it had been possible for a burglar to make such an opening in the
little more than two hours between closing and the arrival of
Langhorne after dinner, I could not even guess. As far as I knew
it would have taken many long hours of patient labour with the
finest bits to have made anything at all comparable to the
destruction which we saw before us.

A score of questions were on my lips, but I said nothing, although
I could not help noticing the strange look on Langhorne's face. It
plainly showed that he would like to have known what had taken
place during the two or more hours when his office had been
unguarded, yet was averse to betraying any such interest.

Mystified as I was by what I saw, I was even more amazed at the
cool manner in which Kennedy passed it all by.

He seemed merely to be giving the hole in the top of the safe a
passing glance, as though it was of no importance that someone
should have in such an incredibly short time made a hole through
which one might easily reach his arm and secure anything he wanted
out of the interior of the powerful little safe.

Langhorne, too, seemed surprised at Kennedy's matter of fact
passing by of what was almost beyond the range of possibility.

"After all," remarked Kennedy, "it is not the safe that we care to
study so much as the door. For one thing, I want to make sure
whether the marks show a genuine breaking and entering or whether
they were placed there afterwards merely to cover the trail,
supposing someone had used a key to get into the office."