"How should I know? It would only be what he deserves," he grunted.
Zoya's dark eyes frowned at him, but she said nothing.
Meanwhile the drill was slowly eating its way into the steel door above the lock. She questioned again but he was intent upon his task and made no answer. The sweat stood out in beads upon his face and fell to the ground. He was a magnificent brute. There were women who ... But Zoya Rochal was difficult to please.
The first glimmerings of the dawn were filtering down through the iron door at the end of the passage before Max Liederman announced that his work was completed. Then he attached the fuse and he and Zoya Rochal went up the stairs, closed the iron door and waited.
A muffled explosion as the iron door swung open and a cloud of dust enveloped them. Liederman darted down the steps with Zoya at his heels. The charge had been cleverly placed and by the use of an iron rod and a short steel jimmy, at last the door of the vault yielded to Liederman's weight and swung inward upon its hinges.
Liederman threw the light into the room and it gleamed upon the swirling dust which for a moment obscured the vision. But as the cloud cleared, they saw a litter of papers upon the floor, and in the midst of the wreckage the figure of Rowland lying prone, his arms outstretched, smeared with blood and grime. A hasty glance around the shelves revealed no trace of the treasure of Nemi.
Liederman rocked to and fro in an awful moment of silent imprecation.
"Schwein-hund that I am, for waiting," he muttered. "Khodkine has been here before us."
Zoya Rochal gazed at him wildly a moment, and then fell to her knees beside the prostrate figure upon the floor.
Liederman grunted incuriously.