Bardsley, a large man, with grey beard and moustache, and coarse, hard
face, spoke for the first time.

"Do any of you know," he asked, "whereabouts in that infernal little
room of his Duge keeps his papers?"

Weiss looked up.

"I am not sure," he said. "I know that he has a small iron strong-box
screwed into the inside of his roll-top desk, and of course there is a
safe in the outer office; but I don't see how we're going to find out
whether the paper we want is there."

"The girl seemed a fool," Higgins remarked. "Can't she be got at?"

"I have done my best," Weiss answered. "It strikes me she's just fool
enough to stick to what she's been told, and she's too scared of her
uncle to do more or less. She practically turned me out of his room this
morning, when I was just having a look round."

"If there is really anything," Higgins said in a soft voice, "in what
Weiss is hinting at, there's only one thing for us to do, and, difficult
or easy, it's got to be done, even if we use our friends from
down there."

He motioned with his head toward the window which was behind them, and
which looked out over the river. They were all three silent for a
moment. Then Weiss struck the table lightly with his clenched fist.

"Fools that we are!" he muttered--"babies! idiots! To think that such