'You get back to that peep hole right away,' he commanded gruffly, 'and watch out for the police. Give us a signal when they're coming. I'm afraid they may see the glare. Did you walk off with my shooter?'
Spolikoff denied the charge promptly. 'Here's my own,' he said. 'But perhaps Ovanovitch took it; he has a way of borrowing things! I will go and ask him.'
'You'll just get right off to that peep hole,' he was commanded. 'Ovanovitch can hand over the gun when he comes down. Should say he'll not be long; that place upstairs don't take long clearing. My! won't this be a haul! I've done the firm in for a thousand pounds already during the past six weeks. Monday's their day for banking, and I reckon we shall clear double the amount once we get this safe open. Get along, Spolikoff. Now, Admiral, put your back to it; we've a long job before us.'
David breathed more easily as Henricksen gave up for the moment his quest for the revolver. Then he watched the two men creep into the tent again, and drag the side curtain still more round them. He waited till the glare of the flame once more reached his eyes, and then began to slide along to the far side of the bookcase. Bang! crash! A volume which had been resting unbeknown to him on the very edge of the desk toppled over at the movement, and went to the floor with a thud. Henricksen and his comrade darted from beneath their covering as if they had been shot.
'What was it? What was it?' the former asked breathlessly, evidently scared by the noise. 'Something fell quite close to us. Look about.'
But that was just exactly what they found a difficulty in doing, for they had again donned their smoked spectacles, and had had their flame playing on the safe. However, the 'Admiral' dropped on to his knees and went groping about the floor close to the desk till his fingers came in contact with the fallen book. A low guffaw broke from him.
'Here's what's caused all the pother,' he laughed. 'In searching for that shooter you must have just balanced the book on the edge of the desk. Of course it went bang: it would do—just to scare us. Blessed if these glasses don't bother a fellow. Even now I can't see a thing; it's all feeling. But it's a book all right, no mistake about it.'
Another growl came from Henricksen: he hated such interruptions. True, he had had to put up with them before in the course of his criminal career, but he imagined that by now he was hardened. It angered him to find himself so easily scared. For the moment, too, he was almost suspicious; the strange disappearance of his revolver, coupled with the fallen book, tended to alarm him.
'I'm jumpy to-night,' he told himself, with an oath. 'Fact is, if I am ever to be taken I'd fifty times rather have it elsewhere, and not here where I'm at home as it were. Come along, let's get to at the job; it'll take a couple of hours to work round this lock.'
A couple of hours: then David had plenty of time before him. Should he stay where he was, and not risk further movement till matters had settled down a little?