Now, as he operated the combination, he was abruptly sensible of a curious sensation of strain; a shock; the short hairs at the back of his neck prickled suddenly as if at the touch of an invisible, icy finger. And for a moment he could have sworn to a Presence just behind him—a something in ambush grinning at his back—a danger, a real and daunting peril, the greater that it was unmeasured and unknown.
But with his fingers upon that dial, Quarrier half turned as if to depart. He was getting jumpy, his nerves out of hand—too much coffee and too many strong cigars, perhaps. That was it. That kidnapping; it might, after all, have had nothing to do with Marston. The documents were safe—they simply had to be. Unless Marston had been there, and gone; but he would scarcely have had time.
Perhaps, too, Quarrier might have obeyed the impulsion of that turning movement, and in that case, also, this story would never have been written. Quarrier might have done this, but for the moment, practical and sanely balanced as he was, for a split second he had the fancy that if he turned his head he would see—something that was not good, that was not—well—normal.
It was instinctive, elemental, rather than rational, and, getting himself in hand, he would, doubtless, have turned abruptly, leaving the room, if, at that moment, out of the tail of his eye, he had not seen the inescapable evidence of a presence other than his own.
IV.
The Silent Witness.
QUARRIER was a large man, and hard-muscled, a dangerous adversary in a rough-and-tumble, a “good man with his hands,” as we have seen; young, and a quick thinker.
In the half of a second it came to him that Marston might have delegated his authority (at second- or third-hand, certainly) to some peterman, some yegg, say, to obtain possession of those documents. But the fellow would have to be a boxman par excellence; that strong-box was the last word in safes, and, Quarrier was certain, the final one.
No ordinary houseman could hope to break into it, and the marauder would have to depend upon a finger sandpapered to the quick, hearing microscopically sensitive, to catch, through that barrier of steel and bronze, the whispering fall of those super-tumblers.
And abruptly following this suggestion, a second and a more daunting thought obtruded: Suppose—just suppose, that their design held no intention of an assault upon the safe; suppose that their plan, the purpose of that nameless, invisible Presence, had included, in the first place, him—Quarrier? In case, after all, he had managed to escape the trap back there in the cellar? Why—they would use him; that was it! They would force him to open the safe. The thing was simple; there was about it, even, a suggestion of sardonic humor, but it was a humor that did not appeal to Quarrier.
Upon the instant he swung round, crouching, his hand reaching for his pocket in a lightning stab, and coming up, level, holding the short-barrelled automatic.