“HERE THEY COME.”
“Alfred Atherton and his bunch!” muttered Max, quivering with suppressed
excitement. “They must have changed their plans at the last moment. I
distinctly heard Atherton say to Frost that they would reach here about
three o’clock, and it’s just after two now. Of course, they won’t be
able to tackle the job under the circumstances. When they discover that
the people in the house are astir, they’ll give up the attempt, and
hotfoot it back to the big town--if they don’t blunder into hot water
before they get wise.
“However,” he added to himself, “they won’t find out the state of
affairs until they’ve entered the grounds through that door in the wall
and followed the footpath to this spot. Consequently, if I hide behind
these bushes, I shall be able to see who they are and hear what they
say.”
He glided toward a neighboring clump of bushes, and was about to crouch
down behind them when a pair of great, flashing eyes came into view at
the foot of the drive. In other words, the car which he had heard had
just turned in at the main gates of Meadowview.
For a moment, but only for a moment, Max was completely taken aback,
then the truth dawned on him, and the look of bewilderment vanished from
his face.
“I see the point,” he thought. “This isn’t Atherton, it must be Massey
himself and his womenfolk coming back from the opera. Atherton told
Frost that they would probably arrive about half past twelve, but they
must have had a breakdown. At any rate, they’re an hour and a half
late.”
The waiter was right. Earlier in the evening Mr. and Mrs. Massey and
their two daughters had motored to New York in order to attend the
closing performance at the Metropolitan. They had started back for
Freehold shortly after eleven, but engine trouble had delayed them for
over an hour, and later they had had the bad luck of a blow-out, so that
instead of reaching the house about half past twelve, they had not
arrived until just after two.
The car, which was a closed one, swept up the drive, and halted before
the entrance. The butler and the footman hurried down the steps, and the
latter opened the door of the car. The first to alight was a middle-aged
man in evening dress, who the waiter rightly guessed was Francis Massey.
“Here we are at last!” Max heard him say. “Did you think we were lost?”
“We were beginning to grow anxious, sir,” replied the butler. “James and
I were just discussing whether we ought not to set out in search of you.
Have you had an accident, sir?”
“Nothing but a blow-out and a cranky engine,” was the reply. “Are the
rest of the servants in bed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you and James can follow their example as soon as you’ve locked
up. We don’t want any supper. We’re all tired out, and we’re going
straight to bed.”
While he was speaking, he had assisted his wife and daughters to alight.
As they passed up the steps and into the house, the waiter saw that each
of the three ladies was wearing quantities of jewels in their hair, at
their throats, and on their fingers. Lustrous pearls glowed softly, and
priceless diamonds scintillated.
How the waiter’s eyes sparkled at the sight! He had often heard of the
famous Massey jewels--collected in all parts of the world by the late
Charles P. Massey--but never before had he seen them, and now that he
saw them, he was only too ready to believe that popular rumor had not
exaggerated when it estimated their value at nearly half a million.
“Atherton was right,” he muttered, under his breath. “A prize like that
is worth the risk, even if the risk were ten times greater than it is.”
By this time the Masseys had entered the house, and the butler had
followed them. The footman exchanged a few words with the chauffeur,
then he, too, disappeared, closing and locking the door behind him. The
driver slipped in his clutch--the engine was still running--and a moment
later the car vanished round the end of the house on its way to the
garage at the back.
Max glanced at his watch again, and thoughtfully rubbed his chin.
“This is shaving it pretty closely,” he thought. “Atherton calculated
that everybody would be fast asleep by half past one at latest, but it
will be nearly quarter to three at this rate before they quiet down. And
those fellows will be here at three.”
He shook his head.
“I’m afraid it can’t be done to-night,” his thoughts ran on. “However, I
may as well wait until they show up, and see what happens.”
The front of the house was all in darkness now, but presently lights
appeared in three of the bedroom windows.
“So they’ve gone straight to their rooms, as Massey said,” soliloquized
the waiter, “but surely he’ll lock up the jewels before he turns in.
Atherton said he always did----”
The sentence was left unfinished, for at that moment lights sprang up in
the entrance hall once more, and a little later one of the windows on
the ground floor was illuminated.
Curtains were drawn across the window, but they did not completely cover
it, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Max stole up on the terrace and
cautiously peered through into the room.
Its fittings indicated that it was a combination of library and
study--evidently Massey’s den or office. Books lined the walls, there
was a big flat desk in the center, and a small safe to one side.
At the moment when the lurking waiter peered into the room, Massey was
in the act of opening the door of this safe. On a chair by his side was
a tray, and on this tray lay a pile of leather cases, the appearance of
which proclaimed that they contained the articles of jewelry which had
recently adorned his wife and daughters, and which they must have turned
over to him to lock up in the safe.
It goes without saying that the jewels were not kept permanently in this
safe. They were stored, as a rule, in the safe-deposit vaults connected
with Massey’s bank in New York. They had been brought from the bank that
afternoon, however, in order that Mrs. Massey and her daughters might
wear them at the opera, and doubtless they would be taken to the bank
the next day.
In the meantime, for one night only, they were to repose in the safe at
Meadowview. Plainly, that situation was the one for which Atherton had
been waiting, and of which he had received advance information, thanks
to his wife and intimate acquaintance with wealth and aristocracy.
Little dreaming that two keen eyes were watching his every movement,
Massey placed the cases in the safe, closed the door, scattered the
combination, and left the room after switching off the lights.
A few moments later the light in the entrance hall went out, then, one
by one, the bedroom lights were extinguished, and the stately house
wrapped itself in darkness and silence.
Max had returned to his chosen hiding place in the bushes, and crouched
down there. Now, turning his back to the house, he pressed the button of
his flash light and turned the white rays on the face of his watch for a
moment.
“Twenty minutes to three,” he mused. “Perhaps, after all, they may be
asleep by three o’clock. Anyhow, it’s Atherton’s risk, not mine. I think
I’ll go and post myself where I can see them when they arrive.”
He retraced his steps along the footpath, until he came to the door
which opened into the lane.
As already mentioned, there were many trees at that point, and one of
them stood a couple of yards to the right of the door, and quite close
to the wall.
“What is the matter with taking a reserve seat up there,” Max muttered.
“I shall then be able to see in the road without going outside the wall,
and without being seen myself.”
He climbed the tree, and flattened himself along one of the lower
branches, from which point of vantage he could command a view not only
of the road, but of the footpath through the trees.
Ten minutes passed, then a faint, pulsating sound, like the purring of
some gigantic cat fell on his ears.
“Here they come!” he told himself. “They’ve evidently got a first-class
silencer on their car, and ten to one they’re driving without lights.”