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safely under lock and key only days before!
    “You may perhaps speculate as to my agitated state of mind! Curiously, two of my burins had also been removed from my bench!
    “Now in a most fearful panic I investigated the remainder of our premises, including the stores, where I discovered that a large quantity of the unique water-marked Portals paper upon which the new notes were destined to be printed, was also gone! If the two stolen items, paper and plates, are proficiently brought together upon a suitable printing press, the consequences will be catastrophic.
    “I have calculated, Mr Holmes, that the quantity of stolen paper – twenty-five boxes each of five thousand sheets – will be sufficient to create well over two millions in currency – two hundred and fifty thousand ten-pound notes – a huge increase in the present currency supply in circulation in Great Britain, constituted apparently of bona fide, but quite unauthorised money! With additional paper, the hardened steel plates themselves could generate many times more.
    “The Bank Charter Act of 1844 requires all notes issued to be backed by gold reserves held by the Bank; this will not be the case if a vast quantity of credible but fraudulent money is known to be in circulation; inflation would be the inevitable consequence. Confidence in our British pound will vanish like a puff of smoke when word spreads!” Again he buried his face in his hands and returned to rocking in a state of pitiable misery.
    Holmes closed his eyes in thought for a moment.
    Our client mopped his brow with a large silk square and struggled to regain his earlier composure. “My apologies Mr Holmes; of course I am entirely at your disposal. You may ask me anything if it can help to avert this calamity.”
    “Very well; you say you have keys to all the principal locks on the premises?” Petch nodded. “And you carry these upon your person at all times?” Again Petch nodded.
    “I do Mr Holmes, upon my watch chain, except when at home, where I place them in my bureau” and he produced a bunch of most unusually complicated keys at the end of a heavy gold Albert chain. Holmes extended a sinewy white hand; “May I?”
    Our client detached his watch and chain from his waistcoat buttonhole, removed the strange keys and passed them to Holmes.
    “Now Mr Petch, please be good enough to describe the function of each of these keys; this, for example?”
    “That first is merely the key to my domestic front door; the next two are respectively the garden back-door and my orchid-house. The small steel key winds the pedestrian door through the main gates to the delivery yard, the next opens the main door to the offices and printing works; then you will observe my private office key, next the special key to the paper store, and finally you now hold in your hand the compound key that releases the four locks of the plate safe.
    “Since lunchtime, it occurred to me that an indication of the layout of our premises might be of value to you; while finishing my whisky I took the liberty of preparing this sketch, that you may be aware of the locations of the various offices, departments, and of the plate vault itself. It is correct in its general arrangement, but I regret I did not have sufficient time to create it to true scale.”
    “My dear Mr Petch, you are the epitome of a model client! This appears to be extremely precise; I see you mark here the main gate, the watchmen’s hut; this, the main entrance and... Ah, here I observe your office marked and the safe indicated within, and off here the print room and paper store. Admirable, quite admirable; now, let us back to the keys.”
    Holmes carefully separated the last four keys and at strikingly close range, at the very tip of his nose, almost as if he were sniffing them, he examined each most minutely and then again at some considerable length through his powerful lens.
    “These are indeed most unusual keys – certainly not the variety which