We will listen to what he had to say, leaving to your imagination the
breaks and guilty starts and moments of intense listening and anxious
fear with which he seasoned it.

"I did as you bid me," he whispered. "Yesterday fresh orders came from
abroad, in cipher, as usual. (It's an unreadable cipher. I've had
experts on it many times.) I had hung it up, and though business was
heavy, my business, you know, I had eyes for our fair friend, and knew
every step she took about the offices. I even knew when her eyes first
fell on the cablegram. I had my door open, and I caught her looking up
from her work, and what was more, caught the pause in the click-click of
the typewriter as she looked and read. If she had not been able to read,
the click-click would have gone on, for I believe she could work that
typewriter with her eyes shut. But her attention was caught, and she
stopped. I tell you I've been humiliated for the last time. I'm in for
anything that will make that girl step down and out. What was that!"

Muttered curses from his companion brought him back to his story. With a
gulp he went on:

"You may bet your bottom dollar that I watched her after that, and sure
enough, in less than half an hour she had gone into the room where the
safe is. Instantly I prepared my _coup d'etat_. I waited just long
enough to hear her voice in that one song she sings, then I jumped from
my seat and rushed to the door, shouting, 'Miss Lee! Miss Lee! Your
father! Your father!' making hullabaloo enough to raise the dead and
scare her out of her wits; for she dotes on that old man and would sell
her soul for his sake, I do believe.

"Great heavens, it worked! As I live, it worked. I heard her voice fail
on that high upper note of hers, and then the sound of her feet
staggering, slipping over the floor, and in another moment the fumbling
of her hand on the knob and the slow opening of the door which she
seemed to have no power to manage. Helping her, I pulled it open, and
there beyond her and her white, shocked face, I saw--I saw----"

CHAPTER IX

"_'The safe door is opened,' I cried_"

"Go on! Don't be a fool; that was nothing."

"I don't know; it was like a great sigh at my ear. But this is awful!
Couldn't we have one spark of light?"

"And have the police upon us the next minute? Look up at that window.
You can see it, can't you?"

"Yes, yes, but very faintly," Fellows whispered.

"But you can see it. So could those o