“All right, Mr. Jenkins. Let us be on our way.”
He advanced with the blindfold, and I let him adjust it. I was going to play into his hands, let him think I was a good safe mechanic, but that was all, merely a common crook with no intelligence. I wanted them all to underestimate me.
We went down to the car, and the lawyer on one side and the girl on the other assisted me into the closed car. I had been wondering about the girl, why she was along, but now I found out. This guy, Colby, was taking no chances on me peeking through the blindfold while he was busy with the car. The girl sat beside me, her hands holding my head, keeping the hood tight over my eyes. Her soft hands continually fluttered over my face, and I could smell the delicate perfume of her clothing as she bent over me, watching that blindfold continuously. Also I could feel that she was trembling.
Knowing in advance where we were going, I was able to tell approximately how we reached the building. There was the brilliant illumination of a main artery of the city, a couple of sharp turns, and then gloom. That much I could tell through the blindfold. Evidently we were in an alley, approaching the office building from the rear.
I was helped from the car and into a freight elevator. Slowly we ascended, there was the sound of an opening door, and the girl with the mole guided me down the flagged corridor of an office building. Colby went on ahead, and I could hear the faint scratching of a key as he fitted it into a lock. The girl guided me directly into an office room, and I could smell the musty closeness of the stale air.
There was a minute or two while Colby was adjusting things to his satisfaction, and I could hear him pulling down the window shades, evidently shutting out any light which might come in from the street. He was thorough after a fashion, this Colby.
At length he came to me and removed the hood. I was standing before a safe, a safe which was illuminated by the beam of a very small flashlight. The rest of the office was in darkness. Only the door and nickeled dials were visible on the safe, none of the surroundings showed in the carefully adjusted beam of that flashlight.
“Now, Jenkins, do your stuff,” he whispered, bending forward until the oily perfume of his glossy hair surrounded me in a sickening stench.
I reached out and touched the dials.
“And here is where I get a lesson in safe opening,” went on the lawyer, still in that same whisper. “I have heard of your ability, Jenkins, and we have wondered how you did it. Now I’ll find out.”
He would, like fun, but I didn’t put him wise. I nodded and began to spin the dials of the safe, back and forth, back and forth. Then I stopped spinning them and placed my nose close to the door, as though I was smelling the metal. Next I took out my knife and tapped the metal carefully, listening to the sounds. I might have been a physician sounding the chest of a patient. When I had indulged in enough horseplay to mystify him, I confidently returned the knife to my pocket.
“I have the combination now,” I whispered, and began to turn the dials with the easy confidence of a man opening his own safe. There came a click from the combination and I shot back the bolts and swung the huge door open.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed the lawyer in genuine awe.
“Ladies present,” I reminded him, with a touch of sarcasm.
He showed his true character for a moment. “Ladies, hell!” he remarked, as he dove into the interior of the safe.
In a moment he emerged with envelope number 543290 in his hand, and carefully he substituted the envelope I had given him, then he himself closed the safe and spun the dials.
“I’ll never be satisfied until this envelope is destroyed,” he said, and, with the words, pulled over a brass cuspidor and struck a match. The flame crackled and snapped up the envelope. The sealing wax began to melt and sputter, dropping into the cuspidor. The ashes dropped and then the last corner of the envelope was consumed. The lawyer took a fountain pen and began to mash up the black, charred fragments of paper. When he had finished that will was destroyed. Beyond a few blackened bits of paper and a red drop of sealing wax in the bottom of the cuspidor there was no trace of the envelope which the safe had so closely guarded, envelope 543290.
“Now we’re finished,” exulted the lawyer. “Jenkins, you’re simply great. I can make a fortune with you, man! You acted as though you had been familiar with that safe for twenty years, and it’s supposed to be one of the best safes in the country. You’re a wonder!”
The girl said nothing. By pressing back so that my shoulder was against her I could feel her shiver. Whatever her connection with this gang, she had something hanging over her head that would leave her no peace of mind. She was in their power, and she knew it.
The blindfold was again adjusted, and the car swung out around the city, circling block after block so that I could not follow directions, and finally landing me before the door of my apartment house. The lawyer was taking no chances on my even getting a good look at the car, lest I should be able to identify it in some way, but escorted me to my own apartment before he removed the hood.
When they had left I got busy.
I have a reputation of being able to slip through the fingers of the police. To be wanted in a dozen states with one’s picture available for publication, with placards distributed, and with police notified, and to still keep at liberty require something in the way of more than average ability in the art of disguise.
A knowledge of Chinese manners, customs, language and psychology has always been a big help to me, particularly in the West. The Cantonese dialect is a funny thing. There are two major tones or octaves, and four varying intonations in each octave. This gives each sound eight different meanings, depending on the octave and the tone. For instance, ngau means cow if it is spoken one way, means dog if spoken in another, and crazy if spoken a little differently, and so on. It’s not an easy language to learn, and the Chinks don’t help any. They don’t like to have the whites pry into their affairs. As far as I know, I’m the only crook that can talk the lingo, and whoever that fat bird with the icy eyes might be, I fancied I could give him cards and spades in Chinatown and come out on top.
Naturally, my knowledge of Chinese language is kept pretty much to myself. I don’t let the crooks, the police or even the Chinks themselves, know that I know it. It wouldn’t do to have that information get out. Then the police would look for me in Chinatown first.
My Chinese disguise is that of a white-haired old heathen with straggling white whiskers that come well down on the chest. The Chinks respect age, and an old man can have certain eccentricities which a younger man couldn’t get away with.
Half an hour after Colby left me in my apartment I was shuffling around Chinatown, an old man, slipping along the streets at a late hour. The legitimate stores were closed. The Chinese merchants were in bed, but here and there storerooms kept open. Some of the places ran on a twenty-four-hour shift. Also I knew that the storerooms were merely the outside entrances. Once back of the main rooms and the rabbit-warren passages all ran together anyway.