Another tangent. Louie was thinking with cold amusement of the fate of Madam Celia, the “Mother of the Friendless.” Luck had turned against her, with the loss of the jewels. Others who had helped her in her earlier years had turned away after that—as if the old woman had suffered contamination by accepting this gift, bequeathed by a certain rather notorious beauty whose affairs had upset thrones and dynasties.
Yes, a very good joke on the old woman. And she had died in abject poverty. That was the way that sort of thing went, Louie realized. One was really a fool to do anything for anyone but one’s self.
A sound came through the half-open window of Colonel Knight’s suite—and again Louie Martin grinned. The master crook, who had stolen the jewels from the “Mother of the Friendless,” was now about to pass them on—only he didn’t know it!
Louie brought the metal barrel over under the window and set it, bottom up, so as to form a secure means of approach to the room beyond. He had thrown off his depression now. But he must work fast.
Cautiously, he stepped upon the barrel and raised his hands to the bottom bar. Twisting it slowly and at the same time pulling, he drew both bar and bolts from their sockets and tossed them to the ground. He wanted to laugh! So this was the wisdom of a Chinaman? He might have known!
There was a stone coping a couple of feet above the top of the thing on which he stood. Louie rested his foot on this coping and laid his hands on the sill. Lightly he drew himself up against the face of the wall.
He paused to listen. The man within was breathing heavily and regularly.
Louie thrust his head through the opening—nothing in sight to alarm him. Then, with a quick spring, he threw his weight upon the sill and was halfway through the window—
Half-way, but no farther; for as his weight descended fully upon the sill, the upper sash crashed down like the lever of a great engine. The thief cried out once, a hideous, choking cry that echoed through the room and on into the house of Ah Wing.
Then he was silent, drooping there like one who has been broken on the wheel. Blood dripped from his mouth and nostrils, and he had ceased to breathe. He was caught like a huge rat in a trap!