Then his mouth twisted in a mirthless grin as his straining gaze beheld the square room empty under the lights.
A moment he stood, his keen, strong, thoughtful face etched deep with new lines of worry, ears strained against the singing silence, eyes turning from door to door, and from wall to window, a pulse in his temple throbbing jerkily to his hard-held breath. He began the circuit of the room. Walking on tiptoe, he approached the door by which he had entered, thrust into its socket the great bolt. The bolt seemed really unnecessary; the lock in itself, a spring-latch affair, was devised so that it held the stronger for pressure from without.
The snick of steel against steel rang startlingly loud in the speaking stillness; for a moment Quarrier had a curious fancy, a premonition almost, that it was a wasted precaution—that, in effect, he was locking and double locking that door upon an empty room—an empty strong-box. Pistol in hand, however, and starting from the door, he began his round.
The book-case he passed with a cursory examination; nothing there. Next the painting; a portrait of his great-uncle; it held him for a moment; those eyes had always held him; they were “following” eyes; and now for a moment it seemed to Quarrier that they held a warning, a message, a command. But he passed on....
A heavy leather settle was next in order. With a sheepish grimace he stooped, peering under it, straightened, going on to the double windows. That settle had been innocent of guile, but as to the windows—he paused an interval while he thumbed the patent steel catches. These were shut tight, the windows black, glimmering squares against the windy night without.
Throwing off the locks, one after the other, he pushed up the first window, released the steel outer apron, and then, in the very act of leaning outward into the black well beneath, he drew back, with a quick, darting glance over his shoulder as his spine prickled at a sudden, daunting thought.
What was that?
For a heartbeat at his back he thought to hear a rustle, a movement, like the shuffle of a swift, stealthy footfall, on the heavy pile of the Kermanshah rug.
But once more there was nothing—no one.
It was thirty stories to the street beneath, and as he leaned there in the window his imagination upon the instant had swayed out down to the dreadful peril of the sheer, sickening fall.