The catch-lock announced that the door of the private office had securely closed.
Now Mr. Sandy Hyde dropped his pen, and came down from his stool.
For a moment he peered sharply through the brass lattice along the top of the desks, toward the two open doors leading into the adjoining corridors.
Next he darted out of the enclosure, and quickly closed both of these doors.
No cat’s eyes aglow from a dark corner ever burned more greenishly bright and intense than those of this watchful miscreant at that moment.
It was for him a moment of peril, and well he knew it; yet, in the event of an intruder into the outer office, he relied upon hearing one of the closed doors opened in time to evade detection.
With both closed, he next hurried back into the enclosure, from outside of which the interior of the narrow passage could only partly be seen.
Into this passage Hyde quickly entered, with the stealthy quietude of a shadow, and stood listening at the chief’s door, his ear touching the panel, his eyes still bright with a satanic glow evincing his evil impulse.
His several precautions had required but a very few seconds, moreover, and he lost hardly a word of Nick Carter’s brief interview with Chief Weston, who was about repeating his question just as the eavesdropper arrived at the door.