“Now for another safety box,” said Sanc. “I would prefer the bank, straight, but there’s too many formalities about putting it in and getting it out, and besides that you can do a lot of locating if you have a safety box. You can go in two or more times a day and you will always see people going and coming to their boxes with money or jewelry. Many women have all their jewelry in safety boxes and only take it out when they want to display it at a theater or party. They lift it on the afternoon of the evening they want to wear it, and put it back the next morning, but they have to keep it at home that night. Simplest thing in the world to tail them home from the bank.

“The safety box is also used,” he continued to illuminate me, “by racehorse men, gamblers, and the moneyed macquereau, and I don’t mind telling you that I’d rather prowl one of them than any businessman. It’s a joy to hear one of them squawk, and most of them would put the old index finger on you or me in a minute, just by the way of alibi.