“Lose the trick?” the reporter suggested affably.
“I’m going to make it!”
“You’ll need some help in the get-away, I suppose?”
“Just so! If I make that train all right with this stuff, there’ll be a couple of hundred dollars for you, my boy; and what’s more, you can have the story all to yourself. It will be better than the old man’s death.”
A pleasant smile circled around the reporter’s chubby face.
“All right, Mr. Wilkins! What do you want now?”
“I’ve sent out for another bag,” Brainard explained. “I’ll just pass the rest of these papers out to you, and you can stack them ready to pack when the bag comes.”
Brainard opened the inner door and listened. There were faint sounds like sobbing within the safe.
“If she can cry, she’ll last,” he said to himself. “Now for it! Where in thunder can that fellow Peters be? I hope he hasn’t heard that the old man is dead!”
He began to shove the books and papers through the door, which he kept nearly closed, for fear that the reporter might detect the sounds that came from the safe, and ask questions. It was dark now, but he did not dare to turn on the electric lights, for the windows faced the street, and he feared men might already be watching the office.