There's a telephone in the
waiting-room, isn't there?'
The patrol admitted that there was, but his manner hinted a low opinion
of the utility of the police. He stood mute while Simon Shawn told the
telephone receiver what had occurred in the bowels of the earth beneath
Hugo's.
'Wait a minute,' said the telephone, and then, after a pause: 'Are you
there? I'm Inspector Winter.'
'That's him as has charge of all the strong-room cases,' the patrol
interjected to Simon.
'I've got Mr. Jack Galpin here, as it happens,' said the telephone.
'Mr. Jack Galpin?' Simon questioned.
'He's just done eighteen months for an attempt in Lombard Street,' the
patrol explained. 'I've heard of him.'
'I'll come down with him immediately in a cab,' said the telephone.
When Simon returned to the impregnable door of Vault 39 he listened in
vain for a sound. Then he knocked with his pen-knife on the polished
steel, and presently there was an answering signal from within--a series
of scarcely perceptible irregular taps. It struck him that the
irregularity of the taps formed a rhythm, and after a few seconds he
recognised the rhythm of the Intermezzo from 'Cavalleria Rusticana,'
which he had played for Hugo that very morning.
It was at this moment that the messenger-boy attached to the department
came whistling into the steel corridors, and delivered to the patrol a
small white packet, which, he said, Mr.
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