"Do not dare to look around again until you have my permission," read the card before his eyes. "If you do so once I may only warn you; if you do so twice, I shall kill you."
One hundred thousand pounds! He could have cried. But, after all, he was a rich man—a very rich man; not so rich as Oppner, nor even so rich as Hague; but a comfortably wealthy man. Life was very good in his eyes. There were those little convivial evenings—those week-end motoring trips. He would take no chances. Life was worth more than one hundred thousand pounds.
He did not glance around.
So, the minutes passed. They passed, for the most part, in ghostly silence, sometimes broken by the hum of the traffic below, by the horn of a cab or car. Nothing from within the house broke that nerve-racking stillness.
If only there had been a mirror, so placed that by moving his eyes only he could have obtained a glimpse of the wardrobe. But there was no mirror so placed.
Faintly to his ears came the striking of a clock. He listened intently, but could not determine if it struck the quarter, half, three-quarters, or hour. Certainly, from the decrease of traffic in Park Lane, it must be getting very late, he knew.
His limbs began to ache. Cautiously he changed the position of his slippered feet. The clock in the hall began to strike. And Rohscheimer's heart seemed to stand still.
It struck the half-hour. So it was half-past one! He had been sitting there for an hour—an agonised hour!
What could the Unseen be waiting for?
Gradually his heart-beats grew normal again, and his keen mind got to work once more upon the scheme for frustrating the audacious plan of this robber who robbed from incredible motives.