You might have guessed yourself in the
fell grip of the Inquisition. As a fact, you were in something far more
fell. You were in a vast chamber of steel, and that chamber was itself
enclosed on all sides by three feet of solid concrete. No thief could
tunnel or mine you without first getting through the District Railway on
the one hand, or the main drainage system of London on the other. No
thief could rifle you by means of duplicate keys, for no vault and no
safe could be opened except in the presence of the head guardian, who
possessed a key without which the renter's key was useless. No tricks
could be played with the gas, because there was no gas, and the electric
light could only be turned off or on from the top of the lift-well.
Now, it was a singular thing that when Simon Shawn, having proved his
identity and his mission at the lift, arrived at the entrance to the
Safe Deposit, he discovered the great steel door ajar, and no
door-guardian in the leather chair where a door-guardian always sat.
This condition of affairs did not affect the essential impregnability of
any individual vault or safe, but, nevertheless, it was singular.
Simon walked straight in.
'There's no one at the door,' he said to the patrol, whom he met in the
main passage.
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