Milsom said that the code was not
irredeemably lost and that van Heerden knew where it was. In default of
finding the ticket he decided to burgle the pawnbroker's, and that
burglary is going through to-night."

"But he could have obtained a duplicate of the ticket," said McNorton.

"How?" asked Beale quickly.

"By going before a magistrate and swearing an affidavit."

"In his own name," said Beale, "you see, he couldn't do that. It would
mean walking into the lion's den. No, burglary was his only chance."

"But what of Oliva?" said Kitson impatiently, "I tell you, Beale, I am
not big enough or stoical enough to think outside of that girl's
safety."

Beale swung round at him.

"You don't think I've forgotten that, do you?" he said in a low voice.
"You don't think that has been out of my mind?" His face was tense and
drawn. "I think, I believe that Oliva is safe," he said quietly. "I
believe that Oliva and not any of us here will deliver van Heerden to
justice."

"Are you mad?" asked Kitson in astonishment.

"I am very sane. Come here!"

He gripped the old lawyer by the arm and led him back to the girl's
room.

"Look," he said, and pointed.

"What do you mean, the bookshelf?"

Beale nodded.

"Half an hour ago I gave Oliva a book," he said, "that book is no longer
there."

"But in the name of Heaven how can a book save her?" demanded the
exasperated Kitson.

Stanford Beale did not answer.

"Yes, yes, she's safe. I know she's safe," he said. "If Oliva is the
girl I think she is then I see van Heerden's finish."

CHAPTER XXXI

A CORN CHANDLER'S BILL

The church bells were chiming eleven o'clock when a car drew up before a
gloomy corner shop, bearing the dingy sign of the pawnbroker's calling,
and Beale and McNorton alighted.

It was a main street and was almost deserted. Beale looked up at the
windows. They were dark. He knocked at the side-entrance of the shop,
and presently the two men were joined by a policeman.

"Nobody lives here, sir," explained the officer, when McNorton had made
himself known. "Old Rosenblaum runs the business, and lives at
Highgate."

He flashed his lamp upon the door and tried it, but it did not yield. A
nightfarer who had been in the shade on the opp