crack between the portières and the door—and there was Chu-Chu, squatting on his knees and just in the act of drawing out the drill.
The little room where he was at work was a sort of boudoir, just off the Baron's bedroom probably, and finished in English style—Jacobean, with desk and safe and writing table, and the walls hung with English hunting prints. There was a big armoire, one door half-open, and a goat coat hanging inside, and a couple of golf sticks were lying on a Breton chest. The place seemed a sort of little den—part writing-room, part cosey corner—the sort of place that the man who lives there usually takes more comfort in than all the rest of the big house put together.
Chu-Chu was squatting in front of the safe, which, just as I had thought, was an old-fashioned affair, clumsy and rusty, and, as a matter of fact, a hanged-sight more burglar-proof than lots of your modern contraptions. I once knew of an expert cracksman losing his temper and making such a row getting into an old-fashioned buffet after a drink that it got him pinched. The first glimpse I got of Chu-Chu showed him hot and angry as he pocketed his drill and half turned to listen before going on with the job.
My friend, I don't care what they say, there's certainly such a thing as pure animal instinct that can be developed in a man just as in a dog or wolf, to warn him and put him on his guard when his human senses tell him nothing. Chu-Chu could not possibly have heard me. In the first place, the motor in the rear of the house was buzzing away; and, in
