HEREFORD INTERVIEWS ANNIS
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embarrassing to have his career investigated by the police. Am I not right?"
Annis frowned.
"You may assume so if you like; the majority of people in the world would hardly like to have their careers investigated, as you say, by the police."
"It is not an assumption."
"Call it what you want; but go on."
"Again very well. The Surakarta, Mr. Annis, was kept in a very peculiar box, in which it had been kept for some six hundred years—a box of extremely complicated construction. Having seen the box opened once myself, I am quite sure that no one could have learned to open the box either by description or by seeing the box opened once, or even two or three times. When opened by the thief the box had been in America only
