Ralph lightly lifted himself to the knob on one foot. He pushed at the paper, and it moved out free except at two corners where it was tacked. It was no trick at all for Ralph to lift himself through the transom and drop to the floor on the other side.
With some satisfaction he noticed that this room connected with the front apartment, the light coming in over its transom reflecting into the rear room so that he could make out its contents plainly.
At one side stood a big hogshead nearly full of loose excelsior, used for packing. Near it were as many as twenty flat boxes. Ralph touched one with his foot. He could not budge it, and then, drawing closer, he looked into a box with its cover off, and saw that it was nearly full of brass fittings.
"They're here, there's a lot of them," breathed Ralph quickly, "packed up for shipment. This is a find! What had I better do?"
The discovery modified all Ralph's prearranged plans. He knew quite well that if found in this room his presence would show a prima facie evidence that he knew the storage place of the stolen plunder. Ralph decided to get out as quickly as he had got in, and try to come upon Ike from some other point of the compass, without giving the alarm to Cohen, or whoever really controlled the stolen goods.
Before he could make a move, however, a key grated in the lock of the connecting room. The knob was broken off on the inside of the door over which he had just clambered. To reach the transom and get sufficient purchase to let himself over through the aperture he would have to have a box or chair to stand on.
There was no time to select either. The door leading to the front room came briskly open. Ralph looked for a hiding place. None presented, for the boxes lay flat on the floor, and the hogshead was away from the side wall.
Ralph thought quick and acted on an impulse. He thrust his arm down into the hogshead. Its light contents gave way to the touch.
Leaping its rim, Ralph sank as in a snowbank, ducked down his head, pulled the stringy wooden fiber over it, and snuggled inside the hogshead, out of view.