The sentence was left unfinished, for at that moment lights sprang up in the entrance hall once more, and a little later one of the windows on the ground floor was illuminated.
Curtains were drawn across the window, but they did not completely cover it, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Max stole up on the terrace and cautiously peered through into the room.
Its fittings indicated that it was a combination of library and study—evidently Massey’s den or office. Books lined the walls, there was a big flat desk in the center, and a small safe to one side.
At the moment when the lurking waiter peered into the room, Massey was in the act of opening the door of this safe. On a chair by his side was a tray, and on this tray lay a pile of leather cases, the appearance of which proclaimed that they contained the articles of jewelry which had recently adorned his wife and daughters, and which they must have turned over to him to lock up in the safe.
It goes without saying that the jewels were not kept permanently in this safe. They were stored, as a rule, in the safe-deposit vaults connected with Massey’s bank in New York. They had been brought from the bank that afternoon, however, in order that Mrs. Massey and her daughters might wear them at the opera, and doubtless they would be taken to the bank the next day.
In the meantime, for one night only, they were to repose in the safe at Meadowview. Plainly, that situation was the one for which Atherton had been waiting, and of which he had received advance information, thanks to his wife and intimate acquaintance with wealth and aristocracy.
Little dreaming that two keen eyes were watching his every movement, Massey placed the cases in the safe, closed the door, scattered the combination, and left the room after switching off the lights.
A few moments later the light in the entrance hall went out, then, one by one, the bedroom lights were extinguished, and the stately house wrapped itself in darkness and silence.
Max had returned to his chosen hiding place in the bushes, and crouched down there. Now, turning his back to the house, he pressed the button of his flash light and turned the white rays on the face of his watch for a moment.
“Twenty minutes to three,” he mused. “Perhaps, after all, they may be asleep by three o’clock. Anyhow, it’s Atherton’s risk, not mine. I think I’ll go and post myself where I can see them when they arrive.”