'What on earth can Brown be thinking about?' muttered Simon. 'Hadn't he
got enough gumption to send a messenger after Mr. Polycarp, without
troubling the governor? He'll catch it.'

'Never mind that,' said Lily sharply. 'Run down to the Safe Deposit.
Run, Simon.'

It was as though a delay of minutes might mean ruin. Who could say what
was even then happening in the disorganized and masterless departments?




CHAPTER XII

SAFE DEPOSIT


The Safe Deposit at Hugo's was perhaps the most wonderful of all the
departments. Until Hugo thought of it, and paid a trinity of European
experts to design and devise it, there had existed no such thing as an
absolutely impregnable asylum for valuables. In Dakota a strong-room
alleged to be impregnable had been approached underground, tunnelled,
mined, and emptied by thieves with imagination. In the North of England
a safe, which its inventor had defied the whole universe of crime to
open, had been rifled by the aid of so simple a dodge as duplicate keys.
Even in Tottenham Court Road a couple of ingenious persons had burnt a
hole in a guaranteed safe by means of common gas at three and threepence
per thousand cubic feet. These surprises could not occur at Hugo's. His