He sought around for several minutes on the snowy, slippery surface before he found the entrance to the iron stairway close by the elevator shaft. Then he went softly down.
Past Warren's apartment, on his way without a noise, his boots off, he continued until he reached the second floor. Here he was baffled again. Why had he not taken some impression of the pass-key of the negro attendant when let in before? Yet now he remembered that the man had never relinquished his hold upon that open sesame. He remembered the “jimmy”—yet this would betray him, by the broken lock!
There was the servant's entrance, however, in the rear of the hallway. To this he slipped, even as the elevator passed up bearing Warren and Shine Taylor, muttering angrily. Shirley found the rear door to the rooms, and there he worked quickly, forcing the lock. He was soon inside, and hid himself in the pantry of the darkened apartment. He had not long to wait.
There was a clicking noise which reverberated through the empty room, as the other two entered by the front portal. He heard them talking in whispers, then the creaking of a window, and all was silent again.
Shirley went to the same small window through which he had descended before. With his boots tied together by their laces, and suspended from his neck, on either side, he went down the rope noiselessly. He found the iron door partially opened, as he reached the end of the corridor. A block of wood held it back from the jamb.
“He is prepared for a quick retreat. So shall I be,” thought Shirley, as he noiselessly crept into the chamber, after having drawn away the wooden block. He let the door come gently to its frame, stopping it within an inch of its lock. As he turned slightly forward he caught two curious silhouettes: Warren at his table, with Shine at his side, their outlines clear and black against the brightness of the headlights. On, the other side of the transparent screen stood a man, with one eye blackened, his face badly bruised and wicked in its battered condensation of evil determination with rage and fright, so oddly mixed.
“It ain't my fault, Chief! There are only six of the boys left. I tried me best but this little Chinyman he soaks me one on the lamp, with a gun butt. Me pal was nabbed in the room when I sneaks out on the rope. I finds out afterward that Jimmie's watch must-a been about twenty minutes slow. That's how we misses.”
“But you didn't get him, and I'm going to break you for this!”
“But gov'nor, listen—we leaves the machine all right. That'll git 'im anyway. What'll I do?”
“I have the addresses of the other men here in my pocket. You tell them to stick right in their rooms for the next twenty-four hours. If they don't hear anything from me, tell them to go to Frisco by roundabout ways and I'll forward their money, care of Kelso. Now get out.”