The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet: A Detective Story, Burton Egbert Stevenson [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

the sides and top of the table were incrusted. It seemed to me that, if the secret drawer were anywhere, it must be somewhere in this part of the cabinet, and I watched him with breathless interest. Once I thought he had found the drawer, for a piece of inlay at the side of the table seemed to give a little under the pressure of his fingers; but no hidden spring was touched; no drawer sprang open; no poisoned fangs descended.

"Well," said Godfrey, sitting back in his chair at last, and wiping his face again, "there's so much done. If there is any secret drawer in the lower part of the cabinet, it is mighty cleverly concealed. Now we'll try the upper part."

The upper part of the cabinet consisted of a series of drawers, rising one above the other, and terminated by a triangular pediment, its tympanum ornamented with some beautiful little bronzes. The drawers themselves were concealed by two doors, opening in the centre, and covered with a most intricate design of arabesqued incrustations.

"If there is a secret drawer here," said Godfrey, "it is somewhere in the back, where there seems to be a hollow space. But to discover the combination…."

He ran his fingers over the inlay, and then, struck by a sudden thought, tested each of the little figures along the tympanum, but they were all set solidly in place.

"There's one thing sure," he said, "the combination, whatever it is, is of such a nature that it could not be discovered accidentally—by a person leaning on the cabinet, for instance. It isn't a question of merely touching a spring; it is probably a question of releasing a series of levers, which must be worked in a certain order, or the drawer won't open. I'm afraid we are up against it."

"I can't pretend I'm sorry," I said, with a sigh of relief. "As far as I am concerned, I'm perfectly willing that the drawer should go undiscovered."

"Well, I am not!" retorted Godfrey, curtly, and he sat regarding the cabinet with puckered brows. Then he rose and began tapping at the back.

I don't know what it was—for I was conscious of no noise—but some mysterious attraction drew my eyes to the window at the farther side of the room. Near the top of the wooden shutter, which Parks and I had put in place, was a small semi-circular opening, to allow the passage of a little light, perhaps, and peering through this opening were two eyes—two burning eyes….

They were fixed upon Godfrey with such feverish intentness that they did not see my glance, and I lowered my head instantly.

"Godfrey," I said, in a shaking voice, "don't look up; don't move your head; but there is some one peering through the hole in the shutter opposite us."

Godfrey did not answer for quite a minute, but kept calmly on with his examination of the cabinet.

"Did he see you look at him?" he asked, at last.

"No, he was looking at you, with his eyes almost starting out of his head. I never saw such eyes!"

"Did you see anything of his face?"

"No, the hole is too small. I fancy I saw the fingers of one hand, which he had thrust through to steady himself."

"How high is the hole?"

"Near the top of the window."

Godfrey came back to his chair a moment later, sat down in it, and passed his handkerchief slowly over his face. Then he leaned forward, apparently to examine the legs of the cabinet.

"I saw him," he said. "Or, rather, I saw his eyes. Rather fierce, aren't they?"

"They're a tiger's eyes," I said, with conviction.

"Well, there is no use going ahead with this while he is out there.
Even if we found the drawer, we'd both be dead an instant later."

"You mean he'd kill us?"

"He would shoot us instantly. Imagine what a sensation that would make, Lester. Parks hears two pistol shots, rushes in and finds us lying here dead. Grady would have a convulsion—and we should both be famous for a few days."

"I'll seek fame in some other way," I said drily. "What are you going to do about it?"

"We've got to try to capture him; and if we do—well, we shall have the fame all right! But it's a good deal like trying to pick up a scorpion—we're pretty sure to get hurt. If that fellow out there is who I think he is, he's about the most dangerous man on earth."

He went on tapping the surface of the cabinet. As for me, I would have given anything for another look at those gleaming eyes. They seemed to be burning into me; hot flashes were shooting up and down my back.

"Why can't I go out as though I were going after something," I suggested. "Then Parks and I could charge around the corner and get him."

"You wouldn't get him, he'd get you. You wouldn't have a chance on earth. If there is a window upstairs over that one, you might drop something out on him, or borrow Parks's pistol and shoot him—"

"That would be pretty cowardly, wouldn't it?" I suggested, mildly.

"My dear Lester," Godfrey protested, "when you attack a poisonous snake, you don't do it with bare hands, do you?"

I couldn't help it—I glanced again at the window….

"He's gone!" I cried.

Godfrey was at the window in two steps.

"Look at that!" he said, "and then tell me he isn't a genius!"

I followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw that, just opposite the opening in the shutter, a little hole had been cut in the window-pane.

"That fellow foresees everything," said Godfrey, with enthusiasm. "He probably cut that hole as soon as it was dark. He must have guessed we were going to examine the cabinet to-night—and he wanted not only to see, but to hear. He heard everything we said, Lester!"

"Let's go after him!" I cried, and, without waiting for an answer, I sprang across the ante-room and snatched open the door which led into the hall.

Parks and Rogers were sitting on the couch just outside and I never saw two men more thoroughly frightened.

"For God's sake, Mr. Lester!" gasped Rogers, and stopped, his hand at his throat.

"Is it Mr. Godfrey?" cried Parks.

"There's a man outside. Got your pistol, Parks?"

"Yes, sir," and he took it from his pocket.

I snatched it from him, opened the front door, leaped the railing, and stole along the house to the corner.

Then, taking my courage in both hands, I charged around it.

There was no one in sight; but from somewhere near at hand came a burst of mocking laughter.

CHAPTER XII GODFREY IS FRIGHTENED

I was still staring about me, that mocking laughter in my ears, when
Godfrey joined me.

"He got away, of course," he said coolly.

"Yes, and I heard him laugh!" I cried.

Godfrey looked at me quickly.

"Come, Lester," he said, soothingly, "don't let your nerves run away with you."

"It wasn't my nerves," I protested, a little hotly. "I heard it quite plainly. He can't be far away."

"Too far for us to catch him," Godfrey retorted, and, torch in hand, proceeded to examine the window-sill and the ground beneath it. "There is where he stood," he added, and the marks on the sill were evident enough. "Of course he had his line of retreat blocked out," and he flashed his torch back and forth across the grass, but the turf was so close that no trace of footsteps was visible.

We went slowly back to the house, and Godfrey sat down again to a contemplation of the cabinet.

"It's too much for me," he said, at last. "The only way I can find that drawer, I'm afraid, is with an axe. But I don't want to smash the thing to pieces—"

"I should say not! It would be like smashing the Venus de Milo."

"Hardly so bad as that. But we won't smash it yet awhile. I'm going to look up the subject of secret drawers—perhaps I'll stumble upon something that will help me."

"And then, of course," I said, disconsolately, "it is quite possible that there isn't any such drawer at all."

But Godfrey shook his head decidedly.

"I don't agree with you there, Lester. I'll wager that fellow who was looking in at us could find it in a minute."

"He seemed mighty frightened lest you should."

"He had reason to be," Godfrey rejoined grimly. "I'll have another try at it to-morrow. One thing we've got to take care of, and that is that our friend of the burning eyes doesn't get a chance at it first."

"Those shutters are pretty strong," I pointed out. "And Parks is no fool."

"Yes," agreed Godfrey, "the shutters are pretty strong—they might keep him out for ten minutes—scarcely longer than that. As for Parks, he wouldn't last ten seconds. You don't seem to understand the extraordinary character of this fellow."

"During your period of exaltation last night," I reminded him, "you referred to him as the greatest criminal of modern times."

"Well," smiled Godfrey, "perhaps that was a little exaggerated. Suppose we say one of the greatest—great enough, surely, to walk all around us, if we aren't on guard. I think I would better drop a word to Simmonds and get him to send down a couple of men to watch the house. With them outside, and Parks on the inside, it ought to be fairly safe."

"I should think so!" I said. "One would imagine you were getting ready to repel an army. Who is this fellow, anyway, Godfrey? You seem to be half afraid of him!"

"I'm wholly afraid of him, if he's who I think he is—but it's a mere guess as yet, Lester. Wait a day or two. I'll call up Simmonds."

He went to the 'phone, while I sat down again and looked at the cabinet in a kind of stupefaction. What was the intrigue, of which it seemed to be the centre? Who was this man, that Godfrey should consider him so formidable? Why should he have chosen Philip Vantine for a victim?

Godfrey came back while I was still groping blindly amid this maze of mystery.

"It's all right," he said. "Simmonds is sending two of his best men to watch the house." He stood for a moment gazing down at the cabinet. "I'm coming back to-morrow to have another try at it," he added. "I have left the gauntlet there on the chair, so if you feel like having a try yourself, Lester…."

"Heaven forbid!" I protested. "But perhaps I would better tell Parks to let you in. I hope I won't find you a corpse here, Godfrey!"

"So do I! But I don't believe you will. Yes, tell Parks to let me in whenever I come around. And now about Rogers."

"What about him?"

"I rather thought I might want to grill him to-night. But perhaps I would better wait till I get a little more to go on." He paused for a moment's thought. "Yes; I'll wait," he said, finally. "I don't want to run any risk of failing."

We went out into the hall together, and I told Parks to admit Godfrey, whenever he wished to enter. Rogers was still sitting on the cot, looking so crushed and sorrowful that I could not help pitying him. I began to think that, if he were left to himself a day or two longer, he would tell all we wished to know without any grilling.

I confided this idea to Godfrey as we went down the front steps.

"Perhaps you're right," he agreed. "I don't believe the fellow is really crooked. Something has happened to him—something in connection with that woman—and he has never got over it. Well, we shall have to find out what it was. Hello, here are Simmonds's men," he added, as two policemen stopped before the house.

"Is this Mr. Godfrey?" one of them asked.

"Yes," said Godfrey.

"Mr. Simmonds told us to report to you, sir, if you were here."

"What we want you to do," said Godfrey, "is to watch the house—watch it from all sides—patrol clear around it, and see that no one approaches it."

"Very well, sir," and the men touched their helmets, and one of them went around to the back of the house, while the other remained in front.

"Perhaps if they concealed themselves," I suggested, "the fellow might venture back and be nabbed."

But Godfrey shook his head.

"I