Kitabı oku: «The White Lie», sayfa 3
As she stood with her white hand tenderly upon his shoulder, looking lovingly into his eyes, she was describing her return to business, and how she regretted that the long summer seaside days were no more, whereupon he said, cheerfully, in English:
“Never mind, darling; November will soon come, and you will then have no further need to go to business. You will be mine. Shall we go out for a walk?” he suggested, noticing that she already had her hat on.
To his suggestion she willingly assented, and, raising her full, red lips to his, she kissed him, and then they descended to the restaurant below, empty at that hour save for the seedy old waiter, Pierre, and her father, an elderly, grey, sad-looking man, whose business in later years had, alas! sadly declined on account of the many restaurants which had sprung up along Oxford Street during the past ten years. He had seen better times, but nowadays it was always a hard struggle to make both ends meet, to pay the landlord and to live.
Ralph and old Libert exchanged greetings in French, and then, with Jean upon his arm, young Ansell stepped out into Oxford Street.
The August night was dry, warm, and starlit. Few people were about as they strolled along, chatting and laughing merrily. Before the theatres discharge their chattering crowds, the main thoroughfares of central London are usually quiet and half-deserted, and as the pair walked in the direction of Regent Street, Jean’s heart beat gladly with supreme satisfaction that at last Ralph had returned to London.
November! Far off seemed that day of all days in her life when she would be Ralph’s bride.
Upon her finger was the engagement ring he had given her, one set with diamonds of such fine quality that old Libert had wondered. Indeed, a jeweller, whose habit it was to take his luncheon there each day, had noticed it upon Jean’s finger, and had valued it roughly at a hundred pounds. Therefore Ralph could certainly not be badly off!
They had turned the corner into Regent Street, but were too engrossed in each other’s conversation to notice that, in passing, a tall, grey-faced man, who wore a crush-hat, with a black coat over his evening clothes, had suddenly recognised Ansell.
For a few steps he strode on with apparent unconcern, then he paused and, having gazed for several moments after them still walking with linked arms, unconscious of being remarked, he turned on his heel, crossed the road, and strolled in the direction they were walking.
The watcher was the same grey-faced, keen-looking stranger who, earlier that day, had sat in the country schoolroom at North Walsham listening to the evidence given before the coroner concerning the mystery of the Norwich Road.
His thin lips curled in a smile – a smile of bitter triumph – as he went on with crafty footsteps behind the pair, watching them from across the road.
CHAPTER V.
SECRETS OF STATE
The right honourable the Earl of Bracondale, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, crossed his big, business-like library at Bracondale Hall, near Torquay, and stood upon the Turkey hearthrug ready to receive his visitor.
Beneath the red-shaded lamplight he presented a handsome picture, a tall, well-built man of refined elegance, upon whom the cares of State weighed rather heavily. His age was about forty-three, though, in his well-cut evening clothes, he looked much younger; yet his face undoubtedly denoted strength and cleverness, a sharpened intellect ever on the alert to outwit foreign diplomacy, while the lines across his brow betokened deep thought and frequent nights of sleeplessness.
To Great Britain’s Foreign Minister is entrusted the care of her good relations with both friends and enemies abroad, and surely no member of the Cabinet occupies such a position of grave responsibilities, for a false step upon his part, the revelation of a secret policy, of an unfriendly attitude maintained injudiciously, may at any moment cause the spark in the powder magazine of Europe.
To preserve peace, and yet be in a position to dictate to the Powers is what a British Foreign Minister must do, a task the magnitude and difficulty of which in these days can very easily be understood.
With his hands behind his back, his dark brow slightly contracted, his eyes were fixed blankly upon the big, littered writing-table before him; he was thinking deeply.
In profile his features were clean-cut, his forehead high and above the average intelligence; his hair, though a trifle scanty on top, was as yet untinged by grey, while he wore the ends of his carefully-trimmed moustache upturned, which gave him a slightly French appearance.
In his youthful days, long before he had succeeded to the title, he had been honorary attaché at the Embassy in Rome, and afterwards in Paris, to which was attributable the rather Continental style in which he wore both hair and moustache.
He drew his hand wearily across his brow, for ever since dinner he had never left his writing-table, so busy had he been with the great pile of documents which had been brought that afternoon by special messenger from the Foreign Office.
Suddenly Jenner, the grave old butler who had been fifty years in the service of his family, opened the door and announced:
“Mr. Darnborough, m’lord.”
“Halloa, Darnborough!” cried the earl cheerily, as his visitor entered. “Where have you sprung from at this time of night?”
“From London,” replied the other. “I wanted to see you urgently, so I ran down.”
And the two men shook hands.
That the visitor was no stranger to the house was apparent, for, without invitation, he sank into an arm-chair, stretched out his legs, and looked very gravely up into the face of the Cabinet Minister before him.
He was dressed in a dark brown suit, and was none other than the grey-faced stranger who, four days before, had sat in the schoolroom at North Walsham and had aroused the curiosity of the coroner.
“Well, Darnborough, what’s the matter?” asked the Earl, passing his visitor the cigar-box. “I can see there’s trouble by your face. What’s the latest problem – eh?”
The visitor selected a cigar, turned it over in his fingers critically, and then, rising suddenly, bit off the end viciously and crossed to the electric lighter near the fireplace.
“Well,” he answered, “there are several things. First, we know why poor Harborne was killed.”
“Good,” replied his lordship. “You Secret Service men always get to know all there is to know. You’re marvellous! Have you told them at Scotland Yard?”
“No, and I don’t mean to,” replied Hugh Darnborough, the chief of the British Secret Service, the clever, ingenious man whose fingers were upon the pulse of each of the Great Powers, and whose trusty agents were in every European capital. Long ago he had held a commission in the Tenth Hussars, but had resigned it to join the Secret Service, just as Dick Harborne had resigned from the Navy to become a cosmopolitan, and to be dubbed an adventurer by those in ignorance. That had been years ago, and now he held the position of being the most trusted man in any Government department, the confidant of each member of the Cabinet, and even of the Sovereign himself, who frequently received him in private audience.
“You have reasons for not telling them at Scotland Yard – eh?” asked the Foreign Minister.
“Strong ones,” replied the other, pulling hard at his cigar. “A woman who, I have ascertained, was on one occasion very useful to us, would be dragged into it – perhaps incriminated. And you know we are never anxious to court publicity.”
“Ah! A woman – eh?”
“Yes; a young, and rather pretty, woman.”
“And you’ve come all the way from London, and got here at eleven o’clock at night, to tell me this?”
“I have something else – of greater gravity.”
“Well, let’s hear the worst,” said the Earl with a sigh. “Every day brings its troubles. Look yonder!” and he pointed to the table. “Those are despatches from all the Embassies. The eternal Balkan trouble seems threatening to break out, unless we take strong action. Bulgaria is mobilising again, and Turkey is protesting.”
“There has been a leakage from the Admiralty. How, I cannot explain. A copy of the secret report upon our last naval manœuvres is in the hands of our friends in the Wilhelmstrasse.”
“What?” cried the Earl, starting, his face pale with alarm.
“I repeat that the report is known in Germany – every word of it!”
“And our weakness is thereby revealed?”
“The exact position is known.”
“But the confidential report has not yet come through to me!”
“And yet it has somehow leaked out from Whitehall,” Darnborough replied, drily.
“A full and drastic inquiry must be ordered. I will telephone at once to the First Lord.”
“He already knows. I saw him this afternoon,” was the quiet reply of the head of the Secret Service, a man whose coolness in great crises was always remarkable. When danger threatened he was always far more cool and collected than when all was plain sailing.
“But what are the main features of the report? Tell me, Darnborough. You always know everything.”
“The chief points of the secret report reached me from one of my agents in Berlin this morning. It was brought over by messenger,” replied the Earl’s visitor, seating himself and puffing thoughtfully at his cigar. “You will recollect that two fleets were engaged in the North Sea, Blue being the British Fleet, and Red representing the German.”
“How foolish of the Admiralty not to have issued a report for public consumption. They ought to have done so long ago, and issued the confidential report afterwards – as was done two years ago,” interrupted His Majesty’s Minister.
“Yes, that is what should have been done,” the other assented. “It is useless to tell the world the truth when national defence is in question. But to resume. Blue’s commander was given two hundred and thirty ships to Red’s one hundred and seventeen, or nearly two to one. Blue had twenty-eight battleships and battle-cruisers to Red’s eighteen, or fifty-five per cent. more.”
“An advantage far greater than we should possess in actual war, unless every British fighting ship was brought home from the Mediterranean.”
“Exactly. War was declared on June 18th – earlier than is usual – and six days later a truce was suddenly ordered from Whitehall. War was resumed three days afterwards, but was stopped suddenly four days later.”
“Well, and what did really happen? I mean, what facts have our friends in Berlin got hold of?” asked the Earl, with the greatest interest.
“Proofs undeniable that, under our present arrangements for home defence, a serious raid must entail a vital blow at the heart of the Empire,” he replied slowly.
“How?” asked Lord Bracondale sharply.
“Because the enemy, notwithstanding all our efforts at defence, our destroyers, our scouting hydroplanes, and our look-outs along the coast, raided the Humber, landing thirty-six thousand men, and, on the following day, made raids on the Wear, Blyth, and Sunderland, putting twenty-four thousand men ashore. Thus, four of the most important ports and bases on the East Coast were captured within two days, together with the wireless stations at Cleethorpes, Hunstanton, and Caister, and sixty thousand men were ashore. Moreover, the supposed enemy inflicted very heavy losses upon us without sustaining any disasters, and, further, they sent a strong force of cruisers into the Atlantic to prey upon British trade.”
“Bad,” sighed the Earl, the corners of his mouth hardening. “Very bad, Darnborough. It is to be hoped that the Press won’t get wind of this!”
The ubiquitous Chief of the Secret Service shrugged his shoulders.
“It may leak out to the Opposition journals, just as it has already leaked out to the Wilhelmstrasse. If the Admiralty had not ordered a sudden cessation of hostilities the enemy’s admiral would next have been heard of in such a position that a panic would have been caused throughout the country. As it was, the enemy’s submarines of the D and E classes, which were sent away to hunt on their own, established a reign of terror, getting to the entrance of Cromarty Harbour, which was our base, and torpedoing the ships which were guarding the Fleet inside. They also torpedoed the Dreadnoughts St. Vincent and Collingwood, while another section of the enemy’s submarines inflicted very heavy loss on the British Fleet in the North Sea and seized the wireless at Cleethorpes.”
The Earl was silent for a long time, thoughtfully stroking his moustache.
“But all this betrays our weakness to Germany!” he exclaimed at last. “It is astounding – incredible!”
“But it is, nevertheless, true,” remarked Darnborough. “The security of the country is in gravest danger. Why, only a few days ago the Post Office allowed Germany to lay another cable across the North Sea from Mundesley, in Norfolk, to the Island of Nordeney.”
“Mundesley?” repeated the Earl. “Why, that was where poor Harborne went on the day he lost his life.”
“Yes. He had been in that neighbourhood for some time – upon a secret mission, poor fellow! – a mission which he had not lived to fulfil.”
A silence fell between the two men.
“The situation is, I see, one of the utmost gravity. Steps must be taken at once to reassure the public in case rumours should be published regarding the truth. The Opposition will certainly not spare the Government the facts, and must, if disclosed, give an impetus to the campaign for universal service, which would be very inconvenient to us at the present time. And more than that – Germany now actually knows the rottenness of our defences!”
“That, unfortunately, is the case.”
The Earl of Bracondale bit his under lip. A Cabinet Council had been summoned for the next afternoon, and he must place the true situation before it. All the clever diplomacy he had exercised with the Powers during the past five years had now been nullified, and England stood exposed in all her vulnerability. The inflated bubble of the strong, invincible British Navy had been pricked and burst.
Black days had, alas! fallen upon our nation, and a grave peril hourly threatened. Germany had hitherto hesitated to attack England because of the uncertainty regarding our true strength. Our land defences were known to Germany, even to the most minute detail, all reported accurately and methodically by the enemy’s spies living amongst us. But our naval secrets had all been well preserved, so that the British Fleet had always been regarded as able to repel invasion and make reprisals.
Now, however, its failure to prevent an armed raid was known to our friends across the North Sea, and most certainly they would seek to take advantage of the valuable knowledge they had gained.
Suddenly the Earl, turning to where Darnborough stood, exclaimed:
“You spoke of poor Harborne. He was a smart agent, I believe?”
“The best I ever had. He was clever, ingenious, utterly fearless, and devoted to the service. You will recollect how he obtained the accurate clauses of the secret Japanese treaty, and how he brought to us news of the secret French agreement over the Morocco question.”
“I recollect,” replied the Foreign Minister. “When he told me I would not believe it. Yet his information proved correct.”
“Harborne’s death is to be deeply regretted,” Darnborough said. “I attended the inquest. Of course, to the public, the motive is a mystery.”
“Not to you – eh, Darnborough?”
“No. If Richard Harborne had lived, Germany would never have learnt the truth regarding the recent naval manœuvres,” was the reply of the Chief of the Secret Service.
“You said something about a woman. Is she known?”
“No. I have suspicions that an indiscretion was committed – a grave indiscretion, which cost poor Harborne his life. Yet what is one man’s life to his enemies when such a secret is at stake?”
“But who was the woman?”
“A friend of Harborne’s. She had been, I believe, useful to him in certain negotiations regarding the purchase of copies of plans of the new Krupp aerial gun, and in several other matters.”
“Any suspicion regarding her?” asked the Earl quickly.
“None. She is, of course, in ignorance of the truth, and probably unaware who killed the man with whom she was so friendly. I am endeavouring to trace her.”
“Is she a lady?”
“No. A French milliner, I understand.”
“A little romance of Harborne’s which has ended fatally?”
“Yes – poor Harborne!” sighed the grey-faced man, in whose keeping were the secrets of the Empire, and who knew more of the political undercurrents of Europe than any other living person. “His loss is very great to us, for he was a fine specimen of the true-hearted, patriotic Englishman,” he added, pulling hard at his cigar. “His place will be hard to fill – very hard.”
“I know, Darnborough,” remarked Lord Bracondale gravely. “To such a man the country ought to erect a monument, for he has laid down his life for his country. But, alas! our country recognises no heroes of the Secret Service!”
And as the Cabinet Minister spoke the telephone-bell rang. He crossed to his writing-table, took up the instrument, and responded to an urgent call from the House of Commons in London, where an important and heated debate regarding our foreign relations was in progress.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SAFE-BREAKERS
The day had been hot and stifling in London – one of those blazing days when the tar on the roadway perfumes the air, the dry pavements reflect back the heat into one’s face, and the straw-hatted Metropolis – or the portion of it that is still in town – gasps and longs for the country or the sea.
The warm weather was nearly at an end, and most holiday-makers were back again. London’s workers had had their annual fortnight long ago, and had nearly forgotten it, and now only principals were away golfing, taking waters at Harrogate, Woodhall Spa, or in the Scotch hydros, or perhaps travelling on the Continent.
From the high-up windows in Shaftesbury Avenue, close to Piccadilly Circus, Ralph Ansell looked down upon the busy traffic of motor-buses, taxis, and cars, the dark-red after-glow shining full upon his keen, clean-shaven face.
He was already dressed to go out to dinner, and as he stood in his cosy bachelor rooms – a pleasant, artistic little place with soft crimson carpet, big, comfortable, leather arm-chairs, and a profusion of photographs, mostly of the fair sex, decorating mantelshelf and walls – his brows were narrowed and he blew big clouds of cigarette smoke from his lips.
Suddenly the door opened and a man, shorter and rather thick-set, also in evening clothes, entered. He was evidently French, and possessed neither the good looks nor the elegance of Ansell.
“Ah! my dear Adolphe!” Ralph cried in French, springing forward to welcome him. “I hardly expected you yet. Your train from Paris was not late – eh? Well, how goes it?”
“Infernally hard up – as usual,” was his visitor’s reply, as he tossed his black overcoat on to the couch, flung his soft felt hat after it, and then sank into a chair. “Why all this emergency – eh?”
The man who spoke was of low type, with black, rather curly hair, sharp, shrewd eyes like his friend’s, ears that lay slightly away from his head, and a large, rather loose, clean-shaven mouth. Between his eyes were three straight lines, for his brow wore a constant look of care and anxiety. He did not possess that careless, easy, gentlemanly air of Ansell, but was of a coarser and commoner French type, the type one meets every day in the Montmartre, which was, indeed, the home of Adolphe Carlier.
Ansell walked to the door, opened it as if to ascertain there was no eavesdropper, and, closing and locking it, returned to his friend’s side.
“I sent for you, my dear friend, because I want you,” he said, in a low voice, gazing straight at him.
“Anything good?” asked the other, stretching out his legs and placing his clasped hands behind his head wearily.
“Yes, an easy job. The usual game.”
“A jeweller’s?”
Ansell nodded in the affirmative.
“Where?”
“Not far from here.”
“Much stuff?”
“A lot of good stones.”
“And the safe?”
“Easy enough with the jet,” Ansell answered. “You’ve brought over all the things, I suppose?”
“Yes. But it was infernally risky. I was afraid the Customs might open them at Charing Cross,” Carlier replied.
“You never need fear. They never open anything here. This is not like Calais or Boulogne.”
“I shan’t take them back.”
“You won’t require to, my dear Adolphe,” laughed Ansell, who, though in London he posed as a young man of means, was well known in a certain criminal set in Paris as “The American,” because of his daring exploits in burglary and robbery with violence.
A year before, this exemplary young man, together with Adolphe Carlier, known as “Fil-en-Quatre,” or “The Eel,” had been members of the famous Bonnemain gang, to whose credit stood some of the greatest and most daring jewel robberies in France. For several years the police had tried to bring their crimes home to them, but without avail, until the great robbery at Louis Verrier’s, in the Rue des Petit-Champs, when a clerk in the employ of the well-known diamond dealer was shot dead by Paul Bonnemain. The latter was arrested, tried for murder, and executed, the gang being afterwards broken up.
The malefactors had numbered eight, six of whom, including Bonnemain himself, had been arrested, the only ones escaping being Carlier, who had fled to Bordeaux, where he had worked at the docks till the affair had blown over, while Ansell, whose dossier showed a very bad record, had sought refuge in England.
The pair had not met since the memorable evening nine months before, when Ansell had been sitting in the Grand Café, and Carlier had slipped in to warn him that the police had arrested Bonnemain and the rest, and had already been to his lodgings. Two hours later, without baggage or any encumbrance, he had reached Melun in a hired motor-car, and had thence left it at midnight for Lyons, after which he doubled his tracks and travelled by way of Cherbourg across to Southampton, while Carlier had, on that same night, fled to Orleans.
Part of the proceeds of the robbery at the diamond merchants had been divided up by the gang prior to Bonnemain’s arrest – or rather the fifty thousand francs advanced by the Jew broker from Amsterdam to whom they always sold their booty. Therefore both men had been possessed of funds. Like others of their profession, they made large gains, but spent freely, and were continually short of money. Old Bonnemain, however, had brought burglary to a fine art, and from the proceeds of each coup he used to keep back a certain amount out of which to assist the needy among his accomplices.
Ansell, in addition, had a second source of revenue, inasmuch as he was on friendly terms with a certain Belgian Baron, who, though living in affluence in Paris, was nevertheless a high official of the German Secret Service. It was, indeed, his habit to undertake for the Baron certain disagreeable little duties which he did not care to perform himself, and for such services he was usually highly paid. Hence, when he fled to London, it was not long before a German secret agent called upon him and put before him a certain proposal, the acceptance of which had resulted in the death of Dick Harborne.
The young adventurer threw himself into the arm-chair opposite to where Adolphe Carlier was seated, and in the twilight unfolded his scheme for a coup at a well-known jeweller’s in Bond Street, at which he was already a customer and had thoroughly surveyed the premises.
“I expected that you had some new scheme in hand,” Carlier said at last, in French, after listening attentively to the details of the proposition, every one of which had been most carefully thought out by the pupil of the notorious Bonnemain. “On arrival this afternoon I put up at the Charing Cross Hotel – so as to be handy if we have to get out quickly.”
“Good. Probably we shall be compelled to move pretty slick,” Ansell said, in English. Then, after a few moments’ pause, he added: “Do you know, my dear Adolphe, I have some news for you.”
“News?”
“Yes. I’m going to be married in November.”
“Married!” echoed Carlier, staring at his friend. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“She’s French; lives here in London; smart, sweet – a perfect peach,” was his answer. “She’ll be a lot of use to us in future.”
Carlier was silent for a few moments.
“Does she know anything?” he asked in a low, serious voice.
“Nothing.”
“What will she say when she knows?”
“What can she say?” asked Ansell, with a grin.
“She’s not one of us, I suppose?”
“One of us? Why, no, my dear fellow. I’ll introduce you to-morrow. You must dine with us – dine before we go out and do the job. But she must not suspect anything – you understand?”
“Of course,” replied the young Frenchman. “I’ll be delighted to meet her, Ralph, but – but I’m thinking it is rather dangerous for you to marry an honourable girl.”
“What?” cried the other, angry in an instant. “Do you insinuate that I’m not worthy to have a decent, well-brought-up girl for a wife?”
“Ah! you misunderstand me, mon vieux. I insinuate nothing,” replied Carlier. “I scent danger, that is all. She may turn from you when – well – when she knows what we really are.”
Ansell’s mouth hardened.
“When she knows she’ll have to grin and bear it,” was the answer.
“She might give us away.”
“No, she won’t do that, I can assure you. The little fool loves me too well.”
“Is that the way you speak of her?”
“Every girl who loves a man blindly is, in my estimation, a fool.”
“Then your estimation of woman is far poorer than I believed, Ralph,” responded Carlier. “If a girl loves a man truly and well, as apparently this young lady loves you, then surely she ought not to be sneered at. We have, all of us, loved at one time or other in our lives.”
“You’re always a sentimental fool where women are concerned, Adolphe,” laughed his companion.
“I may be,” answered the other. “And I can assure you that I would never dare to marry while leading the life I do.”
“And what better life can you ever hope to lead, pray? Do we not get excitement, adventure, money, pleasure – everything that makes life worth living? Neither you nor I could ever settle down to the humdrum existence of so-called respectability. But are these people who pose as being so highly respectable really any more honest than we are? No, my dear friend. The sharks on the Bourse and the sharp men of business are just as dishonest. They are thieves like ourselves under a more euphonious name.”
Carlier smiled at his friend’s philosophy. Yet he was thinking of the future of the girl with whom he was, as yet, unacquainted – the girl who had chosen to link her life with that of the merry, careless, but unscrupulous young fellow before him. They were bosom friends, it was true, yet he knew, alas! how utterly callous Ralph Ansell was where women were concerned, and he recollected certain ugly rumours he had heard, even in their own undesirable circle.
They spoke of Jean again, and Ralph told him her name.
“We will dine there to-morrow night,” he added. “Then we will come on here, and go forth to Bond Street at half-past eleven. I’ve watched the police for the past week, and know their exact beat. Better bring round the things you’ve brought from Paris in a taxi to-morrow morning.”
The “things” referred to were an oxy-acetylene gas-jet, and a number of the latest inventions of burglarious tools – indeed, all the equipment of the expert safe-breaker.
That night the pair went forth and dined at the Café Royal in Regent Street, and afterwards went to the Palace Theatre, finishing up at a night club in Wardour Street. Then, on the following morning, Carlier returned, bringing with him the heavy but unsuspicious-looking travelling trunk he had conveyed from Paris.
In the evening Ralph and he went to the Provence Restaurant, but, to their disappointment, Jean was not there. She had been home, but had left half an hour later to go to Balham to visit one of her fellow-assistants at the Maison Collette who was dangerously ill. She had taken with her some fruit and flowers.
Annoyed at her absence, Ralph had suggested the Trocadero for dinner.
“It’s better than in this wretched little hole,” he added to Carlier, in an undertone. “And we’ll want a good dinner before we get to business,” he added, with a sinister grin.
So they had wished old Libert a merry bon soir, and were driven in a taxi along to the Trocadero grill-room, where, amid the clatter of plates, the chatter, and the accompanying orchestra, they found themselves in their own element.
At half-past ten they ascended to Ansell’s flat, and each had a stiff brandy-and-soda and a cigar.
Both men were expert thieves, therefore it was not surprising that, by half-past two o’clock next morning, wearing cotton gloves and dark spectacles to hide the glare from the jet, they stood together before the great safe at the back of Matheson and Wilson’s, the well-known jewellers, and while Ansell put up his hand and cleared shelf after shelf of magnificent ornaments, Adolphe expertly packed them away into the small black canvas bag he held open.
Those were breathless, exciting moments. The jet had done its work. It had gone through the hardened steel plates like a knife through butter, and the door, believed to be burglar-proof, stood open, displaying wonderful diamond tiaras in cases, ropes of pearls and paper packets containing uncut gems worth a huge amount.
The haul was a magnificent one, and though they had not yet succeeded in getting clear, both men were gloating over their booty – a triumphant satisfaction that no burglar can repress.
The scene was a weird one. The glaring light thrown by the jet had been extinguished, but the steel still glowed with heat, and Ansell blistered his fingers when they had accidentally touched the edge. The only light now was a small electric torch which threw direct rays in a small zone. But of a sudden, both men heard a noise – the distinct footsteps of a man crossing the shop!
