Betty crept down, her unlighted candle and box of matches clutched to her breast. The glow still remained as that of a searchlight which has been shifted in another direction and while she paused breathless, the clink of metal and a low-muttered ejaculation in an unknown masculine voice came to her ears.
Step by step, with her heart fluttering like a wild thing, the girl advanced to the doorway and cautiously reconnoitred. The portrait of Beethoven was in its place, but before it knelt a man in rough dark clothes, the soles of his boots upturned and glistening with fresh gobbets of mud. A canvas bag open on the floor beside him displayed odd shapes of metal whose edges caught the light, and the bull's-eye lantern in the intruder's hand cast a steady stream of radiance about the benign pictured face above.
While his back was still turned, Betty slipped silently across the doorsill and to her hiding place of the night before where she crouched peering out from beneath the upraised piano top. The man was passing his hands hurriedly over the lower part of the frame, grunting in his impatience as the secret spring eluded his search. Once he turned his head slightly and she caught a glimpse of a heavy, protruding, unshaven jaw and flattened nose. The low visor of his cap concealed the forehead and eyes, but the profile was startling in its ferocity and sullen strength.
Although she realized that the clumsy fingers might at any moment touch the knob and a shrill alarm peal through the house the girl lingered, held by a slender thread of hope. Welch was sleeping, perhaps drugged, and there was a chance that he might not have attached the alarm system for the night before unconsciousness descended upon him. In that case, if she could but remain undiscovered until the burglar had accomplished his purpose and was gone, she could examine the rifled safe for herself.
"You're ahead of time, Mike. Admiring the portrait?" A low, sarcastic drawl sounded from the doorway and the man turned with an oath, holding something in his free hand which glittered ominously. Betty cowered back, her fluttering heart still and cold within her breast.
Leaning nonchalantly against the wall by the door, his hands in the pockets of his dressing gown and his dark face wreathed with a derisive smile, stood Jack Wolvert.
The man before the picture swore again, but in a relieved fashion.
"You don't mind taking chances, do you?" he growled. "I might have plugged you full of holes without lookin' first."
"Oh, no you wouldn't!" retorted Wolvert amiably. "If you'd been quick on the trigger you wouldn't have done your stretch at St. Quentin. Nifty portrait that, isn't it? Serves a two-fold purpose; immortalizes the likeness of the gentleman who composed what may be your funeral march, if you are lucky, and—"
"Say, cut the comedy, an' let's get down to business!" the other interrupted gruffly. "You'll have Welch lumberin' in on us before you know it."