e shrugged his shoulders, and, going over to
the safe, knelt down in front of it--meanwhile, as well begin here as
anywhere else.

The trained fingers closed on the handle--and on the instant, as though
in startled amazement, shifted to the dial. They came back to the
handle--a wrench--then a low, amused chuckle--and the door swung open.
The great, unwieldy thing was only a monumental bluff! It not only had
not been locked, but it COULD NOT be locked--the mechanism was out of
order, the bolts could not be moved by so much as a hair's breadth!

Still chuckling, Jimmie Dale shot the flashlight's ray into the interior
of the safe--and the chuckle died on his lips, and into his face came a
look of strained bewilderment. Inside, everything was in chaos,
books, papers, a miscellany of articles, as though they had first been
ruthlessly pulled out on the floor, then gathered up in an armful and
crammed back inside again. For an instant he did not move, and then a
queer, hard, mirthless smile drew down the corners of his mouth. With a
sort of bitter, expectant nod of his head, he turned the light upon the
door of the safe. Yes, there were the scratches that the tools had left;
and, as though in sardonic jest, the holes, where the steel bit had
bored, were plugged with putty and rubbed over with some black substance
that was still wet and came off, smearing his finger, as he touched it.
It could not have been done long ago, then! How long? A half hour--an
hour? Not more than that!

Mechanically he closed the door of the safe, rose to his feet and,
almost heedless of noise now, the flashlight ray dancing before him,
he jumped across to the old-fashioned cabinet and pulled the door open.
Here, as within the safe, all inside, plain evidence of thorough, if
hasty, search, was scattered and tossed about in hopeless confusion.

He shut the cabinet door; the flashlight went out; and he stood like
a man stunned, the sense of some abysmal disaster upon him. He was too
late! The game was up! If it had ever been here, the package was gone
now--GONE! The Crime Club had been here before him!

"The game was up! The game was up!"--his mind seemed to keep on
repeating that. The Crime Club had beaten him by an hour, at most,
and had been here, and had searched. It was strange, though, that they
should have been at such curious pains to cover their tracks by leaving
the room in order, by such paltry efforts to make the safe appear
untouched w