The Leopard's Spots by Fred M. White — Read

"And he happened to see you?" Stagg asked eagerly.

"He sent for me, sir," Josh went on. "You see, I happened to be the authority on the matter. If you like, I'll show you my collection of locks presently. And every one of them has a history. Well, Oakes, asked me to go round to his place and go thoroughly into all the precautions he had taken. There were locks everywhere, alarms on every floor, steel-lined shutters, and goodness knows what else. Of course, old man Oakes was under the impression that he had got the last word in the way of a baffle, and, to a certain extent, he had. But if you want to keep on all fours with the modern thief you must keep on changing, and after going all over the house I was in a position to point out to our client where the weak spots lay. He was so pleased with what I told him and the advice I gave him that he actually took me all over the under-ground museum. It was a wonderful place, must have cost a mint of money. A sort of big, steel-lined cave, safe as the Bank of England, you'd say, but, all the same, it wasn't. I haven't the slightest doubt that more than one clever gang of housebreakers in New York had worked out some scheme for getting inside. Yes, and they'd have done it, too, if Oakes hadn't taken my advice and kept on changing his locks. Well, he took me all over the place as I have said, and showed me his treasures. A regular Aladdin's cave it was. Wonderful pictures and china and amazing jewels in big velvet cases. Fancy a man buying all that stuff merely to gloat over in a dark cellar. But then, that's the type of mind some of these money-grabbing millionaires have. And him miserable all the time because somebody might break in at any moment and get away with the goods. And I found out that my pal at Pinkerton's was quite right, sir. I saw a picture down there, fastened up against a wall with an electric light burning in front of it as if it had been a shrine. And what do you think that picture was?"