a window from an alley. The German crook had waited outside in the guise of a drunken night-rounder—a part he often played in real life. Then the German’s eyes had popped at the sight of swag, loot and plunder obtained in the time of minutes,—not more than fifteen.
Fay chuckled at this job which had been so easy. He had gone through a vault door, a day door and the steel-ribbed keister by means of a stethoscope. This enterprise, of course, had been on an ancient French combination box whose tumblers, to him, were like piano-keys to a virtuoso.
And now, Sir Richard had picked him as the best man handy. The chief had cunningly played upon the heart cords of patriotism without slopping over. The humor of the situation was its saving point. The chief had failed by a double-play. Dutch Gus had appeared from out of the murky waters of the Thames. Fay knew in the bottom of his heart that the reason which was urging him on was the old one of jealousy. The protection of the Yard, the call from Saidee Isaacs, the honor of the enterprise which might save a world from a galling monopoly, all were less than the quick flash of the German crook at the taffrail of the inbound steamer.
Fay reviewed these things and smiled bitterly. He nursed no delusions. He was going to take that box for the reason that a lesser crook and a stool-pigeon was embarked on the same enterprise. It was hardly likely that Dutch Gus, and any of his mob he might have with him, would strike on the first night. He
resolved to leave them an empty keister, as far as the key to the cipher was concerned.
In all the thoughts which flashed through his brain as he neared the embassy there was none of the right or the wrong of the matter. No maudlin sympathy for a fallen felon had ever quite reached his heart. He was steeled against an ordinary assault from that direction. The five years at Dartmoor had taught him caution on a desperate enterprise. Possessed with superior education and the keen wits of a modern stock broker or man about town, he regarded crime as the natural outlet for his energy. It had not paid, but this had been on account of the trifles. There was the thumb-print in London which had brought the braying bloodhounds of the Yard down upon him. There was a dropped hotel key in Chicago. There was a legion of mistakes.
He went on cautiously and set his mind on the problem ahead of him. He was muffled to the eyes. The tools were safe about his clothes. The American automatic was in his right-hand coat pocket. Also, he had not neglected the rubber gloves which were to protect his fingers. The matter looked promising. Already the great clock in the Hôtel de Ville had struck the maximum. It was after twelve!
A light mist swirled through the streets with a promise of more. He watched it wrap the staid, snug-nested houses in gossamer folds. A thin troop of stragglers wound homeward—German merchants out at elbows since the Great Embargo, roisterers and women in yellow skirts who had followed the armies until they
walked like grenadiers, burgers with pot-bellies and torches, who took the middle of the streets from force of habit during the desperate days of the war.
Fay disappeared down through the gloom of a well-remembered lane, waited a moment, then tiptoed his way over stones till he reached a narrow alley which cut between the embassy and a cloth merchant’s somber exterior. The high-barred windows on both sides of him were dark and staring.