he strokes. Eleven o'clock. It was getting late--TOO late!
Stangeist was likely to be back at any moment. The flashlight, in Jimmie
Dale's hand now, circled the room with its little round white ray,
lingering an instant in a queer, inquisitive sort of way here and there
on this object and that--and went out. Jimmie Dale nodded--the flat desk
in the centre of the floor, the safe in the corner by the rear wall, the
position of everything in the room, even to the chairs, was photographed
on his mind.

He stepped from the portieres to the safe, and the flashlight played
again--this time reflecting back from the glistening nickelled knobs.
Jimmie Dale's lips tightened. It was a small safe, almost ludicrously
small; but to such height as the art of safe design had been carried,
that design was embodied in the one before him.

"Type K-four-two-eight-Colby," muttered Jimmie Dale. "A nasty little
beggar--and it's eleven o'clock now! I'd use 'soup' for once, if it
weren't that it would put Stangeist wise, and give him a chance to make
his get-away before the district attorney got the nippers on the four of
them."

The light went out. Jimmie Dale dropped to his knees; and, while his
left hand passed swiftly, tentatively over dials and handle, he rubbed
the fingers of his right hand rapidly to and fro over the carpet.
Wonderful finger tips were those of Jimmie Dale, sensitive to an
abnormal degree; and now, tingling with the friction, the nerves
throbbing at the skin surface, they closed in a light, delicate touch
upon the knob of the dial--and Jimmie Dale's ear pressed close against
the face of the safe.

Time passed. The silence grew heavy--seemed to palpitate through the
room. Then a deep breath, half like a sigh, half like a fluttering sob
as of a strong man taxed to the uttermost of his endurance, came from
Jimmie Dale, and his left hand swept away the sweat beads that had
spurted to his forehead.

"Eight--thirteen--twenty-two," whispered Jimmie Dale.

There was a click, a low metallic thud as the bolts slid back, and the
door swung open.

And now the flashlight again, searching the mechanism of the inner
door--then darkness once more.

Five minutes, ten minutes went by. The clock struck again--and the
single stroke seemed to boom out through the house in a weird, raucous,
threatening note, and seemed to linger, throbbing in the air.

The inner door was open--the flashlight's ray was flooding a nest
of pigeonholes