From left to right, as his gaze went round the chamber, he saw a book-case, a full-length canvas, done in oils, the double windows, a door, locked with a huge, old-fashioned key, leading into a lumber-room just beyond, a small wall safe, his desk—which completed the circle.
The room was in itself a safe. It was like a fort: The windows were protected by sheet-steel aprons similar to the burglar-guards used by bank tellers; the main entrance door, through which Quarrier had entered, and which opened upon the corridor and the elevators, was of steel, with a patent spring combination lock; the other door, leading to the lumber-room, was also of steel, locked, however, with a huge, old-fashioned key, but this latter door had never been in use since Quarrier’s occupancy.
Nothing short of an acetylene blowpipe could have penetrated the walls, the ceiling, the floor, but they were smooth, unmarred by scratch or tell-tale stain.
Now, to understand events as they occurred:
Quarrier was in his private sanctum, his office; it adjoined the lumber-room at the right. And a simple diagram may serve perhaps better than a page of explanation:
The electrolier, blazing from its four nitro lamps, illumined every nook and cranny of that office; shed its blazing effulgence upon Quarrier, standing like a graven image before that wall safe. And as he stood there, for the first time in his well-ordered existence a prey to fear, a face rose out of his consciousness; he heard again the voice of Marston, President of Intervale Steel:
“You have them, my dear Quarrier; keep them—safe.”
Quarrier had never liked Marston; the man was elusive, like an eel; you never saw his hand: it was impossible to guess what moved behind the mask-like marble of his face, expressionless always, cold, contained.
But Quarrier had the “documents,” or, rather, they were there, in that wall safe, in itself a small fort of chrome-nickel steel and manganese against which no mere “can-opener” could have prevailed—no torch, even.