Fay pulled her back. “Look out for that ray,” he said. “I estimate its temperature to be all of five thousand degrees Fahrenheit. That’ll melt anything—particularly high-carbon steel.”
“Could you have done the same thing with the oxy-acetylene blow-torch?”
“No! You have to have an edge to start on. All we had here was a flat plate. This is the only way we could have done it. The electric-arc requires a heavy amperage—far more than can be obtained from a lamp-circuit. Besides, the coppers would suspect me if I used an arc.”
“They’re going to think this was done by electricity.”
“No, they’re not. We’ll leave the mirrors behind us. It’ll throw them off my trail.”
Saidee went out at noon and returned with two lunches bought at a restaurant. She found Fay standing on the table and holding the lens so that it spotted tiny blisters first along the north, then south, lines of the oblong. The sun went behind a cloud. Fay sprang to the floor lightly. He sat down, turned in his chair, and stared at the top of the vault. “We’ve got the first plate pretty well cut through,” he said. “Suppose you look and see what ‘The Black Cougar’ is doing.”
She rose and dusted her knees after a long study of the operator’s office.
“He’s got that spool of iron wire on his desk. He’s been running it through the little box. There’s a lot of tape scattered about. It must be a quotation machine of some kind, Chester.”
“No. The days of the old swindle are gone. He couldn’t get away with fake quotations. He may have a fast wire and a slow wire in his offices. The customer trades on the slow wire while the firm sells on the fast wire. But then, I understand ‘The Black Cougar’s’ business is done mostly through the mails. That spool he has down there has something to do with his mail game. Maybe it’s a system to beat the market.”
“There never will be such a thing!”