Mike’s whole body was bathed in sweat at the thought of himself thrown inside the vault with armor-plated doors inexorably shutting out every atom of fresh air. He clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering. The man outside took on the aspect of a monster. To Mike, he was something more or less than human. Mike might be a criminal, and could visualize,–shrinking,–the thought of killing a man in making a getaway, but not the deliberate strangling of a man in cold blood, for the covering of his tracks. That was the other man’s plan.
There would have to be a struggle, a fight of some sort. Mike’s leg throbbed horribly. He doubted that it would support his weight. And in an instant or two more he would inevitably be fighting. One way or another, he was bound to be in terrible danger. If he shot the other man, the pistol-shot would raise an alarm. If he did not shoot....
He heard a faint thump on the floor.
“One load,” said the voice outside. “Two or three more, Jack, and I’ll skip.” The voice, already soft, became muffled as its owner went into the vault. “Here’s the payroll. Nice packet, in itself. I’ve a good twenty minutes left. You realize what will happen, Jack? I loot the vault, tap you on the head, take off your bonds and put you in here. Then I push on the switch, the doors close on you, and I get away with the stuff. In the morning they’ll find you inside, and the stuff gone. Your fingerprints will be on the knobs. Inference will inevitably be that the trap got you as you were handing out the stuff to a confederate. Pretty scheme, isn’t it Jack?”
The man seemed to be gloating a little over the agony of his prospective victim. Mike, struggling to massage his leg into some semblance of life and to make no noise in doing so, heard the infinitely faint sound of the bound man struggling upon the floor. He made a curious moan, utterly despairing.
“Just one more trip, Jack,” said the voice, filled with a terrifying amusement. “Then I’ll come back for you.”
Mike’s throat was dry. He feared that man he had not seen; feared him with the ultimate of terror. And in a moment or two more he would have to fight him, struggle with him.
Cold to the marrow, dry-lipped with fear, his little eyes staring, Mike started to raise himself to his feet as he heard the other man enter the vault. His leg was numb. It would barely hold his weight up. Mike’s teeth began to chatter. He heard the man rummaging about inside the steel tomb. And then Mike felt a sudden agonizing pain in his back. Something jabbed cruelly into his backbone, hurting horribly. And then, with a spitting flash of bluish light, the pain ceased. But outside, there was a sudden rumbling and a cushioned crash. Then a distant, muffled scream, barely audible.
Glassy-eyed with terror, Mike flung open the door, to run. He saw a small electric lantern upon the floor, its beam directed at the two huge doors of the vault. And they were closed!
In the fraction of an instant Mike knew what had happened. Rising, in the closet, he had jammed his back into the knife-switch that turned on the current for the burglar-trap. It had closed the doors, imprisoning the unknown Saunders in the air-tight vault. And he, the imprisoned man, had cut the wires that would have warned the police of his predicament.