They finally broke through into the bank s strong-room<br >at four-fifteen on Monday morning， 9 June， barely<br >inside their deadline. By then Barnes， an exaggerative<br >pessimist， had been telling them for well over two hours<br >that the job was bust and for well over two hours they d<br >taken it in turns to tell him to belt up.<br > Allsopp， the originator~ of the job， was the first to<br >wriggle his way inside: th~ other four followed closely<br >because although each marl claimed to trust his com-<br >panions， each wanted to make quite certain none of the<br >others made a quick dive unseen.<br > The strong-room was fifteen feet long， twelve wide，<br >and nine high. The walls and ceiling were painted a<br >light green， supposedly to offset any tendency to claus-<br >trophobia: across one corner， stretching from wall to<br >ceiling， was a cobweb which had trapped so much dust<br >that the strands looked string-thick. At the far end were<br >shelves which were stacked with suitcases， boxes， small<br >crates， and even holdalls. Customers valuables. The<br >contents of those could easily double the amount of the<br >cash， which was their primary objective.<br > The notes were in neatly stacked green canvas sacks<br >and it was immediately obvious that there were more of<br >these than their information had led them to expect so<br >that their take was likely to be greater than the projec-<br >ted five hundred thousand. The sacks all had eyelets<br ><br >