And then—the malign agreement of his outward husk with his inner degradation was revealed.
His eyes, already criminal, reflected the kaleidoscopic succession of temptation and surrender; desire and thievery.
He scanned the passageway without in either direction.
No one was in sight.
A silence of respectable retirement prevailed that enabled him to hear his heartbeats almost, which surged along his veins to his ears and stifled the final gasp of the still, small voice within.
The next instant, with a lithe animal leap of astonishing quickness, Raikes, darting into the apartment, grasped the precious case and retreated as rapidly over the threshold.
Scarcely had the stealthy rogue vanished from the room when the door of a closet in the rear opened softly and revealed the Sepoy.
Upon his face a smile, surely evil, otherwise inscrutable, appeared, as he proceeded to the chair by the table, turned down the light in the lamp a trifle, and abstracted from his waistcoat pocket a small red case, the contents of which he examined with absorbed attention.
Arrived at his room, Raikes was elated to discover that he was not due at the Sepoy’s apartment until twenty minutes later.
“What a providence!” he murmured.