Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-01-19
From NOwOn
BY FRANK L. PACKARD
(AUTH0R or TIE MIRACLE NAVY
} CcpvfDht, 1875, bu Public ledger Company

here" Neither argument nor expostu-
lation had been of any avail. She was
still above there--wniting.
He had reached the head Of the lower
fight of stairs, and now he halted, and
stood motionless. There was a sound
from below. IL was neither Imagination
nor fancy ; II was distinct and unmis-
takable--a low, rasping, metallic sound.
For an interval Of seconds he stood
there listening:~ ~then he shifted the
fashlight, switched off now, to his left
hand, and his right hand slipped into
his pocket for his revolver. He moved
forward then silently, noiselessly. and,
as he descended the stairway, paused
at every step to listen intently again.
The sound. with short, almost negligible
Interruptions, persisted; and, with Il
now, it seemed as though he could dis
tinguish the sound Of heavy breathing.
! And now it seemed too, as though the
blackness were less Opaque. as though.
while there was still no object discerni :
BILE, the hallway below was in a sort of
murk, and as though, from somewhere,
| light rays, that were either carefully
guarded or had expended, through dis
tance. almost all their energy, were still
striving to pierce the darkness.
Tight dipped now, a few steps further
down. Dave Henderson leaned out over
the bannister-and hung there tensely,
rigidly.
It was like looking upon some weird
uncannily clever effect that had been
thrown upon a moving picture screen.
wide open, and through this he could
see a white circle of light, the rays
thrown away from and in the opposite
direction to the door. They flooded the
face Of a safe: and. darkly, behind the
light itself. two figures were family
outlined, one kneeling at the safe, the
other holding fashlight and standing
over the kneeling mans shoulder. And
now the nature of the sounds that he had
not been able to define was obvious
II was the click of ratchet, the rasp
Of bit eating voraciously into steel.
as the kneeling man worked at the face
Of the safe.
For moment his eyes narrowed. half
In sudden, angry menace, half in per-
plexity. he hung there gazing on the
scene; and then. with all the caution
that he knew, his weight thrown grad
against a protesting creak, he went on
down the stairs.
1t was strange-damnably and most
curiously STRANGE Was one of those
figures In there Dago George? If. so.
1t would account for the presence Of
second man--the one Teresa had heard
coming down stairs. But. IL so, what
was Dago Georges game? Was the man
going to put up the bluff that he had
been robbed, and was therefore wrecking
his own safe? That was an old gag
But what purpose could it serve Dago
George in the present instance? 1t
wasn't as though he, Dave Henderson,
had -confded the package to Dago
Georges keeping, and Dago George
could take this means of cunningly Sc
curing it for himself Dago George had
stolen it-and, logically, the last thing
Dago George would do would be to admit
any knowledge Of It, let alone faunt it
openly.
At the foot Of the stairs Dave Hen
derson discarded that theory as unten-
able. But II, then. neither one of the
two in there was Dago George--whcrc
was Bago George?
It was little beyond attrbutlng to
mere coincidence the fact that q couple
of marauding safe breakers should have
happened to select Dago Georges safe
tonight in the ordinary routine of their
nefarious vocation. Coincidence, MS an
explanation, wasn't good enough 1t
looked queer--extremely queer. Where