Gordon’s pale eyes glittered with greed as he read names and dates, and all the precise array of facts which had been accumulated by the painstaking labors of the great detective and his staff.
“It’s a gold mine, nothing else!” the master rascal told himself, his hands trembling with eagerness. “If I have time to work it as it ought to be worked, I can pull down a quarter of a million—half a million!”
His enthusiasm carried him away into the region of fairy possibilities, where a rosy light played over everything. He did not realize how important was that little word “if” which he had passed over so lightly.
This was just the sort of thing that appealed to him most, this bleeding of those who could much better afford to pay large sums in hush money than to have gossip busy with their names.
He made a selection of the records that appealed to him most at first glance, then bundled the others up carefully and thrust them back into the safe.
“This will be all I will need,” he told himself; “for the present, at least.”
Therefore, he risked closing the inner door of the safe, but, lest there should be any uncertainty about it, he made sure that he could open it later. After that he closed the outer door, but, of course, did not lock it, for he had put the locking mechanism out of commission.
Thanks to his care in covering up his traces, however, it was not likely that any ordinary eyes would detect the fact that the safe had been violated, and, to further minimize the possibility, he placed a chair with its back against the safe door.
Leaving the bundle of documents in plain sight of the desk, he rang for Joseph.