Arthur Stringer

“ He's also a sort of day-watchman, I find. He's a pretty intelligent and trusty old fellow, absolutely unapproachable, from our standpoint. Another thing, too, the place is webbed with burglar-alarm apparatus. It would take another hour or so to get the right wires cut safely off. I hate to feel squeamish, at this time of the game—but that Ottenheimer safe does look uninviting!”
Mame walked up and down, with the little watch-case receiver and its hand-kerchief still crowning her heavy mass of dark hair, like a coronet, and green wires trailing behind her, like the outline of a bridal veil. ”

“ She shook her head, but he caught her in his arms, and she lay there half-happy again.
“Oh, Mame, for the twentieth time,” he pleaded, “won't you marry me?”
“No, no, no; not till we're honest!” she cried, in alarm. “I wouldn't dare to, I couldn't, until then.”
“But we're only what we have been. We can't change it all in a day, can we? Especially when there's so much behind!”
“I want to be decent!” she cried, in a sort of muffled wail. “No, no; I can't marry you, Jim—not yet! We may not be honest with other people, but we must be honest with ourselves!” ”

“ He looked up quickly as Mame drew her little table out from the wall and lifted the transmitter up on the empty electric-fan shelf. “Er—before I forget it,” he said, absently, his eyes still on his widely-strewn apparatus, “have you got everything you want away from here?”
She had; though she hated to leave her show-case, she said. Some day she might like to take up fancy-sewing again. “But before we do another thing,” she insisted, “we have got to have dinner. Breakfast this morning was our last meal, I know!”
And to his utter astonishment Durkin remembered that he was famished! ”

“ She debated within herself whether or not she should risk her own voice over the wire to Ottenheimer's office, while there was yet time, or wait it out to the last. Then she remembered, to her sudden horror, that the transmitter still stood in its perfect and normal condition, that there could be no muffling, incompetent mechanism to disguise the tones of her voice. ”

“ The next moment Durkin made out the man. It was Ottenheimer himself. For some unknown reason, he hastily surmised, the diamond-merchant had intended to drop into his own office. But why, he still asked, was Mame taking such risks?
Durkin did not try to work the thing out in its minute details. Like a flash, he darted back to the open safe. He swung the big doors to, locked them, caught up his drill and loose strands of wire, and then backed quickly out through the steel door, securing it with a deft twist or two of a piece of “No. 12.” The outer cellar door he as quickly closed after him. ”

“ We can talk there without having a driver lifting a lid over our heads every two minutes.
“Do you know,” she went on, dreamily, as she watched the waiter push out through the crowded, many-odored room, “I often think I must have lived through all the ordinary feelings of life. I mean that we have taken such chances together, you and I, that now only a big thing can stir me into interest. I suppose we have exhausted all the everyday sensations of life!”
“Yes, I know the feeling,” said Durkin, through his cigar-smoke. ”

“ Three minutes later, a well-dressed gentleman, wearing a silk hat and carrying a large leather suit-case, stopped, with a not unnatural curiosity, on his way up Fifth avenue to inquire the meaning of an excited little crowd that clustered about two policemen and a woman in-the doorway of Isaac Ottenheimer & Company.
He drew up, casually enough, and listened while a short, stout, and very indignant man spluttered and gesticulated and angrily demanded how any one should dare to stop him from going into his own store. ”

“ At twenty minutes to eleven, slipping off his shoes, Durkin climbed cautiously through the transom opening out on the roof. Creeping as carefully from chimney-tier to chimney-tier, he found himself face to face with a roof-fence of sharpened iron rods. ”

“ He felt the moist warmth of her capitulating lips, the clinging weight of her inert body, and, deep down within his own consciousness, he knew that, if need be, he could die for her as the purest knight might have died for some old-world lady of spotless soul and name. ”

“ Now, speaking as an expert, by lighting, say, a piece of sulphur, and using it as a sort of match to start combustion, I could turn on a stream of liquid oxygen and burn through that safe-steel about the same as through a pine board. But the trouble is in getting the oxygen. Or a couple of gallons of liquid air, say, poured on the top of the safe, ought to chill the steel so that one good blow from a sledge would crack it. Or by tapping an exceptionally strong power-circuit somewhere, I could fuse portions of the steel with electricity, and cut it away like putty. ”

“ When his first hole was bored, and his little drill raced wildly through into space, like the screw of a liner on the crest of a wave, he started a second close beside the first; then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, slowly honeycombing the thick steel with his minute excavations. Sometimes a drill would snap off short, and he would have to draw a fresh one from his stock, Sometimes it did not bite sharply, and he tried another. ”

“ Durkin paced the room, with his old-time restless, animal-like stride, while Mame readjusted her receiver and restlessly took her seat in the wicker rocker once more.
“This is Friday. That leaves Saturday night the only possible night for the—er—the invasion. Then, you see, we get a whole day for a margin. First, we've got to find out exactly what time Ottenheimer himself leaves the place, and whether it's Phipps, or some one else, who closes up, and just what time he does it.” ”

“ I found out, though, that this door is made of one-inch, steel armor-plate. There's another door leading from the foot of the outer hallway into the cellar itself. But that's only covered with soft sheet-iron—more for fire than anything else. Fifteen minutes will get through that one, easily. It's the inner door that is the problem. I tried it with a knife-point—just one hard little jab. It took the end off my Rogers blade.”
“But is this door the only way in?”
“Absolutely; the rear is impossible, bricked-up; and the avenue itself is a little too conspicuous. ”

“ Then another, and another, and still no call came from Ottenheimer's office for central. The woman moved a little, restlessly. The man sighed deeply. Then he slowly put down the receiver, and mopped his moist forehead and face.
“I think he's safe,” half whispered Durkin, with his eyes still on the transmitter.
“He may suspect, any moment, though—when he has had time to think it over, especially.”
“I rather doubt it. Our voices were nothing but broken squeaks. But, if he does ring up central, we'll have to risk it and jump in and claim a wire's crossed somewhere.” ”

“ We've got them this time!”
“Not until we know that combination, though,” qualified the colder-thoughted woman in the wicker rocker, still not quite understanding how the other had found so potent and so unexpected an ally.
V
In the paling afternoon, with a pearl-mist of fine rain thinly shrouding the city, Mame waited for Durkin impatiently with her watch open before her. As the frail steel hand, implacable as fate, sank away toward the half-hour mark, her own spirits sank with it. It was not often Durkin was late. Another ten minutes would make him forever too late. ”

“ Durkin looked at her gloomily, still struggling with his own line of fruitless thought.
“Here, Jim, quick! Take this and listen.” She placed the receiver close to his ear as she spoke. “Now, that's Ottenheimer himself at the 'phone. Can you catch his voice distinctly? Well, do you notice what kind of a voice it is—its timbre, I mean? A plaintive-toned, guttural, suave, mean, cringing sort of voice! Listen hard! He may not be at the 'phone again to-day. Is he still talking?” ”

“ I know, though, that Ottenheimer's wires go south along our roof.”
“Then the sooner we give a quiet ear to that gentleman's conversation, the better for us. Have you had any furniture moved in?”
“It goes this evening. By the way, though, what am I just at present?”
Durkin thought for a moment, and then suddenly remembered her incongruous love for needlework.
“You'd better be a hard-working maker of cotillon-favors, don't you think? You might have a little showcase put outside.” ”

“ Ottenheimer!”
“Slower—slower, Jim!” moaned Mame, behind him.
“Combination's slipped my mind, Phipps. Yes; after dinner; want to run down and look over the books. Louder, please; I can't hear. Yes, that's better. To the right three times, to seventy-four—back thirty—on eighty-two—back one hundred and eight—and on seven. Yes. It's the second last figure slipped me. Better close up now. Better close up, I say. All right. Good-bye.”
The bell tinkled and grew still. The last minute vibration ebbed out of the transmitter's tingling diaphragm; but still neither the listening man nor woman moved. ”

“ And she stroked his studiously bent head with her hand, in a miserably solicitous maternal sort of way, and sighed heavily once or twice, trying in vain to console herself with the question as to why a good game should be spoilt by a doubtful philosophy. ”

“ I arranged for a sitting with them. That is the floor we ought to have, but the building is full. Three doors below, though, there was a top, back studio suite to let, and I've taken it for a month. There we have a transom opening on the roof; I looked through, merely to see if I could hang my washing out sometimes. But barring our roof off from Ottenheimer's is an ugly iron fencing.”
“Did you get a chance to notice their wiring?”
“The first thing. We can cut in and 'loop' their telephone from our back room, with thirty feet of number twelve wire.” ”

“ Ottenheimer and the dubious-minded sergeant disappeared into the gloom of the midnight store. As the whole floor flowered into sudden electric luminousness, Durkin thanked his stars that he had had sense enough to leave the lighting wires intact.
“Everything's all right; you may go, miss,” said the sergeant, two minutes later. “I guess old Isaac's had an early nightmare!” And the dispersing crowd laughed sympathetically
The woman stepped into the motor-cab and turned toward Broadway. Safely round the corner, she picked up the waiting Durkin. ”

“ The street door itself was open. Already halfway in through that door was a dark, stoutly-built man. He stood struggling in the arms of a determined and desperate young woman. That woman, Durkin, could see was Mame. ”

“ The sergeant at her elbow agreed with her, and stopping an empty motor-cab on its way up the Avenue, turned back to the enraged owner of the store, and solicitously advised him to go home and cool down.
“You hold that woman!” demanded Ottenheimer, husky with rage. “You hold that woman, till I examine these premises!” ”

“ They waited, tense. expectant, tossed between doubt and hope, knowing only too well that the questioning tinkle of that little, polished, nickel bell would sound the signal of their absolute and irreparable defeat. ”

“ Ottenheimer himself owns, I discovered, the double building his store is in. He has his basement, of course, his ground-floor show-room and store, and work-rooms, and shipping department, and all that, on the second story. Above them is a lace importer. On the top floor there is a chemical fire-apparatus agency. In the south half of the building, with the hall and stairway between, is an antique-furniture store, and above them a surgical-supply company. ”

“ This man, you see, is Ottenheimer's diamond-cutter.”
“Thank heaven! That gives us a little more time!”
“Three days, at least. But what have you done, Jim?”
“Been trying to persuade the janitor of the Ottenheimer building that I was sent to pump the water out of his gas-pipes. But he was just as sure that I wasn't. I got down in his cellar, though, and had a good look about, before I saw it wouldn't do to push the thing too far. So I insisted on going up and seeing the owner about that order. There was an inside stairway and a queer-looking steel door I wanted to get my knuckles against. ”

“ By this time Durkin had the suitcase open. In another half-minute he had the casing off the transmitter. Then a deft turn or two with his screw-driver, a tentative touch or two on the electrode, and in another half-minute the casing was restored, and he was gently tapping on the diaphragm of the transmitter, with the receiver at his ear, testing the sound.
“Just a minute now, till I cool down, and get my breath. I had endless trouble getting my drill apparatus—at one time I thought I'd have to take a dentist's tooth-driller or some such thing. But I got what I wanted—that's what kept me. ”

“ Lalique made a pendant out of the Blue Pear, hung on a thin gold stem, between little leaves of beaten gold, with diamond dew-drops on them. Well, four weeks ago the Blue Pear was stolen from Lady Margaret's jewel-case. No, Jim, thank you, not by me; but, if you'll wait, I shall try to explain.
“I hardly know now what made me do it—it was ennui and being lonesome, I suppose. But I had detective-agency cards printed, and went straight to the Cicelys. Lady Margaret wouldn't see me; she sent down word that the reward of a thousand pounds was still open and that there was no new information. ”