A phone call from her studio, the next afternoon, brought him from the golf-links.
“I’ve just moved in,” she said. “Everything is topsy-turvy. Wont you bring little Cecil tomorrow? I’ll have my camera up then. Good-by.”
“Talks like a man,” thought Fay. “Snappy and direct.”
He passed the day considering the plan of relieving “The Black Cougar” of his available wealth. The bucket-shop operator was shrewder than most men of his type. He was a crook, at heart. Fay realized that no one, not excepting millionaires, raised a louder outcry when robbed than a thief himself. Old Charlie Laurie had once said, “The poor man never squeals when trimmed, but look out for the big grafters.”
Fay’s precautions when visiting the studio consisted in wearing a baggy, tweed suit, yellow gloves and sun-glasses. He found a child who could play the part of “Cecil” for the first visit.
Saidee Isaacs had accomplished the impossible. A new sign was hung in the place of the old one. New curtains were at the front windows. Grass matting covered the floor of the reception-room. The camera she had set up between the studio and the dark-room was a fair imitation of a good one. It was covered with a black cloth.
“This is all right,” Fay said to her. “But there’s one thing to be changed. That skylight has got to be moved south about seven feet.” He consulted the rice-paper tracing while the boy sat in the reception-room.
“Why has it got to be moved?”
Fay pointed to the floor of the photographing-room. “The vault is in the wrong place. We can’t move it. We have got to move the skylight.”
“Has the skylight anything to do with cutting through the top of the safe?”