"London Bill is certainly entitled to his rank as the world's foremost box-worker! It's this sort of a thing that makes you respect a man!" Richard was driven to smile again as he recalled the sleepy, intolerant exquisite, gloved and boutonniered, whom he met in Willard's, and compared him with the thief-hunting enthusiast who, dark-lantern in hand and crouching under the low clay roof of the tunnel, was so rapturously expounding the genius of the great burglar.
"But greater still," continued Inspector Val, "greater than London Bill, was that Russian party Storri.

And to think this was his first--that he was only a beginner! I used to wonder how he was going to bring out the gold; and I'm free to admit I couldn't answer the question.

Sometimes, I'd even think he had blundered; I'd figure on him as the amateur who had only considered the business of going to the gold, without remembering that getting away with it was bound to be the hardest part of the trick.

You can see yourself," and here Inspector Val appealed to Richard, "and you no crook at all, that if it ever became a case of lugging out this gold by hand, it would take the gang a week to get away with a half-million.

It was when Storri ordered those circular rubber rafts that I fell to it all; it was then I took off my hat to him!" When Richard and Inspector Val were again at the mouth of the drain, the lashing storm had worn itself out.