The Black Mask — page 23: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

; 7 vest pocket, and with a deliberation maddening to the banker, heaved him- self to his feet. “Tf you'll just step this way, Mr. Snedeker.” Leading the banker We the general offices of the Totem National, where they immediately became the focal point ‘of every eye in the place, Carranaugh ‘stopped in front of the treasure vault from which the million had so mys- teriously disappeared. _ “Open the door, please.” The guardian of the door looked from the big man to the president and the Jatter, frankly mystified and curious, nodded. As they stepped inside the detective said: “I first want to show you how this vault was entered and the money taken out. If I turned it over to you first I’m afraid you wotld lose your interest in this feature of my discoveries.” “All right. Only hurry.” As had been said, Carranaugh would have made a good actor if he had not been a better detective, as his ensuing actions proved, nothing of their his- trionic value being lost because his au- dience was limited to one. With much the air of Macbeth in the “apparition scene’ he advanced to the center of the vault, making an im- pressive gesture with his arm calling Snedeker’s attention to the floor, upon which he tapped lightly with his foot. It is permissible exaggeration to say that Snedeker’s eyes threatened to pop out of his head as, fascinatéd, they_saw one of the floor plates, one of the three- inch chrome steel supposedly impreg- nable floor-plates, part company with its fellows and drop out of sight, to be re- placed a moment later by the head and broad shoulders of a man who turned a very dirty but grinning face up to look into the banker’s own, remarking: “Hello, Jim. All O.K.?” The Man Who Was Seven 21 e “Wh — wh — wh — what?” gasped Snedeker. “This is my partner, Thomas Peiper- son, of the Seattle Advertising Service, Mr. Snedeker. Mr. Snedeker—Mr. Peiperson. We'll explain all the details later. Just now you must be more in- terested in the money. Come on, Tom.” The banker nodded, having no words to express his feelings just then, and followed silently after Carranaugh and Peiperson as they led the way to we door of the safe-deposit vault. It must be confessed, here and. now, that for all his mystification, all his eagerness, Snedeker was not as nervous as his two outwardly calm but inwardly anxious guides, whose nerves were on a wire-edge. They had bet on a long shot, were gambling to a large extent upon what they felt were probabilities beyond reasonable doubt, but still prob- abilities, It was just possible, for all the evi- dence upon which their belief was based, for all the feasibility of their theory, for all their confidence in their deduc- tions, that the thieves had not hidden the million where Carranaugh and Peiperson felt they must have hidden it. They might even be right in the place of concealment originally chosen but again there was the possibility that - it no longer held the treasure, that it subsequently had been removed to a place of greater safety for the thieves. So it was that there were three, in- stead of only one, extremely nervous men who watched the vault attendant unlock with his masterkey boxes num- bered 358-359-360, three of the largest boxes in the vault, the three boxes that had been rented by one Seth C. Seeley. CHAPTER X SoMETIME later, when the contents of the three boxes had been most care- tole counted and checked, when every