ak this here Penfield combination! Oh, no,
Jimmie Durkin knows how the land lays. He's one o' your bold and
brainy kind, who likes to shut himself up in a garret for a week, and
make maps of what he's goin' to do, an' how he's goin' to do it, and
then trip off by his lonely and do his huntin' in the dark! And he's
goin' to try to get in here, before midnight, tonight, and what's more,
_he's goin' to find it uncommonly easy to do_!"

"You mean you'll entice him and trap him here?"

"No, I won't lay a finger on him. You'll do the enticin', and he'll do
the trappin'! I won't even be round to see--till afterward!"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean we're holdin' open house tonight," mocked MacNutt, "and that
Durkin will maybe drop in!"

"And then what will it be?"

"Come this way, my beauty, and I'll show you. First thing, though,
just notice this fact. We're not goin' to make it too hard and
discouragin' for Durkin. This trap-door will be left unlocked. Also,
that front manhole will be left kind of temptingly open, with a few
chunks o' loose coal lyin' round it, so that even a Mercer street
roundsman couldn't help fallin' into it! Oh, yes, he'll find it easy
enough!"

Frank followed him without a word, as he made his way through the low
and narrow steel-lined tunnel leading to the vault-room.

"Now, my dear, I guess this is the only way he'll be able to get at
you, unless he comes in a flyin' machine, and the first place he'll
nose through will be this room. So, bein' old at the business, he's
sure to try a crack at our safe. At least, he'll go gropin' around for
a while. Not an invitin'-lookin' piece o' furniture, I grant you, but
that's neither here nor there. It's not the safe that'll be detainin'
Durkin, or any other housebreaker who tries to get gay on these
premises. If you look hard, maybe you'll be able to see what's a
damned sight more interestin'!"

Frank looked, but she saw nothing beyond the great vault and the
burnished copper guard-rail that surrounded it, like the fender about a
marine engine.

"You don't notice anything strikin'?" he interrogated wickedly.

She did not.

He emitted a guttural little growl of a laugh, and stepped over to a
half-hidden switchboard, high up on the wall. He threw the lever out
and down, and the kiss of the meeting metals sounded in a short and
malevolent spit of greenish light.

"Are you on?" taunted MacNutt.

Frank's slowly comprehending e