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one might ordinarily take to a commonplace high-street locksmith to have copies made. The four that particularly interest me are these – to your office, to the paper store, the print room and to the plate vault. The safe is clearly a Chubb diagonal-bolt model is it not?”
    “You are correct Mr Holmes, as are you in the matter of commissioning duplicate keys. No reputable locksmith would even consider making copies without solid proof of ownership of the safe – at the very least the certificate issued only to the legitimate and registered purchaser. In practice, a requirement for another key is customarily addressed directly to the manufacturer, thus eliminating the risk of additional keys being made and dishonestly retained by a villainous locksmith, without one’s knowledge.
    “And we were assured at the time of the purchase that a criminal locksmith – even a skilled one – would apparently experience considerable, in all probability insurmountable, difficulty in creating working duplicate keys.”
    Somewhat cryptically Holmes replied “That may be so Mr Petch, but in my experience, there is very little in this world that one man can devise, that another cannot discover. Who else possesses a full set of keys?”
    “Only four sets exist, Mr Holmes; you hold one in your hand this minute; a complete set is carried by each of my two partners – again on their watch-chains – and there is a final set shared by the two watchmen.
    “As the one always hands over duty to the other upon the nightly and morning change, he likewise hands the keys to his incoming colleague. Do I make myself clear?”
    “Perfectly; I shall return to the matter of the keys presently. Meanwhile, tell me why it was necessary to create a further set of plates; are they perhaps of a new design, or a new denomination?”
    Petch grimaced despondently; “No they are not, and that is what makes the situation so very alarming. Were they so, the matter would resolve itself with great facility. We would simply put out a general notice that there is to be no new design or denomination of note, and thus, at a stroke, eliminate all possibility of financial reward for the perpetrators.”
    “No Mr Holmes, it is the most unhappy of all possible situations; the plates are a direct replacement set for the current issue of £10 note; the present plates are showing significant signs of wear, and thus are producing inferior impressions, which makes them considerably simpler to counterfeit.
    “The new plates do you see, will create, in every respect except one, vast quantities of £10 bank-notes, quite perfect in appearance and almost indistinguishable from those presently in lawful circulation throughout the world, except to an expert!” Holmes made no response, but instead stepped to his bench where at some length, with his back to us, he performed some intricate and arcane operations with the keys, whose objective I was quite unable to comprehend. Returning after some considerable time, he wiped the keys on a rag, handed them back to Mr Petch and said “Tell me more of this one singular characteristic in which any notes produced may not be quite perfect? The engraved plates are complete and finished, are they not?”
    “Indeed they are, the most perfect I ever created as I have stated, and I pray I may now never see in my bill-fold or be handed a resulting impression from them!
    “However, what they will lack, and what they must incorporate, for unqualified perfection, is a proper cipher and a run of allocated serial numbers of the correct sequence. That progression the criminals are most unlikely to guess; such numbers are applied in a second over-printing and in confidence I may inform you that the basic secret formula for those letters and numbers rests on the distinction between odd and even-numbered years.
    “Merely as an example, let us take the numbering on this London £5 note.” His gnarled finger traced over the components of the serial