Almost without breathing, Teresa Fernandez watched him. She dared not turn her head toward the window. She was unseen by the man outside. He had spied only Jerry Tobin in the room. From where he stood in the yard, the girl in the chair against the wall was invisible. It was a blunder.
From a corner of her eye, Teresa could perceive the window ledge. The criminal was careful to stand a little way back from it, where he could dodge for cover if the door should suddenly open. To steady himself, he rested a hand upon the window ledge. Teresa could see this hand from where she sat. She could have reached out and touched it. It was a hairy hand with thick fingers and broken nails, a detestable hand. Teresa looked at it, flattening herself in the chair. Then she looked at the kneeling figure of Jerry Tobin who was removing a small drawer from the open safe.
This man who had befriended her was unable to defend himself. There had been a worse menace than robbery in that sinister voice from outside the window. It signified some old score to settle, a vengeance to be slaked. It was as wicked as a snake.
Jerry Tobin straightened himself and stood with the drawer in his hand. His movements were as stiff and careful as those of a man with lumbago. The drawer was filled with packages of bank-notes. His eyes roved to the rolltop desk, but he could not reach the pistol in it. The voice outside the window spoke again.
“Come through, Jerry, you dirty dog. No funny business. You ain’t got coin enough to square it this side of hell. I’m liable to blow your head off yet.”
It was the voice of a man lustful to kill, but not quite ready to risk the consequences. Jerry Tobin’s life hung in the balance. The weight of a feather might swing it either way. Teresa Fernandez could read in his drawn, ashen face that he expected no mercy. It was the climax of a mortal feud.
Teresa put her hand to her breast. Her fingers felt the handle of the antique dagger under the soft shirt, the two-edged weapon in the leather sheath hung by a ribbon around her neck. No matter what Jerry Tobin might have done to deserve a bullet, he was a friend, and she was loyal. She stole a glance at the hairy hand upon the window ledge.
Her own hand flew inside her shirt and whipped out the dagger. A jaguar could have struck with no more speed and fury. The blade drove down through the detestable hand upon the window ledge and quivered in the soft wood. It was driven by a supple wrist and an explosion of energy. It transfixed the evil hand and spiked it there.
Jerry Tobin leaped for the desk and snatched a pistol from a pigeon-hole. From a corner of his mouth he growled like a mastiff:
“Guess again, you dumb-bell. Drop that gun.”