still turned towards something in the room beyond, a little empty
bottle in his hand.

"Dead!" he exclaimed tragically, with a sob, "with this beside her.
Dead just when she would have been free of the brute."

The blind man passed into the room, sniffed the air, and laid a gentle
hand on the pulseless heart.

"Yes," he replied. "That, Hollyer, does not always appeal to the
woman, strange to say."

THE LAST EXPLOIT OF HARRY THE ACTOR

The one insignificant fact upon which turned the following incident in
the joint experiences of Mr. Carlyle and Max Carrados was merely this:
that having called upon his friend just at the moment when the private
detective was on the point of leaving his office to go to the safe
deposit in Lucas Street, Piccadilly, the blind amateur accompanied
him, and for ten minutes amused himself by sitting quite quietly among
the palms in the centre of the circular hall while Mr. Carlyle was
occupied with his deed-box in one of the little compartments provided
for the purpose.

The Lucas Street depository was then (it has since been converted into
a picture palace) generally accepted as being one of the strongest
places in London. The front of the building was constructed to
represent a gigantic safe door, and under the colloquial designation
of "The Safe" the place had passed into a synonym for all that was
secure and impregnable. Half of the marketable securities in the west
of London were popularly reported to have seen the inside of its
coffers at one time or another, together with the same generous
proportion of family jewels. However exaggerated an estimate this
might be, the substratum of truth was solid and auriferous enough to
dazzle the imagination. When ordinary safes were being carried bodily
away with impunity or ingeniously fused open by the scientifically
equipped cracksman, nervous bond-holders turned with relief to the
attractions of an establishment whose modest claim was summed up in
its telegraphic address: "Impregnable." To it went also the jewel-case
between the lady's social engagements, and when in due course "the
family" journeyed north--or south, east or west--whenever, in short,
the London house was closed, its capacious storerooms received the
plate-chest as an established custom. Not a few traders
also--jewellers, financiers, dealers in pictures, antiques and costly
bijouterie, for instance--constantly used its facilities for any stock
that they did not req