"Ha!" Wolvert's ejaculation of triumph broke the protracted tension, just as the heavy door, with a grating jar, split like a crust before their eyes and fell outward, yawning upon one hinge.
"Got it!" Mike pushed back his cap and wiped his brow. "Armor plate's made of cheese compared to that! Now which is the pay dirt?"
Wolvert knelt beside him and threw the light upon the gaping cavity. Betty's eyes were watering but the fumes were gradually passing away and she could see that the interior of the safe was filled with packets of paper, neatly pigeon-holed in rows.
"Three hundred thousand!" Wolvert crooned, gloatingly. "Three hundred thousand and maybe more! God, what a haul! Think of it, Mike, the pickings of five years, salted down and waiting for us, to say nothing of rich veins that have scarcely been tapped yet!"
"I can lick my chops over 'em just as well when I've got 'em safe away from here!" Mike glanced apprehensively over his shoulder and Betty could see his eyes glistening like those of a cat in the shadow of his visored cap. "Hurry up and pick out the live wires from the dead ones. The old girl may take it into her head to walk again!"
"You can drop her with the blackjack if she does," Wolvert returned carelessly. His long, slender hands were darting in and out among the pigeonholes, sorting the various packets deftly and ranging them in two piles. "Got the wallets?"
"Here!" Mike produced oblong leather folders from each of his breast pockets. "Sure you don't overlook any good bets, Jack."
"No fear!" Wolvert passed over package after package of envelopes as he talked. "Here's the dope on the Texas matter; that's good for thirty or forty thousand to start with; this is the certificate for those two hundred shares of copper you've heard about. To the right party they're worth twenty thousand. These we might take on speculation; lumping them together we may figure on realizing a hundred thousand from them, roughly speaking."
"Some dough!" Mike chuckled, stowing away the packets as fast as they were handed to him. "What's this bunch?"
"Can't stop now to go over them, Mike, but I know what they are and I'll open your eyes when we sort them out over at your joint. Now, if I can only lay my hands on that Crane contract; I wonder where our careful Marcia cached it?"