A SLIVER OF STEEL
★
The time seemed endless. Actually it could only have been seconds that
Bob sat there watching the turning of the doorknob. Then the knob started
back. Unseen fingers had learned what they wanted to know. The door was
not locked.
Through the hulking building there seemed no sound except Bob’s own
strained breathing. In the corridor it was as quiet as in the room, yet
someone must be outside the door, testing the lock.
Bob shook his head. He must be dreaming. His nerves must be over-wrought
from too much work and on edge from the talk he had earlier in the
evening with his uncle.
Reaching out, he tilted the shade of his desk lamp back and a flood of
light struck the doorknob. No! His eyes had not tricked him. The knob was
still turning. There was a faint click and then the knob remained
stationary.
Bob leaped into action. In one fast lunge he was across the room, his
hands gripping the doorknob. He tugged hard, but the door refused to
open. Then he paused for hurried footsteps were going down the hall. Bob
shouted lustily. Perhaps his cry would reach the guard at the elevators.
Then he shook the door. It couldn’t be locked, of that he felt sure.
Bracing himself again he tugged at the door and almost fell over
backwards when it suddenly opened.
Bob stepped into the corridor. There was no one in sight but from a
distance he could hear someone hurrying toward him. A guard came around a
turn in the corridor.
“Did you call just then?” demanded the watchman.
“I’ll say I did,” replied Bob. “Someone was trying the door here and when
I tried to open it, the door stuck. Then I let out a whoop. Didn’t you
see anyone?”
“No one came my way,” said the guard quickly, but his eyes did not meet
Bob’s squarely. “We’d better look along this end of the corridor. If
someone was here, he might have slipped into one of the other offices.”
Bob shook his head.
“No, he wouldn’t have done that. Besides, I distinctly remember hearing
him running down toward the elevators.”
“Well, I wasn’t asleep and no one came my way,” insisted the guard.
“Maybe you were dreaming a little. You look kind of tired.”
“I am tired, but this was no dream,” insisted Bob. Then he remembered the
door. What had made it stick? It hadn’t been locked.
“Give me your flashlight,” said Bob and the guard handed over a shiny,
metal tube.
Bob turned the beam of light on the floor, and searched closely.
“What are you looking for?” asked the guard.
“For the reason why the door stuck,” said Bob tartly. Then he found it—a
thin sliver of steel that had been inserted as a wedge. It was an
innocent enough looking piece, but when placed properly in a door could
cause considerable delay.
Bob picked it up and placed it in his pocket. Although he was not aware
of it at the time, it was the first piece of evidence in a mystery which
was to pull him deep into its folds and require weeks of patient effort
to untangle.
The guard had edged over to the door and now reached out to pull it shut.
Only a sharp order from Bob stopped him.
“Keep your hands off the doorknob,” he ordered. “Someone was tampering
here and I don’t want you messing your hands around the place.”
The guard hesitated as though undecided whether to obey Bob, and the
clerk stood up and doubled up a fist.
“Better not touch that door.” There was a steelly quietness in the words
that decided the guard, and he stepped well back into the corridor.
“You’d better get back to your post. I’ll take care of this situation,”
said Bob. “I’ll keep your flashlight and return it to you when I leave
the building. I want to do a little scouting around and may need this
light.”
The guard grumbled something under his breath, but retreated down the
corridor and finally vanished from sight. Bob disliked him thoroughly for
his attitude had been one of sullen defiance; so unusual from the men
generally on duty at night. It might be well to speak to Jacobs about it
in the morning.
Just to make sure that no one came along and touched the doorknob, Bob
took out his handkerchief and tied it around the knob in a manner which
would protect possible fingerprints.
That done, he picked up the flashlight again and started to reconnoiter
in the corridor, trying one door after another. There was just a
possibility that the marauder had found a hiding place in an office which
had been left unlocked. Bob knew that it was almost a useless quest, for
the offices were checked each night.
He made the rounds along one side of the corridor and started back on the
side opposite his own office. The night lights were on and at the far end
of the corridor it was necessary for him to use the flashlight.
Door after door proved unyielding to his touch and he was about to give
up the quest when he came upon a door that swung inward when his hands
gripped the knob.
Bob drew back suddenly and flashed the beam of light into the long room,
which was almost identical with the one in which he had been working.
What he saw there startled him more than he dared to admit later, and he
stepped inside and moved toward the nearest desk.
The ray from the flashlight revealed the utter confusion in the room.
Baskets of papers on top of the desks had been upset and even the drawers
in the filing cabinets had been pulled out and their contents hurled
indiscriminately over the floor.
A slight sound startled Bob and he swung around, the beam of light
focusing on the door.
It was closing—swiftly and silently.
Bob leaped forward, stumbled over a wastepaper basket, and then reached
the door which clicked shut just before he could grasp the handle.
Bob tugged hard on the door, but like the one which led to his own
office, it stuck.
Could it be another wedge of steel? Bob wondered and braced himself for
another lusty tug. The door gave way and Bob toppled backward in a heap,
the flashlight falling and blinking out.
Bob had fallen heavily and for a moment he remained motionless on the
floor listening for the sound of someone moving along the corridor. He
could have shouted for the guard, but an inward distrust of the man kept
him from doing that. Instead, he groped around for the flashlight, turned
it on, and got to his feet, considerably shaken in mind and body by the
experiences of the last few minutes.
The young clerk reached for the light switch and a glare of light flooded
the room, revealing even further the destruction which had been wrought
there.
Bob looked around. Hundreds of papers had been strewn on the floor; some
of them had been ruthlessly destroyed and he wondered how many valuable
documents would be lost when they finally checked up.
But this was no time for inaction, he decided, and he hastened to one of
the desks and picked up a telephone. He dialed quickly, but it was nearly
a minute before a sleepy voice answered.
“Hello, Uncle Merritt?” asked Bob anxiously.
“No, I’m not home; I’m still at the building. I wish you’d get down here
as soon as you can.
“No, I haven’t had an accident, but some mighty strange things have been
going on around this floor tonight. One of the offices has been
completely ransacked. I’m in it now. Papers have been thrown all over and
the filing cases opened and a lot of stuff destroyed.
“Who did it? Gosh, I wish I knew. Someone’s been shutting doors on me and
leaving steel wedges in them. It’s giving me the creeps.”
“I’ll be right down,” promised the Department of Justice agent.
Bob placed the receiver back on its hook and backed out of the room. The
fewer things he touched the better it would be and as he drew the door
shut, he was careful to keep his hands off the knob for there was a
possibility of valuable fingerprints being there.
An eerie feeling raced up and down Bob’s spine as he turned toward the
door which opened into the office where he worked. The building was so
quiet it was disturbing, yet he knew some unknown marauder had been busy
on the floor while he had been bent over his desk. Could the unknown be
after the radio secrets his uncle had hinted about? It was certainly
worth considering.
Bob reached the door that led into the office where he worked and stopped
suddenly. He felt cold all over as he stared at the doorknob. He
remembered distinctly having wrapped his own handkerchief around the knob
to preserve possible fingerprints. But there was no handkerchief there
now and the door was slightly ajar. The light had been on when he stepped
into the hall, but now the room was in inky darkness.