our lucky nugget, a lump weighing just under seven
pounds of pure gold.

"I had seen an advertisement of this Lucas Street safe-deposit and it
seemed just the thing I wanted. Besides the gold, I had all the papers
to do with the claims--plans, reports, receipts, licences and so on.
Then when I cashed my letter of credit I had about one hundred and
fifty pounds in notes. Of course I could have left everything at a
bank, but it was more convenient to have it, as it were, in my own
safe, to get at any time, and to have a private room that I could take
any gentlemen to. I hadn't a suspicion that anything could be wrong.
Negotiations hung on in several quarters--it's a bad time to do
business here, I find. Then, yesterday, I wanted something. I went to
Lucas Street, as I had done half-a-dozen times before, opened my safe,
and had the inner case carried to a room.... Mr. Carrados, it was
empty!"

"Quite empty?"

"No." He laughed bitterly. "At the bottom was a sheet of wrapper
paper. I recognized it as a piece I had left there in case I wanted to
make up a parcel. But for that I should have been convinced that I had
somehow opened the wrong safe. That was my first idea."

"It cannot be done."

"So I understand, sir. And, then, there was the paper with my name
written on it in the empty tin. I was dazed; it seemed impossible. I
think I stood there without moving for minutes--it was more like
hours. Then I closed the tin box again, took it back, locked up the
safe and came out."

"Without notifying anything wrong?"

"Yes, Mr. Carrados." The steady blue eyes regarded him with pained
thoughtfulness. "You see, I reckoned it out in that time that it must
be someone about the place who had done it."

"You were wrong," said Carrados.

"So Mr. Carlyle seemed to think. I only knew that the key had never
been out of my possession and I had told no one of the password. Well,
it did come over me rather like cold water down the neck, that there
was I alone in the strongest dungeon in London and not a living soul
knew where I was."

"Possibly a sort of up-to-date Sweeney Todd's?"

"I'd heard of such things in London," admitted Draycott. "Anyway, I
got out. It was a mistake; I see it now. Who is to believe me as it
is--it sounds a sort of unlikely tale. And how do they come to pick on
me? to know what I had? I don't drink, or open my mouth, or hell
round. It beats me."

"They didn't pick on you--you picked on them," replied C