The latest in amateur detectives, thus opportunely reminded, decided that he must rise to the occasion. And he had reason to hope that he could, once upon a time having been shown some tricks of the tumbler profession by a professional.
“Why else should I be in your midst,” he offered cheerfully, “if not to open your safe for you?”
Mrs. Sturgis at once gave him the benefit of doubt; made way for him; took a stand beside her skeptical-looking niece. But Jane’s contempt over his essay was frank—really, made her look downright disagreeable.
Pape made up his mind to disappoint her evident expectations if within his powers so to do. He knelt down; wedged his head into the vacancy left by the swinging shelf; pressed his ear close to the lock; began to finger the dial. There was more than hope in his touch; there was also practice. In his ranch-house out Hellroaring way he long ago had installed a wall safe of his own in which to deposit the pay-roll and other cash on hand. And one day it had disobligingly gone on strike; but not so disobligingly that a certain derelict whom he had fed-up on he-man advice as well as food—one who had followed the delicate profession of “listener”—was beyond reach.
This turned-straight cracksman, without admitting his former avocation, had solved a pay-day dilemma by conquering the refractory dial and later had given his benefactor a series of lessons in the most-gentle “art,” that the emergency might not recur. Pape, miles and miles from the nearest town which might afford an expert, had been convinced by the experience that a safe is unsafe which cannot be opened at the owner’s will.
In the course of present manipulations, the “under-graduate” considered what he could say or do to the contemptuous half of his audience should he fail, but reached no satisfactory conclusion. Indeed, he felt that the only real way of venting his chagrin would be to wring her graceful, long, white neck for doubting him before he failed, a proceeding quite beyond consideration of any man from Montana. So he must not fail. Yet how succeed?
Just as he was reminding himself for the seventh time—seventh turn—that “slow and careful” was also the watchword for this sort of acquaintanceship, an electrifying response to his light-fingering sounded from within —— a click. Turning the knob, he pulled out the door. The yielding hinges completed an electric circuit and an incandescent bulb lighted in the roof.
Pape sprang to his feet and back, as much amazed over his feat as the dazed-looking Miss Lauderdale. Then, at once, he got control of himself; straightened his cuffs, as his teacher always had done after turning the trick; remarked most calmly:
“The thief must have been changing the combination in the hope of delaying the discovery of his crime and been frightened into such a panic that he didn’t take time to close the door.”
Mrs. Sturgis again bent to the safe. She had reached well into it when, with a poignant cry, she put both hands to her eyes and started back. “It’s there again! This is getting too much for my nerves. Was I mad before or am I going mad now? Jane—Mr. Pape—it isn’t gone—at all!”