THE BURNING EYES
For an instant, I did not grasp the full significance of that severed
wire. Then I understood.
"Yes," said Godfrey drily, "that romance of mine is looking up again.
Somebody was preparing for a quiet invasion of the house to-night
--somebody, of course, interested in that cabinet."
"He wasn't losing any time," I ventured.
"He knew he hadn't any to lose. When you put those wooden shutters
up, you warned him that you suspected his game. He knew, if the alarm
was on, it would ring when he cut the wire, but he also knew that the
chances were a hundred to one against the cut being discovered, or
the alarm put in working order, before to-morrow."
"Why can't we ambush him?" I suggested.
"We might try, but it will be a mighty risky undertaking, Lester."
"One risky undertaking is enough for to-night," I said, with a sigh,
for my belief in the existence of the secret drawer and the poison
and all the rest of it had come back with a rush. I felt almost
apologetic toward Godfrey for ever doubting him. "We'd better wait
and see if we survive the first one before we arrange for any more."
"All right," Godfrey laughed. "But I'll fix this break."
He got out his pen-knife, loosened two or three of the staples which
held the wire in place, drew it out, scraped back the insulation, and
twisted the ends tightly together.
"There," he added, "that's done. If the invader tampers with the
window again, he will set off the alarm. But I don't believe he'll
touch it. I fancy he already knows his little game is discovered."
"How would he know it?" I demanded, incredulously.
"If he is keeping an eye on this window, as he naturally would do, he
has seen my light. Perhaps he is watching us now."
I glanced at the dark square of the window with a little shiver. This
business was getting on my nerves again. But Godfrey turned away with
a shrug of the shoulders.
"Now for the cabinet," he said, and led the way back upstairs.
Rogers was still sitting dejectedly on the cot, and, looking at him
more closely, I could see that he was white and shaken. His trouble,
whatever its nature, plainly lay heavy on his mind.
"Have you anything to tell us, this evening, Rogers?" I asked,
kindly, but he only shook his head.
"I've told you everything I know, sir," he answered, in a low voice.
"I'm not going to worry you, Rogers," I went on, "but I want you to
think it over. You can rely upon me to help you, if I can."
He looked up quickly, but caught himself, and turned his eyes away.
"Thank you, sir," was all he said.
"And now," I added, briskly, "I'll have to ask you to get up. Move
the cot away from the door, Parks."
Parks obeyed me with astonished face.
"You're not going in there, sir!" he protested, as I turned the knob.
"Yes, we are," I said, and opened the door. "Is--is...."
"No, sir," broke in Parks, understanding. "The undertakers brought
the coffin and put him in it and moved him over to the drawing-room
this afternoon, sir."
"I'm glad of that. I want all the lights lit, Parks, just as they
were last night."
Parks reached inside the door and switched on the electrics. Then he
went away, came back in a moment with a taper, and proceeded to light
the gas-lights. A moment later, the lights in the inner room were
also blazing.
"There you are, sir," said Parks, and retreated to the door. "Will
you need me?"
"Not now. But wait in the hall outside. We may need you." I had a
notion to tell him to have an axe handy, but I saw Godfrey smiling.
"Very good, sir," said Parks, evidently relieved, and went out and
closed the door.
I led the way into the inner room.
"Well, there it is," I said, and nodded toward the Boule cabinet,
standing in the full glare of the light, every inlay and incrustation
glittering like the eyes of a basilisk. "It isn't too late to give it
up, Godfrey."
"Oh, yes, it is," he said, coolly, removing his coat "It was too late
the moment you told me that story. Why, Lester, if I gave it up, I
should never sleep again!"
"And if you don't, you may never wake again," I pointed out.
He laughed lightly.
"What a dismal prophet you are! Draw up a chair and watch me."
He pulled back his shirt-sleeves, and placed his electric torch on
the floor beside the cabinet. Then he paused with folded arms to
contemplate this masterpiece of M. Boule.
"It _is_ a beauty," he said, at last, and then drew out the little
drawers, one after another, looked them over, and placed them
carefully on a chair. "Now," he added, "let us see if there is any
space that isn't accounted for."
He took from his pocket a folding rule of ivory, opened it, and began
a series of measurements so searching and intricate that half an hour
passed without a word being spoken. Then he pulled up another chair,
and sat down beside me.
"I seem to be pretty much up against it," he said, "no doubt just as
the designer of the cabinet would wish me to be. The whole bottom of
the desk is inclosed, and those three little drawers take up only a
small part of the space. Then the back of the cabinet seems to be
double--at least, there's a space of three inches I can't account
for. So there's room for a dozen secret drawers, if the Montespan
required so many. And now to find the combination."
He adjusted the steel gauntlet carefully to his right hand and sat
down on the floor before the cabinet.
"I'll begin at the bottom," he said. "If there is any spot I miss,
tell me of it."
He ran his fingers up and down the graceful legs, carefully feeling
every inequality of the elaborate bronze ornamentation. Particularly
did his fingers linger on every boss and point, striving to push it
in or move it up or down; but they were all immovable. Then he
examined the bottom of the table minutely, using his torch to
illumine every crevice; but again without result.
Another half hour passed so, and when at last he came out from under
the table, his face was dripping with sweat.
"It's trying work," he said, sitting down again and mopping his face.
"But isn't it a beauty, Lester? The more I look at it, the more
wonderful it seems."
"I told Philip Vantine I wasn't up to it, and I'm not," I said.
"Nor I, but I can appreciate it to the extent of my capacity. It's
the Louis Fourteenth ideal of beauty--splendour carried to the nth
degree. Look at the arabesques along the front--can you imagine
anything more graceful? And the engraving--nothing cut-and-dried
about that. It was done by a burin in the hands of a master--perhaps
by Boule himself. I don't wonder Vantine was rather mad about it. But
we haven't found that drawer yet," and he drew his chair close to the
cabinet.
"I'd point out one thing to you, Godfrey," I said: "if you go on
poking about with the fingers of both hands, as you've been doing,
you are just as apt to get struck on the left hand as on the right."
"That's true," he agreed. "Stop me if I forget."
There were three little drawers in the front of the table, and these
Godfrey had removed. He inserted his hand into the space from which
he had taken them, and examined it carefully. Then, inch by inch, he
ran his fingers over the bosses and arabesques with which the sides
and top of the table were incrusted. It seemed to me that, if the
secret drawer were anywhere, it must be somewhere in this part of the
cabinet, and I watched him with breathless interest. Once I thought
he had found the drawer, for a piece of inlay at the side of the
table seemed to give a little under the pressure of his fingers; but
no hidden spring was touched; no drawer sprang open; no poisoned
fangs descended.
"Well," said Godfrey, sitting back in his chair at last, and wiping
his face again, "there's so much done. If there is any secret drawer
in the lower part of the cabinet, it is mighty cleverly concealed.
Now we'll try the upper part."
The upper part of the cabinet consisted of a series of drawers,
rising one above the other, and terminated by a triangular pediment,
its tympanum ornamented with some beautiful little bronzes. The
drawers themselves were concealed by two doors, opening in the
centre, and covered with a most intricate design of arabesqued
incrustations.
"If there is a secret drawer here," said Godfrey, "it is somewhere in
the back, where there seems to be a hollow space. But to discover the
combination...."
He ran his fingers over the inlay, and then, struck by a sudden
thought, tested each of the little figures along the tympanum, but
they were all set solidly in place.
"There's one thing sure," he said, "the combination, whatever it is,
is of such a nature that it could not be discovered accidentally--by
a person leaning on the cabinet, for instance. It isn't a question of
merely touching a spring; it is probably a question of releasing a
series of levers, which must be worked in a certain order, or the
drawer won't open. I'm afraid we are up against it."
"I can't pretend I'm sorry," I said, with a sigh of relief. "As far
as I am concerned, I'm perfectly willing that the drawer should go
undiscovered."
"Well, I am not!" retorted Godfrey, curtly, and he sat regarding the
cabinet with puckered brows. Then he rose and began tapping at the
back.
I don't know what it was--for I was conscious of no noise--but some
mysterious attraction drew my eyes to the window at the farther side
of the room. Near the top of the wooden shutter, which Parks and I
had put in place, was a small semi-circular opening, to allow the
passage of a little light, perhaps, and peering through this opening
were two eyes--two burning eyes....
They were fixed upon Godfrey with such feverish intentness that they
did not see my glance, and I lowered my head instantly.
"Godfrey," I said, in a shaking voice, "don't look up; don't move
your head; but there is some one peering through the hole in the
shutter opposite us."
Godfrey did not answer for quite a minute, but kept calmly on with
his examination of the cabinet.
"Did he see you look at him?" he asked, at last.
"No, he was looking at you, with his eyes almost starting out of his
head. I never saw such eyes!"
"Did you see anything of his face?"
"No, the hole is too small. I fancy I saw the fingers of one hand,
which he had thrust through to steady himself."
"How high is the hole?"
"Near the top of the window."
Godfrey came back to his chair a moment later, sat down in it, and
passed his handkerchief slowly over his face. Then he leaned forward,
apparently to examine the legs of the cabinet.
"I saw him," he said. "Or, rather, I saw his eyes. Rather fierce,
aren't they?"
"They're a tiger's eyes," I said, with conviction.
"Well, there is no use going ahead with this while he is out there.
Even if we found the drawer, we'd both be dead an instant later."
"You mean he'd kill us?"
"He would shoot us instantly. Imagine what a sensation that would
make, Lester. Parks hears two pistol shots, rushes in and finds us
lying here dead. Grady would have a convulsion--and we should both
be famous for a few days."
"I'll seek fame in some other way," I said drily. "What are you going
to do about it?"
"We've got to try to capture him; and if we do--well, we shall have
the fame all right! But it's a good deal like trying to pick up a
scorpion--we're pretty sure to get hurt. If that fellow out there is
who I think he is, he's about the most dangerous man on earth."
He went on tapping the surface of the cabinet. As for me, I would
have given anything for another look at those gleaming eyes. They
seemed to be burning into me; hot flashes were shooting up and down
my back.
"Why can't I go out as though I were going after something," I
suggested. "Then Parks and I could charge around the corner and get
him."
"You wouldn't get him, he'd get you. You wouldn't have a chance on
earth. If there is a window upstairs over that one, you might drop
something out on him, or borrow Parks's pistol and shoot him--"
"That would be pretty cowardly, wouldn't it?" I suggested, mildly.
"My dear Lester," Godfrey protested, "when you attack a poisonous
snake, you don't do it with bare hands, do you?"
I couldn't help it--I glanced again at the window....
"He's gone!" I cried.
Godfrey was at the window in two steps.
"Look at that!" he said, "and then tell me he isn't a genius!"
I followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw that, just
opposite the opening in the shutter, a little hole had been cut in
the window-pane.
"That fellow foresees everything," said Godfrey, with enthusiasm. "He
probably cut that hole as soon as it was dark. He must have guessed
we were going to examine the cabinet to-night--and he wanted not only
to see, but to hear. He heard everything we said, Lester!"
"Let's go after him!" I cried, and, without waiting for an answer, I
sprang across the ante-room and snatched open the door which led into
the hall.
Parks and Rogers were sitting on the couch just outside and I never
saw two men more thoroughly frightened.
"For God's sake, Mr. Lester!" gasped Rogers, and stopped, his hand at
his throat.
"Is it Mr. Godfrey?" cried Parks.
"There's a man outside. Got your pistol, Parks?"
"Yes, sir," and he took it from his pocket.
I snatched it from him, opened the front door, leaped the railing,
and stole along the house to the corner.
Then, taking my courage in both hands, I charged around it.
There was no one in sight; but from somewhere near at hand came a
burst of mocking laughter.