At last! At the height of about his middle from the floor his fingers touched a fine cord drawn straight across his path, so taut that it vibrated like a harp-string beneath a contact as light as a mere breath! Running his fingers along it with the light touch of a drifting feather he moved to the left until the cord made a sharp turn around the corner of his heavy desk. Once more he started forward. Now he was facing again toward the fireplace but the left side of it, and his guiding line was rising! It must be at the height of the mantel now, he must almost have reached the shelf itself!
Moving even more cautiously, inch by inch, his fingers traveling with still greater delicacy, he followed the cord to the corner of the mantel. There his hand came in contact with what appeared to be a pulley, rigged ingeniously over the clamp of a portable lamp bracket which had never been fastened there before.
If the cord were broken something on the other end of that pulley running under the mantel would drop; and then what would happen? Would the house be blown to bits in the explosion of some infernal machine, or something fall on him from above? It had obviously been intended that he should break that string; but why had it been taken for granted that finding his lights out of commission he would walk straight forward from the doorway, instead of perhaps around the wall—?
His matches, of course! He wouldn’t be supposed to stop and fumble in his clothes for any he might be carrying when a whole box of them were where he always kept them there on the mantel before him! ’Twas from the mantel itself, then, or just under it, that trouble could be looked for, if the weight on the other end of that pulley dropped, and that trouble would occur somewhere in a line with the doorway!
Shifting his revolver to his left hand McCarty felt with the right for the weight dangling from the end of the pulley. His compressed lips widened at the corners in a grim smile as he followed it up again and along under the edge of the mantel until his fingers met the cold ring of a revolver muzzle.
So that was the answer! When the weight dropped, that cord, as fine and strong as fishline, which he could feel wound around the trigger, would snap back and from that muzzle would streak forth a death message, certain and sure!
But not while McCarty knew it! Dropping his own revolver into his pocket he swiftly and skilfully disengaged the cord from about the trigger of the other and drew it from the cradle of wire which had been strung over two nails driven into the underside of the mantel-shelf. Placing it upon the mantel within easy reach he found it but the work of a moment to jerk down the lamp bracket and its improvised pulley, break and haul in the cord and throw the whole mechanical device into the empty fireplace.
Then another thought came to him. Suppose the party who had planned that little surprise for him were waiting about in the immediate vicinity, near enough to have seen him come in, close enough at hand to hear the anticipated report? Wouldn’t he be likely to come then to see the result for himself? Wouldn’t that be his next logical move?
His next move! Since he entered the room McCarty had been too busy to wonder why this reception had been arranged for him, but now a light broke over his mind and he all but chuckled aloud. He’d been asking himself and Denny a question for the last twenty-four hours and now by the Lord it was answered for him!
But why should his enemy be disappointed? Why shouldn’t he hear that shot after all, and in coming to investigate, reveal his own identity? There was nothing above the ceiling but the loft and nothing above that again but the roof and the clouds that were pouring down rain that minute! With a sudden impulse McCarty seized the revolver from the mantel, aimed it straight up into the air and fired, then jumped nimbly aside, crouching behind the great armchair.