The Boule cabinet remained locked up in a cell at the Twenty-third
Street station; and Simmonds kept the key in his pocket. I know now
that he was as much in the dark concerning the cabinet as the general
public was; and the general public was very much in the dark indeed,
for the cabinet had not figured in the accounts of the first two
tragedies at all, and only incidentally in the reports of the latest
one. As far as it was concerned, the affair seemed clear enough to
most of the reporters, as an attempt to smuggle into the country an
art object of great value. Such cases were too common to attract
especial attention.
But Simmonds had come to see that Grady was tottering on his throne;
he realised, perhaps, that his own head was not safe; and he had made
up his mind to pin his faith to Godfrey as the only one at all likely
to lead him out of the maze. And Godfrey laid the greatest stress
upon the necessity of keeping the cabinet under lock and key; so
under lock and key it was kept. As for Grady, I do not believe that,
even at the last, he realised the important part the cabinet had
played in the drama.
But while the Boule cabinet failed to focus the attention of the
public, and while most of the reporters promptly forgot all about it,
I was amused at the pains which Godfrey took to inform the fugitive
as to its whereabouts and as to how it was guarded.
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