XXIII
The noise of the roaring presses came up to Tab as he worked in his office. The building shook and trembled, for every machine was running with the story of the mystery of Mayfield. Slip by slip his copy was rushed to the linotype room. Presently the presses would stop and the last city edition would be prepared.
He finished at last, pulled the last sheet from the typewriter and hunched himself back in the chair.
To the detective’s warning he gave no serious attention. He was perfectly satisfied in his own mind that the burglar had come to his flat in order to secure the key. The menace was not against himself, but against Rex Lander. What was that menace, he wondered? Had the old man some other relative who felt himself wronged when the property passed into the hands of the Babe? He was confident that the search of his own belongings had been made in order to find something that had to do with Rex. As to the tearing up of his photographs—he grinned at the thought.
“I never did like those pictures anyway,” he said.
“What pictures?” asked a solitary reporter in the room.
“I am vocalising my thoughts and unveiling the tablet of my mind,” said Tab politely.
The late duty man grinned.
“You are a lucky devil,” he said, “to be in both these cases. I have been five years on this paper and never had anything more exciting than a blackmail case which was hushed up before it went to court. What’s that drawing?”
“I am trying to draw a plan of the vault and the passage,” said Tab.