The Man Who Couldn't Sleep Read online

  CHAPTER III

  THE STOLEN WHEEL-CODE

  I was in for a night of it. I realized that as I lay back in my biggreen library-chair and closed my eyes. For somewhere just in front ofthose tightly closed lids of mine I could still see a briskly revolvingsort of pin-wheel, glowing like a milk-white orange against a murkyviolet fog that paled and darkened with every beat of my pulse.

  I knew the symptoms only two well. The entire encampment ofConsciousness was feverishly awake, was alert, was on the _qui-vive_.That pulsing white pin-wheel was purely a personal matter between meand my imagination. It was something distinctly my own. It was _Me_.And being essentially subjective, it could be neither banished norcontrolled.

  So I decided to make for the open. To think of a four-poster, in anysuch era of intensified wakefulness, would be a mockery. For I was thearena of that morbid wakefulness which brought with it an over-crowdedmental consciousness of existence far beyond my own physical vision, asthough I had been appointed night-watchman for the whole round world,with a searching eye on all its multitudinous activities andaberrations. I seemed able to catch its breathing as it slept itscosmic sleep. I seemed to brood with lunar aloofness above its teemingplains, depressed by its enormous dimensions, confused by itsincomprehensible tangle and clutter of criss-cross destinies. Itsuncountable midnight voices seemed to merge into a vague sigh, sopensively remote, so inexpressibly tragic, that when I stood in mydoorway and caught the sound of a harebrained young Romeo go whistlingdown past the Players' Club his shrill re-piping of a Broadwayroof-song seemed more than discordant; it seemed desecration. The foolwas happy, when the whole world was sitting with its fists clenched,awaiting some undefined doom.

  It was long past midnight, I remembered as I closed the door. For itmust have been, an hour and more since I had looked out and seen thetwelve ruby flashes from the topmost peak of the Metropolitan Towersignaling its dolorous message that another day had gone. I hadwatched those twelve winks with a sinking heart, finding somethingsardonic in their brisk levity, for I had been reminded by a telltaleneurasthenic twitching of my right eyelid that some angling Satan knownas Insomnia was once more tugging and jerking at my soul, as a fly-hooktugs and jerks at a trout's mouth.

  I knew, even as I wandered drearily off from my house-door and paced asdrearily round and round the iron-fence park enclosure, that I wasdestined for another sleepless night. And I had no intention ofpassing it cooped up between four walls. I had tried that before, andin that way, I remembered, madness lay.

  So I wandered restlessly on through the deserted streets, with noactive thought of destination and no immediate sense of direction. AllI remembered was that the city lay about me, bathed in a night ofexceptional mildness, a night that should have left it beautiful. Butit lay about me, in its stillness, as dead and flat and stale as atumbler of tepid wine.

  I flung myself wearily down on a bench in Madison Square, facing theslowly spurting fountain that had so often seemed to me a sort ofvisible pulse of the sleeping city. I sat peering idly up at theFlatiron Building, where like an eternal plowshare it threw its eternalcross furrows of Fifth Avenue and Broadway along the city's tangledstubble of steel and stone. Then I peered at the sleepers all aboutme, the happy sleepers huddled and sprawled along the park benches. Ienvied them, every mortal of that ragged and homeless army! I almosthated them. For they were drinking deep of the one thing I had beendenied.

  As I lounged there with my hat pulled down over my eyes, I listened tothe soothing purr and splash of the ever-pulsing fountain. Then I letmy gaze wander disconsolately southward, out past the bronze statue ofSeward. I watched the driver of a Twenty-third Street taxicab of the"night-hawk" variety asleep on his seat. He sat there in his faded hatand coat, as motionless as metal, as though he had loomed there throughall the ages, like a brazen statue of Slumber under his mellowing_patina_ of time.

  Then, as I gazed idly northward, I suddenly forgot the fountain and thenight-hawk chauffeur and the sleepers. For out of Fifth Avenue, pastwhere the double row of electric globes swung down the gentle slope ofMurray Hill like a double pearl-strand down a woman's breast, I caughtsight of a figure turning quietly into the quietness of the square. Itattracted and held my eye because it seemed the only movement in thatplace of utter stillness, where even the verdigris-tinted trees stoodas motionless as though they had been cut from plates of copper.

  I watched the figure as it drew nearer and nearer. The lonely midnightseemed to convert the casual stroller into an emissary of mystery, intosomething compelling and momentous. I sat indolently back on my parkbench, peering at him as he drifted in under the milk-white arc lampswhose scattered globes were so like a scurry of bubbles caught in thetree branches.

  I watched the stranger as closely as a traveler in mid-ocean watchesthe approach of a lonely steamer. I did not move as he stood for amoment beside the fountain. I gave no sign of life as he looked slowlyabout, hesitated, and then crossed over to the end of the very bench onwhich I sat. There was something military-like about the slim youngfigure in its untimely and incongruous cape overcoat. There was alsosomething alert and guardedly observant in the man's movements as hesettled himself back in the bench. He sat there listening to the purrand splash of the water. Then, in an incredibly short space of time,he was fast asleep.

  I still sat beside him. I was still idly pondering who and what thenewcomer could be, when another movement attracted my attention. Itwas the almost silent approach of a second and larger figure, thefigure of a wide-shouldered man in navy blue serge, passing quietly inbetween the double line of bench sleepers. He circled once about thegranite-bowled ring of the fountain. Then he dropped diffidently intothe seat next to the man in the cape overcoat, not five feet from whereI sat.

  Something about him, from the moment he took up that position,challenged my attention. I watched him from under my hat-brim as helooked guardedly about. I did not move as he let his covert eyes dwellfor a moment or two on my lounging figure. I still watched him as hebent forward and listened to the deep breathing of the man so closebeside him.

  Then I saw a hand creep out from his side. There was something quickand reptilious in its movements. I saw it feel and pad about thesleeping man's breast. Then I saw it slip, snake-like, in under thecloth of the coat.

  It moved about there, for a second or two, as though busily exploringthe recess of every possible pocket.

  Then I saw the stealthy hand quietly but quickly withdrawn. As it cameaway it brought with it a packet that flashed white in the lamplight,plainly a packet of papers. This was thrust hurriedly down into thecoat pocket of the newcomer next to me. There was not a sound. Therewas no more movement.

  The wide-shouldered man sat there for what must have been a full minuteof time. Then he rose quietly to his feet and started as quietly away.

  It wasn't until then that the full reality of what he had done camehome to me. He had deliberately robbed a sleeping and unprotected man.He was at that moment actually carrying away the spoils of somepredetermined and audacious theft. And I had sat calmly andunprotestingly by and watched a thief, a professional "dip," enact acrime under my very eyes, within five feet of me!

  In three quick steps I had crossed to the sleeping man's side and wasshaking him. I still kept my eyes on the slowly retreating figure ofthe thief as he made his apparently diffident way up through thesquare. I had often heard of those street harpies known as"lush-dips," those professional pickpockets who prey on the waysideinebriate. But never before had I seen one at work.

  "Quick! Wake up!" I cried, with a desperate shake at the sleeper'sshoulder. "You've been robbed!"

  The next move of that little midnight drama was an unexpected andstartling one. Instead of being confronted by the disputatiousmaunderings of a half-wakened sleeper, as I expected, I was suddenlyand firmly caught by the arm and jerked bodily into the seat beside him.

  "You've been robbed!" I repeated, as I felt that
firm grip haul meseatward.

  "Shut up!" said a calm and very wide-awake voice, quite close to myear. I struggled to tear my arm away from the hand that still clung toit.

  "But you've been _robbed_!" I expostulated. I noticed that his owngaze was already directed northward, toward where the blue-clad figurestill moved aimlessly on under the arc lamps.

  "How do you know that?" he demanded. I was struck by his resolute andrather authoritative voice.

  "Why, I saw it with my own eyes! And there goes the man who did it!" Itold him, pointing northward.

  He jerked down my hand and swung around on me.

  "Watch that man!" he said, almost fiercely. "But for heaven's sake_keep still_!"

  "What does this mean?" I naturally demanded.

  He swept me with one quick glance. Yet he looked more at my clothes, Ifancy, than at my face. My tailor seemed to be quite satisfactory tohim.

  "Who are you?" he asked. I took my time in answering, for I wasbeginning to resent his repeated note of superiority.

  "My name, if that's what you mean, happens to be the uneuphonious buthighly respectable one of Kerfoot--Witter Kerfoot."

  "No, no," he said with quick impatience. "_What_ are you?"

  "I'm nothing much, except a member of a rather respectable club, and aman who doesn't sleep overly well."

  His eyes were still keenly watching the slowly departing figure. Myflippancy seemed to have been lost on him. His muscular young handsuddenly tightened on my sleeve.

  "By God, sir, you _can_ help me!" he cried, under his breath. "Youmust! I've a right to call on you, as a decent citizen, as--"

  "Who are you?" I interrupted, quite myself by this time.

  "I'm Lieutenant Palmer," he absently admitted, all the while eying themoving figure.

  "And I've got to get that man, or it'll cost me a court-martial. I've_got_ to get him. Wait! Sit back here without moving. Now watch whathe does!"

  I saw the thief drop into an empty bench, glance, down at histime-piece, look carelessly about, and then, lean back with his legscrossed. Nothing more happened.

  "Well," I inquired, "what's the game?"

  "It's no game," he retorted, in his quick and decisive tones. "It'sdamn near a tragedy. But now I've found him! I've placed him! And_that's_ the man I'm after!"

  "I don't doubt it," I languidly admitted. "But am I to assume thatthis little bench scene was a sort of, well, a sort of carefullystudied out trap?"

  "It was the only way I could clinch the thing," he admitted.

  "Clinch what?" I asked, conscious of his hesitation.

  "Oh, you've got to know," he finally conceded, "now you've seen thismuch! And I know you're--you're the right sort. I can't tell youeverything. But I'm off the _Connecticut_. She's the flagship of ourAtlantic fleet's first division, the flagship of Rear-Admiral Shrodder.I was sent to confer with Admiral Maddox, the commandant of the NavyYard. Then I was to communicate with Rear-Admiral Kellner, thesupervisor of Naval Auxiliaries. It was in connection with the navy'snew Emergency Wheel-Code. I can't explain it to you; there's a lot ofnavy-department data I can't go into. But I was ashore here in NewYork with a list of the new wireless code signals."

  "And you let them get away?"

  "There was no letting about it. They were stolen from me, stolen insome mysterious way I can't understand. I've only one clue. I'd dinedat the Plaza. Then I'd gone to the ballroom and sat through theamateur theatricals for the French Hospital. I'd been carrying thecode forms and they'd been worrying me. So I 'split the wheel,' as wesay in the service. I mean I'd divided 'em and left one half locked upat my hotel while I still carried the other half. Each part, I knew,would be useless without the other. How or when they got the half Iwas carrying I can't tell, for the life of me. I remember dancing twoor three times in the ballroom after the theatricals. But it couldn'thave been any of those women. They weren't that sort."

  "Then who was it?" For the first time a sense of his boyishness hadcrept over me.

  "That's just it; I don't know. But I kept feeling that I was beingshadowed. I was almost positive I was being trailed. They would beafter the second half, I felt. So I made a dummy, and loafed about allday waiting for a sign. I kept it up until to-night. Then, when Iactually found I was being followed, every move I made, I--"

  His voice trailed off and he caught at my arm again.

  "See, he's on the move again! He's going, this time. And _that's_ theman! I want you to help me watch him, watch every step and trick. Andif there's a second man, I'm going to get you to follow him, while Istick to this one. It's not altogether for myself, remember; it's morefor the whole Service!"

  We were on our feet by this time, passing northward along the asphaltedwalks that wound in and out between the trees.

  "You mean this man's a sort of agent, a foreign spy, after your navalsecrets?" I asked, as we watched the figure in blue circle casually outtoward Fifth Avenue.

  "That's what I've got to find out. And I'm going to do it, if I haveto follow him to hell and back!" was the young officer's answer. Thenhe suddenly drew up, with a whispered warning.

  "You'd better go west, toward Broadway. Then walk north into FifthAvenue again, toward Brentano's corner. I'll swing up Madison Avenueon the opposite side of him, and walk west on Twenty-sixth Street.Don't speak to me as we pass. But watch him, every moment. And ifthere's a second man, follow him!"

  A moment later I was sauntering westward toward the old Hoffman Housecorner. As I approached the avenue curb I saw the unperturbed figurein blue stop beside the Farragut Monument on the northwest fringe ofMadison Square. I saw him take out a cigar, slowly and deliberatedstrike a match on the stonework of the exedra, and then as slowly anddeliberately light his cigar.

  I felt, as I saw it, that it was some sort of a signal. This suspiciongrew stronger, when, a moment later, I saw a woman step out of anear-by doorway. She wore a plumed Gainsborough hat and acream-colored gown. Over her slender young shoulders, I further madeout, hung an opera cloak of delicate lacework.

  She stood for a moment at the carriage step, as though awaiting a caror taxi. Then she quickly crossed the avenue and, turning north,passed the waiting man in blue. She passed him without a spoken word.

  But as the cream-colored figure drifted nonchalantly by thebroad-shouldered man I caught a fleeting glimpse of something passingbetween them, a hint of one hand catching a white packet from another.It was a hint, and nothing more. But it was enough.

  My first impulse, as I saw that movement, was to circle quickly aboutand warn Palmer of what had taken place. A moment's thought, however,showed me the danger of this. And the young lieutenant, I could see,had already changed his course, so that his path southward through thecenter of the square paralleled that of the other man now walking morebriskly along the avenue curb.

  He had clearly stated that I was to watch any confederate. I had nointention to quibble over side-issues. As I started northward, indeed,after that mysterious figure in the Gainsborough hat and thecream-colored gown, a most pleasurable and purposeful tingle ofexcitement thrilled up and down my backbone.

  I shadowed her as guardedly as I was able, following her block by blockas she hurried up the empty thoroughfare that was now as quiet andlonely as a glacial moraine. My one fear was that she would reach theWaldorf, or some equally complex beehive of human life, before I couldovertake her. Once there, I knew, she would be as completely lost as aneedle in a haystack.

  She may have suspected me by this time, I felt, for twice I saw herlook back over her shoulder.

  Then I suddenly stopped and ducked into a doorway. For a moment afterI saw a taxicab come clattering into the avenue out of Thirty-thirdStreet I discovered that, at her repeated gesture, it was pulling upbeside the curb.

  I stood well back in the shadow until she had climbed into the seat,the door had slammed shut, and the driver had turned his vehicle aboutand started northward again. Then I
skirted along the shop fronts,darted across the street, and made straight for the hotel cabstand anda taxi driver drowsily exhaling cigarette smoke up toward the tepidmidnight skies. The bill I thrust into his hand took all the sleep outof his body and ended the incense to the morning stars.

  "Up the avenue," I said as I clambered in. "And follow that taxicabtwo blocks behind until it turns, and then run up on it and wait."

  It turned at Forty-second Street and went eastward to Lexington Avenue.Then, doubling on its tracks, it swung southward again. We let itclatter on well ahead of us. But as it turned suddenly westward, atthe corner of Twenty-third Street, we broke the speed laws to draw oncemore up to it. Then, as we crossed Twenty-third Street, I told thedriver to keep on southward toward Gramercy Square. For I had caughtsight of the other taxi already drawn up at the curb half-way betweenLexington and Fourth Avenues.

  A moment after we jolted across the car tracks I slipped away from mycab and ran back to the cross-street on foot. As I reached the cornerI caught sight of a figure in a cream-colored gown cross the sidewalkand step quickly into the doorway of a shabby four-storied building.

  I had no time to study this building. It might have been an antiquatedresidence turned into a cluster of artist's studios, or a third-ratedomicile of third-rate business firms. My one important discovery wasthat the door opened as I turned the knob and that I was able quietlyand quickly to step into the dark hallway.

  I stood there in the gloom, listening intently. I could hear the lightand hurried click of shoe heels on the bare tread-boards of the stairs.I waited and listened and carefully counted these clicks. I knew, as Idid so, that the woman had climbed to the top floor.

  Then I heard the chink of metal, the sound of a key thrust into a lock,and then the cautious closing of a door. Then I found myselfsurrounded by nothing but darkness and silence again.

  I stood there in deep thought for a minute or two. Then I groped myway cautiously to the foot of the stairs, found the heavy old-fashionedbalustrade, and slowly and silently climbed the stairway.

  I did not stop until I found myself on the top floor of that quiet andmany-odored building. I paused there, at a standstill, peering throughthe darkness that surrounded me.

  My search was rewarded by the discovery of one thin streak of yellowlight along what must have been the bottom of a closed door. Justbeyond that door, I felt, my pursuit was to come to an end.

  I groped my way to the wall and tiptoed quietly forward. When I cameto the door, I let my hand close noiselessly about the knob. Then,cushioning it with a firm grasp, I turned it slowly, inch by inch.

  The door, I found, was locked. But inside the room I could still hearthe occasional click of shoe heels and the indeterminate noises of anoccupant moving quietly yet hurriedly about.

  I stood there, puzzled, depressed by my first feeling of frustration.Then I made out the vague oblong of what must have been a window in therear of a narrow hall. I tiptoed back to this window, in the hope thatit might lead to something. I found, to my disappointment, that it wasbarred with half-inch iron rods. And this meant a second defeat.

  As I tested these rods I came on one that was not so secure as theothers. One quiet and steady wrench brought an end-screw bodily out ofthe half-rotted wood. Another patient twist or two entirely freed theother end.

  I found myself armed with a four-foot bar, sharpened wedge-like at eachend for its screw head. So I made my way silently back to the pencilof yellow light and the locked door above it. I stood there listeningfor a minute or two. All I could hear was the running of tap water andthe occasional rustling of a paper. So I quietly forced the edge of myrod in between the door and its jamb, and as quietly levered the endoutward.

  Something had to give under that strain. I was woefully afraid that itwould be the lock bar itself. This I knew would go with a snap, andpromptly betray my movement. But as I increased the pressure I couldsee that it was the socket screws that were slowly yielding in the pinewood jamb.

  I stopped and waited for some obliterating noise before venturing thelast thrust that would send the bolt free of the loosening socket. Itcame with the sudden sound of steps and the turning off of the runningtap. The door had been forced open and stood an inch or two from thejamb before the steps sounded again.

  I waited, with my heart in my mouth, wondering if anything had beenoverheard, if anything had been discovered. It was only then, too,that the enormity of my offense came home to me. I was ahouse-breaker. I was playing the part of a midnight burglar. I wasfacing a situation in which I had no immediate interest. I was beingconfronted by perils I had no means of comprehending. But I intendedto get inside that room, no matter what it cost.

  I heard, as I stood there, the sound of a drawer being opened andclosed. Then came a heel-click or two on the wooden floor, and then animpatient and quite audible sigh. There was no mistaking that sigh.It was as freighted with femininity as though I had heard a woman'svoice. And nothing was to be gained by waiting. So I first leaned myiron rod silently against the door corner. Then, taking a deep breath,I stepped quickly and noiselessly into the lighted room.

  I stood there, close beside the partly opened door, blinking a littleat the sudden glare of light. There was an appreciable interval beforethe details of the scene could register themselves on my mind.

  What I saw was a large and plainly furnished room. Across one cornerstood a rolltop desk, and from the top of this I caught the glimmer ofa telephone transmitter. In the rear wall stood two old-fashioned,low-silled windows. Against this wall, and between these two windows,stood a black iron safe.

  Before the open door of this safe, with her back turned to me, was thewoman in the cream-colored gown. It was quite plain that she was notyet aware of my presence.

  She had thrown her hat and cape aside, and was at the moment bendinglow over the dark maw of the opened safe, reaching into its recesseswith one white and rounded arm. I stood there watching her, wonderingwhat move would be most effective. I made no sound; of that I wascertain. Yet some sixth sense must have warned her of my presence.For without rhyme or reason she suddenly stood erect, and swingingabout in her tracks, confronted me.

  Her face, which had been a little flushed from stooping, went white.She stared at me without speaking, her eyes wide with terrified wonder.I could see her lips slowly part, as the shock of what she beheld beganto relax the jaw muscles along the olive-white cheek.

  I stared back at her with a singularly disengaged mind. I felt, infact, very much at my ease, very much the master of the situation. Asan opponent, I could see, she would be more than mysterious. Shewould, in fact, be extremely interesting.

  Her next move, however, threw a new complexion on the situation. Forshe unexpectedly let her hand dart out to the wall beside her, justbehind the safe top. As she did so, I could hear the snap of a switchbutton; the next moment the light went out. It left the room inimpenetrable darkness.

  I stood there, unprepared for any offensive or defensive movement. Yetmy enemy, I knew, was not idle. As I stood peering unavailinglythrough the gloom I could hear the quick thud of the safe door beingshut. Then came the distinct sound of a heavy key being thrust andturned in a metal lock--the safe, obviously, was of the old-fashionedkey-tumbler make--and then the noise of this key being withdrawn. Thencame a click or two of shoe heels, a rustle of clothing, and a momentlater the startlingly sharp shattering of a window-pane.

  The woman had deliberately locked the safe and flung the key throughthe window! She had stolen a march on me. She had defeated me in thefirst movement of our encounter. My hesitation had been a mistake, acostly mistake.

  "Be so good as to turn on that light!" I commanded.

  Not a sound came from the darkness.

  "Turn on that light," I cried. "Turn on that light or I'll fire! I'llrake every foot of this room!" And with that I gave a very significantdouble click to my cigarette case spring.

  The light c
ame on again, as suddenly as it went out. I discreetlypocketed my cigarette case.

  The woman was standing beside the safe, as before, studying me with herwide and challenging eyes. But all this time not a word had come fromher lips.

  "Sit down!" I commanded, as authoritatively and yet as offhandedly as Icould. It was then that she spoke for the first time.

  "Thank you, I prefer to stand!" was her answer. She spoke calmly anddistinctly and almost without accent. Yet I felt the voice was, insome way, a foreign one. Some vague substratum of the exotic in thecarefully enunciated tones made me surmise that she was either anAustrian or a Gallicized Hungarian, or if not that, possibly a Polishwoman.

  "You will be here for some time," I hinted.

  "And you?" she asked. I noticed an almost imperceptible shrug of hersoftly rounded shoulder. Rice powder, I imagined, somewhat increasedits general effect of dead-whiteness.

  "I'll be here until that safe is opened," was my retort.

  "That long?" she mocked.

  "That long!" I repeated, exasperated at her slow smile.

  "Ah, then I shall sit down," she murmured as she caught up the lacecape and adjusted it about her shoulders. "For, believe me, that willbe a very, very long time, monsieur!"

  I watched her carefully as she crossed the room and sank into a chair.She drew her cream-colored train across her knees with frugal andstudious deliberateness.

  It suddenly flashed over me, as I watched her, that her ruse might havebeen a double-barreled one. Obliquity such as hers would have unseenconvolutions. It was not the key to the safe she had flung through thewindow! She would never have been so foolish. It was a trick, asubterfuge. She still had that key somewhere about her.

  "And now what must I do?" she asked as she drew the cloak closer abouther shoulders.

  "You can hand me over the key to that safe," was my answer.

  She could actually afford to laugh a little.

  "That is quite impossible!"

  "I want that key!" I insisted.

  "_Pardon_, but is this not--dangerous?" she mildly inquired. "Is itnot so, to break into houses at midnight, and rob women?"

  It was my turn to laugh.

  "Not a bit of it," I calmly assured her. "And you can judge if I'mfrightened or not. There's something much more dangerous than _that_!"

  She was again studying me with her puzzled and ever-narrowing eyes.

  "Which means?" she prompted.

  "Well, for example, the theft of government naval codes, among otherthings."

  "You are very, very drunk," she retorted with her quietly scoffingsmile. "Or you are insane, quite insane. May I not lock my jewels inmy own safe? Ah, I begin to see--this is a trick, that you may stealfrom me!"

  "Then why not send for the police?" I challenged, pointing toward thetelephone.

  A look of guile crept into her studious eyes.

  "You will permit that?" she asked.

  "I invite it," was my answer.

  "Then I shall call for help."

  "Only from the police."

  "Yes; I shall call for help," she repeated, crossing to the telephone.

  I leaned forward as she stood in front of it. I caught her bare arm,in my left hand, just below the elbow. As I drew it backward itbrought her body against mine, pinning her other arm down close againstmy side.

  The thing was repugnant to me, but it was necessary. As I pinioned herthere, writhing and panting, I deliberately thrust my right hand intothe open bosom of her gown. I was dimly conscious of a faint aura ofperfume, of a sense of warmth behind the soft and lace-fringed_corsage_. But it was the key itself that redeemed the rude assaultand brought a gasp of relief to my lips--the huge brass key, as big asan egg beater.

  "_Lache!_" I heard gasped into my ear.

  The woman staggered to a chair, white to the lips; and for a moment ortwo I thought she was going to faint.

  "Oh, you _dog_!" she gasped, as she sat there panting and staring at mewith blazing eyes. "_Cochon_! Cur!"

  But I paid little heed to her, for the wine of victory was alreadycoursing and tingling through my veins.

  "You know, you can still call the police," I told her as I faced theheavy black door of the safe. One turn of the wrist, I knew, wouldbring me face to face with my prize.

  A sudden movement from the woman, as I stooped over the safe door,brought me round in a flash. She was on her feet and half-way acrossthe room before I could intercept her. And I was not any too gentle,I'm afraid, for the excitement of the thing had gone to my head.

  That earlier assault at my hands seemed to have intimidated her. Icould see actual terror in her eyes as I forced her back against thewall. She must have realized her helplessness. She stared up into myface, bewildered, desperate. There was something supple andpanther-like about her, something alluring and yet disturbing. I couldsee what an effective weapon that sheer physical beauty of hers mightbe, once its tigerish menace had been fully sheathed.

  "Wait!" she cried, catching at my arm. "If there is anything you wantI will give it to you."

  "There are several things I want," was my uncompromising answer.

  "But why should you want them?" she asked, still clinging to my arm.

  "It's my duty to take them," I replied, unconscious of any mendacity."That's what I'm sent here for! That's why I've watched the man whogave you the packet!"

  "What packet?"

  "The packet you took in Madison Square an hour ago; the packet youlocked in this safe! And if you like I'll tell you just what thatpacket is!"

  "This is some mistake, some very sad mistake," she had the effronteryto declare. Her arm still clung to me. Her face was very close tomine as she went on. "I can explain everything, if you will only giveme the time--everything! I can show you where you are wrong, and howyou may suffer through a mistake like this!"

  "We can talk all that over later," I promptly told her, for I wasbeginning to suspect that her object now was merely to kill time, tokeep me there, in the hope of some chance discovery. I peered aboutthe room, wondering what would be the quickest way out of my dilemma.

  "What are you going to do?" she asked as she watched me shove a chairover against the wall, directly beside the safe.

  "I'm going to seat you very comfortably in this very comfortablechair," I informed her, "and in this equally comfortable cornerdirectly behind the safe door. And at the first trick or sign oftrouble, I'm afraid I'm going to make a hole right through one of thosenice white shoulders of yours!"

  She sat down without being forced into the chair. Her alert andever-moving eyes blazed luminously from her dead-white face. I knew,as I thrust the huge key in the safe lock and turned it back that shewould have to be watched, and watched every moment of the time.

  I had already counted on the safe door, as it swung back, making abarrier across the corner in which she sat. This I found to be thecase. I took a second precaution, however, by shoving a tiltedchair-back firmly in under the edge of the safe lock.

  I knew, as I stooped before the open strong box, that she could make nosudden move without my being conscious of it. I also knew that timewas precious. So I reached into the depths of the almost empty safeand lifted out a number of papers neatly held together by a rubber band.

  These I placed on the safe top. Then I snapped off the band andexamined the first document. On the back of it, neatly inscribed inFrench, was the eminently satisfactory legend: "Plans andSpecifications; Bs. Lake Torpedo Company, Bridgeport." The next packetwas a blue print of war projectiles, and on the back of it was written:"Model Tracings, through Jenner, from the Bliss & CompanyWorks--18--Self-Projectors."

  The third packet carried no inscription. But as I opened it I saw at aglance what it was. I knew in a moment that I held before me thegovernmental wheel-code of wireless signals in active service. It wasthe code that had been stolen from Lieutenant Palmer. The fourth andlast paper, I found, was plainly the dummy which had been take
n fromthe same officer that night in Madison Square. The case was complete.The chase was over and done.

  "In the cash drawer, on the right, you will find more," quietlyremarked the young woman watching me from the side of the safe.

  "It's locked," I said, as I tugged at the drawer knob. I stood erectat her sudden laugh.

  "Why not take everything?" she asked, with her scoffing smile.

  And I saw no reason why I shouldn't; though a suspicion crossed my mindthat this might be still another ruse to kill time. If such it was, Ifaced it at once, for I sent my boot heel promptly in against thewooden cash drawer, smashing it at one blow.

  She had been mistaken, or had deliberately lied, for the drawer wasempty. And I told her so, with considerable heat.

  "Ah, we all make mistakes, I think," she murmured with her enigmaticshrug.

  "What I want to know," I said as I banded the four papers together andthrust them down in my pocket, "is just how you got that first codefrom my young friend the lieutenant?"

  She smiled again, a little wearily, as I swung the safe door shut andlocked it. She did not rise from the chair. But as I stoodconfronting her, something in my attitude, apparently, struck her asdistinctly humorous. For she broke into a sudden and deeper ripple oflaughter. There was, however, something icy and chilling in it. Hereyes now seemed more veiled. They had lost their earlier look ofterror. Her face seemed to have relaxed into softer contours.

  "Would you like to know?" she said, lifting her face and looking withthat older, half-mocking glance into my own. She was speaking slowlyand deliberately, and I could see the slight shrug she gave to onepanther-like shoulder. "Would _I_ be so out of place in a ballroom?Ah, have not more things than hearts been lost when a man dances with awoman?"

  "I see--you mean you stole it, at the Plaza?"

  "Not at all, monsieur!" she murmured languidly back. Then she drew adeeper breath, and sat more rigid in her straight-back chair.

  Something about her face, at that moment, puzzled me. It seemed tohold some latent note of confidence. The last trace of fear had fledfrom it. There was something strangely like triumph, muffled triumph,in it.

  An arrow of apprehension shot through me, as I stooped peering into hershadowy eyes. It went through my entire body, sharp as an electricshock. It brought me wheeling suddenly about with my back to her andmy face to the open room.

  Then I understood. I saw through it all, in one tingling second. Forthere, facing me, stood the figure of a man in navy blue. It was thesame figure that I had followed through the square.

  But now there was nothing secretive or circuitous about his attitude.It was quite the other way; for as he stood there he held ablue-barreled revolver in his hand. And I could see, only too plainly,that it was leveled directly at me. The woman's ruse had worked. Ihad wasted too much time. The confederate for whom she was plainlywaiting had come to her rescue.

  The man took three or four steps farther into the room. His revolverwas still covering me. I heard a little gasp from the woman as sherose to her feet. I took it for a gasp of astonishment.

  "You are going to kill him?" she cried in German.

  "Haven't I got to?" asked back the man. He spoke in English andwithout an accent. "Don't you understand _he's a safe-breaker_? He'sbroken into this house? So! He's caught in the act--he's shot inself-defense!"

  I watched the gun barrel. The man's calm words seemed to horrify thewoman at my side. But there was not a trace of pity in her voice asshe spoke again.

  "Wait!" she cried.

  "Why?" asked the man with the gun.

  "He has everything--the code, the plans, everything."

  "Get them!" commanded the man.

  "But he's armed," she explained.

  A sneer crossed the other's impassive face.

  "What if he is? Take his gun; take everything!"

  The woman stepped close to where I stood. Again I came within theradius of her perfumes. I could even feel her breath on my face. Hermovements were more than ever panther-like as she went through mypockets, one by one. Yet her flashing and dextrous hands found norevolver, for the simple reason there was none to find. This puzzledand worried her.

  "Hurry up!" commanded the man covering me.

  She stepped back and to one side, with the packet in her hand.

  "Now close the windows!" ordered the man.

  My heart went down in my boots as I heard the thud of that secondclosed window. There was going to be no waste of time.

  I thought of catching the woman and holding her shield-like before me.I thought of the telephone; the light-switch; the window. But they allseemed hopeless.

  The woman turned away, holding her hands over her ears. Theincongruous thought flashed through me that two hours before I hadcalled the city flat and stale; and here, within a rifle shot of my owndoor, I was standing face to face with death itself!

  "Look here," I cried, much as I hated to, "what do you get out of this?"

  "_You!_" said the man.

  "And what good will that do?"

  "It'll probably shut your mouth, for one thing!"

  "But there are other mouths," I cried. "And I'm afraid they'll have agreat deal to say."

  "I'm ready for them!" was his answer.

  I could see his arm raise a little, and straighten out as it raised.The gun barrel was nothing but a black "O" at the end of my line ofvision. I felt my heart stop, for I surmised what the movement meant.

  Then I laughed outright, aloud, and altogether foolishly andhysterically.

  The strain had been too much for me, and the snap of the release hadcome too suddenly, too unexpectedly. I could see the man with the gunblink perplexedly, for a second or two, and then I could see thetightening of his thin-lipped mouth. But that was not all I had seen.

  For through the half-closed door I had caught sight of the slowlyraised iron rod, the very rod I had wrenched from the outer hallwindow. I had seen its descent at the moment I realized the finalityin those quickly tightening lips.

  It struck the arm on its downward sweep. But it was not in time tostop the discharge of the revolver. The report thundered through theroom as the bullet ripped and splintered into the pine of the floor.At the same moment the discharged firearm went spinning across theroom, and as the man who held it went down with the blow, young Palmerhimself swung toward me through the drifting smoke.

  As he did so, I turned to the woman with her hands still pressed to herears. With one fierce jerk I tore the rubber-banded packet of papersfrom her clutch.

  "But the code?" gasped Palmer, as he tugged crazily at the safe door.

  I did not answer him, for a sudden movement from the woman arrested myattention. She had stooped and caught up the fallen revolver. The manin blue, rolling over on his hip, was drawing a second gun from hispocket.

  "Quick!" I called to Palmer as I swung him by the armpit and sent himcatapulting out through the smoke to the open door. "Quick--and ducklow!"

  The shots came together as we stumbled against the stairhead.

  "Quick!" I repeated, as I pulled him after me.

  "But the code?" he cried.

  "I've got it!" I called out to him as we went panting and plunging downthrough that three-tiered well of darkness to the street and liberty."I've got it--I've got everything!"