Annister, pausing a moment at the corner of the street, was conscious of
a feeling of coldness, like a bleak wind of the spirit, as if death, in
passing, had touched him, and gone on.
For the face of the man whom he had seen had been like the face of a
damned soul, unhuman, Satanic in its sheer, visible malevolence. So might
Satan himself have looked, after the Fall.
Somehow, although the man had looked straight ahead, seeming to see
merely with the glazed, indwelling stare of a sleepwalker, Annister had
felt those eyes upon him; he was certain that he had been seen—and known.
But now he had other things to think about.
He had intended going to the hotel. Now, on an impulse he bent his steps
away from it, turning to the building in which were the offices of Rook.
But he did not enter by the main doorway. There was an alley further
along; into this he melted with the stealth and caution of an Indian,
feeling his way forward in the thick darkness to where, as he had marked
it earlier in the day, there was a rusty fire-escape; its rungs ran
upward in the darkness; they creaked now under his hand as he went slowly
up.
Rook’s office was on the second floor. Annister, reaching the window,
found it locked, but in a matter of seconds had it open, with the soft
_snick_ of a steel blade between sash and bolt; the thing was done with a
professional deftness, as if, say, the man who had opened that window had
done that same thing many times before.
Now, crouched in the darkness by that dim square of window, the intruder
stood silent, listening, holding his breath. A sound had come to him,
faint and thin, as if muffled by many thicknesses of walls; it penetrated
outward from the private office, with the snick and slither of rasping
steel on steel.
And at the instant that Annister, with a grim smile in the darkness,
recognized it for what it was, he knew, too, that someone had been
beforehand with him; someone interested, also, in Hamilton Rook; for the
sound that he heard now, loud in the singing silence, was the sound of a
steel drill upon a safe.
Annister had seen that safe; it was scarcely more than a strong-box, a
sheet steel, but thin; a “can-opener” could have ripped it from end to
end, easily, in no time at all. Rook must feel secure indeed, he thought,
to put his trust in so flimsy a repository unless, perhaps, he had other
means. The Indian, for instance; the savage who, but a few hours ago, had
missed with his long talons for Annister’s throat by inches.
But somehow Annister did not think that the Jivero would be on guard.
There was no burglar-alarm protection; he had made certain of that;
but the man who was now busy with that safe must have come up by the
stairway; doubtless he was on familiar ground. Perhaps he might be some
disgruntled confederate of the lawyer’s; well, he’d have a look-see, at
any rate.
Advancing silently, on the balls of his feet, Annister traversed the
length of the outer office, peering around the doorway to where, under
the dim glow of a single drop-light, a figure, back toward Annister,
knelt before the safe.
The drop-light, carefully shaded, would not be visible from without;
under its cone-shaped radiance Annister could see merely that the man
was wearing a cap, pulled low over his forehead; but something in the
attitude of that kneeling figure: the turn of the head, the deft, darting
movement of the hand, was strangely familiar.
Annister grinned in the darkness at the same moment that he was aware
of a curious contraction of the heart. This lone-hand cracksman worked
evidently without confederates, unless, possibly, he might have a lookout
posted on the sidewalk below. He spoke, barely above a whisper:
“Hello!” he said. “Pretty careless, aren’t you? Now, do you think
it’s—safe?”
The figure whirled; the hand, holding an automatic, came upward with the
speed of light; then dropped limply at her side as the girl surveyed him
with a stony look.
It was the waitress of the Mansion House.
“Well,” she said, “you’ve caught me, but it looks to me as if I beat
you to it, Black Steve Annister.... Oh, I’ve heard of you, Mister Black
Steve.... Well, now you’ve caught me, what are you going to do about it?”
The darkly beautiful face was scornful; the violet eyes, under the light,
stormy with a something that Annister could not all define.
Annister bit his lip. To find her like this! And, all at once,
realization came to him with a sudden tightening of the heart.
This girl, waitress or not, crook or not—he had to confess that, in all
his wanderings up and down the earth, he had never met her like. A girl
in a thousand, he had decided, back there in the dining-room of the
Mansion House. What a partner she would make! Now, with a girl like that
for a partner...!
On a sudden impulse he leaned forward, his eyes upon the safe door; it
swung outward now; somehow she had opened it.
“Pretty smooth,” he commented. “The combination, after all, ha? You
worked it. Now, before _we_ have a look, I want to tell you something.
I—I’m looking for a partner, Miss—ah—Miss—”
“—Allerton,” she told him, in her eyes a sudden, leaping spark, the
brief, baffling, enigmatic look that he had seen back there in the hotel
dining-room. But it was gone again even as she spoke:
“All right—partner!” she said, low. “When do we start?”
“Right now!” answered Annister, his gaze upon the girl frankly
admiring. He had expected the usual feminine evasions, a play for time,
hesitation—anything but this ready acquiescence in his abrupt proposal.
He was not entirely sure of her; his admiration for her beauty, her
poise, had nothing to do with the cold judgment whispering now that the
whole affair might, after all, be a blind, a trap, devious and crooked as
the devious and crooked turnings of Hamilton Rook.
But with Annister to decide was to act.
Bending, he swung wide the safe door, groping forward with exploring
hand. His back was toward the girl; consequently he did not see the
sudden, revealing gleam in the violet eyes, the quick hardening of the
mouth. Swinging forward his pocket flash, the light danced, glimmering,
upon a packet of papers, a sheaf of documents. Annister, running over
them swiftly, gave a quick exclamation, his hand, in a lightning
movement, palming something which he secreted in an inner pocket.
He turned sidewise to the girl.
“Lord!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “Nothing but papers! Partner, we’re out
of luck!”
Evidently the girl had been oblivious. Now, however, her quick, flashing
fingers sorted the contents of that safe as with a practiced hand, to
leave them, as had Annister, inviolate, save for that oblong of paper
reposing now in the pocket of his coat.
In the shadow of the entrance it was black dark as they parted. The girl
did not live in the hotel, she told him; that had been a part of her
plan. They would meet again, of course. But once in his room, and with
the shades drawn and the door locked and bolted, Annister, taking the
paper from his pocket, smoothed it out under the light.
He looked; then looked again, breath indrawn sharply through clenched
teeth.
For that paper was a canceled check; it had been drawn to “Cash”; and the
signature, in a hand that he knew upon the instant, was the signature of
his father, Travis Annister.
_CHAPTER SIX_