The next room was a large den, with bookcases lining three walls, and a large oaken table taking up nearly half the floor space.   At first Richie considered leafing through the books in the hope of finding rare first editions.   But then, as a cry came from the fifth floor again, he decided against it.

Besides, he had already noticed what to the untrained eye looked like a fireplace.   But which instinct and prison training told him was a false-front covering a wall safe.

He resisted the urge to race across to the fireplace and probably fall in the dark.   Instead he stepped across slowly, knelt, and began carefully feeling around the white frontispiece, which was wood moulded and painted to look like ironwork.   After a few moments, he found a small button on one side of the fireplace.

Half expecting alarms to go off, he pressed the button.   With an (he hoped) almost inaudible whirring of gears, the fireplace slid up the wall to reveal a fairly standard looking small metal wall safe.

Richie removed the glove from his right hand, then took a small piece of emery-board from his sack to sensitise his fingertips.   “If only I had one of those electronic gizmos to clip onto the safe, it could spin the tumblers and crack the safe in two minutes while I stood back and watched,” he thought.   Then looking at the unimpressive safe, he decided, “I can probably open it in two minutes anyway.”

In reality it took nearly five minutes to crack the safe.   However, to his dismay, no bounty lay within.

“Damn!” said Richie, taking out the contents: a small automatic pistol (minus the clip), a faded travel brochure — which looked old enough to be for the maiden voyage of the Titanic — a small portion of at least week-old meat pie on a lilac saucer, and three plastic $100 bills.

“Oh well, this is something, at least,” said Richie, pocketing the $300.   He returned the other things to the safe and quickly departed the room.

In the next few rooms he found other trinkets, but still nothing of great value.   “They must keep all their loot in a walk-in safe on the fifth floor,” he had begun to realise, wondering if he dared try up there after all?