It was a peculiar sound, like the soft bang which is made by the closing
of a safe door. For a moment Drake paid no heed to it; then suddenly its
significance struck upon him. Lady Angleford was in the drawing-room.
Who could be at the safe?
He stepped outside the door, and waited for a second or two, then he
opened the door softly, and saw a man rising from his knees in front of
the safe. The man turned at the moment and stood with the case of
diamonds in his hand--two other cases bulged from his side pockets--his
eyes gleaming through his mask.
Now, in fiction the hero who is placed in this position always cries
aloud for help, and instantly springs at the burglar; but in real life
the element of surprise has to be taken into account; and Drake was too
amazed at the moment to fling himself upon the thief. Besides, it is
your weak and timid man who immediately cries for help. Drake was
neither weak nor timid, and it would not occur to him to shriek for
assistance. So the two men stood motionless as statues, and glanced at
each other while you could count twenty. Then the burglar whipped a
revolver from his pocket and presented it.
"Stand out of my way!" he said gruffly, and disguising his voice, for
he knew how easily a voice can become a means of identification. "Better
stand out of my way, or, by God! I'll fire!"
Drake laughed, the short laugh of a strong man ridiculing the proposal
that he shall probably stand aside and permit a thief to pass with his
booty.
"Put down that thing," he said. "You know you can't fire; too much
noise. Put it down--and the cases. No? Very well!"
He sprang aside with one movement, and with the next went for the man.
Ted was really a skillful craftsman, and had taken the precaution to
fasten a string across the room, from the bed to the grate.
Drake's foot caught in it, and he went sprawling on his face.
Ted sprang over him, and gained the corridor. With a dexterity beyond
all praise, he switched off the remaining lights and then pushed up the
window and dropped, rather than climbed, down the ladder.
Drake was on his feet in a moment and out in the corridor in the next.
He had heard the window pushed up, and knew the point at which the man
had made his escape.
Even then he did not give the alarm, and he did not turn up the lights,
for he could see into the night better without them. He leaned out of
the window and peered into darkness, and distinguished two forms gliding
toward the shrubbery.