“What a burglar he would have made,” he muttered, as he emptied the contents of the bag carefully on the floor in front of the safe.
There were bits of various sizes, ordinary drills and wheel drills, jimmies, glass cutters, skeleton keys, acids—in fact, everything that goes to make up the outfit of the most up-to-date burglar.
Green-eye Gordon turned them over caressingly, but it was not for long that he was idle. He knelt before the safe, his eyes roving over it at close range. Soon he smiled with satisfaction.
It was scarcely as modern a safe as he would have expected Nick Carter to possess, but that was probably because the last thing in the world the famous detective expected was a burglary in his own house.
Among other accomplishments, most of which had brought him into conflict with the law, Ernest Gordon numbered safe-cracking, and, as he knelt before the massive steel door, with its shining nickel fittings, he had no doubt that he would be able to master this one in a comparatively short time.
After a brief examination of the lock, to make sure that he could not open the combination by ear, the masquerader picked up the powerful wheel drill, fitted a bit to it, and, pressing the other end against his stomach, set to work.
At first the bit seemed to make little impression upon the specially hardened metal, but presently a little hole appeared, and grew deeper and deeper as Gordon kept the wheel in motion.
For the time being, the criminal forgot the relief fund that he hoped to appropriate, forgot even the great, unique haul he counted on obtaining from that very safe, and was lost in the joy of being at his old trade again, and handling the old, familiar tools with undiminished skill.
Gh-r-rh!
Gordon paused to squirt oil into the deepening hole, as the note of the revolving bit changed and grew harsher. It was working smoothly again after a moment, and the particles of metal were rapidly accumulating.