When Slicker got to the suburbs he realized why the telephones of Neil Stanwood and his uncle were listed under the same number. The address was a pretentious house that frowned darkly somber from well kept grounds.
Darkly somber, pretentious houses were Slicker’s meat.
He vaulted a fence, went to the side of the house, found a trellis and an open window on the second floor. He ascertained there were no burglar alarms, and slid into the warm interior of the house.
He used a flash to guide him to the stairs, went down them, and found a wide window on the ground floor. He opened that window, wide. But first he found and disconnected the burglar alarm that ran along the side of the window.
The ground floor of the house was wired for alarms, and that gave Slicker a thrill of relief. Houses that were wired for burglar alarms usually had something worthwhile in them.
His first plans had been more nebulous. They involved bringing pressure to bear for the getting of what he wanted. But when he saw a highly modern safe in the corner of the library, he changed his plans. He would see what that safe had to offer.
Slicker went about his work with calm deliberation.
He searched the safe for wires, found two and put them out of the running. Then he gave his attention to the locking device.
The manufacturers of that safe doubtless believed that it was reasonably burglar proof. Perhaps they were acquainted with certain idiosyncrasies of the lock, but it is doubtful if they realized in just what manner those little peculiarities could be utilized by expert hands.
Slicker Williams could have delivered a very interesting lecture to the makers of that safe, had he chosen. He did not choose, for obvious reasons.
At the end of fifteen minutes’ patient effort, he swung back the door of the safe. Then he commenced a detailed examination of the interior.
There were two compartments, each protected by a locked steel door with a combination. One of those compartments was marked with the initials “H. W. S.” The other one bore the name: “Neil.”
Slicker Williams made child’s play out of those combinations on the interior of the safe. He pulled out drawers, pondering over the contents.
In one of the compartments there was an assortment of jewels that made his mouth water. In another there was a roll of currency. Those were the compartments of the safe reserved for the head of the house. In the nephew’s side were several pigeon-holes stuffed with letters.
Slicker read a few of those letters.
Many of them were the usual blah, blah of lovesick girls, falling for an agreeable personality and a background of wealthy parents. But one stack had a far more sinister note. They had to do with blackmail, and the threats were lurid and hardly flattering to the character of Neil Stanwood.
There were other documents which evidenced that Neil Stanwood had been hard pressed for ready cash, and that he had met the demand for that cash by the sale of certain securities.
There was a letter which listed those securities, and there were some of the bonds, negotiable, not as yet sold.
Slicker Williams regarded those documents with great interest. A clock, somewhere in the house, chimed the hour of midnight.
Slicker Williams planned his campaign to depend upon what he would find upstairs. He left the safe for the moment, took folding rubber slippers from his pocket, adjusted them over the soles of his shoes, and crept softly up to the bedrooms.
He entered a front room, found a rather heavy man with sagging jowls, sleeping noisily. Slicker presumed this was the head of the house, none other than the great H. W. Stanwood, president of The Stanwood Construction Company. But Slicker Williams never left anything to chance. He made explorations in the pockets of the business suit which hung from a pole in the closet, uncovered a well filled wallet and business cards which confirmed his suspicions.
He left the room, after carefully replacing the wallet.
A side bedroom was the one occupied by Neil Stanwood, the nephew. As might have been expected of a young man whose affairs of the heart were so complex in their nature, Neil Stanwood was out.
Slicker Williams verified these facts.
Then he tiptoed down the stairs again and closed the safe. But he left the inner doors just a bit ajar. He poured soup composed of nitroglycerine around the crevices of the door, and held the soup in place by putting soft soap about the top of the crack, making a little funnel.
Then he piled carpets over the safe. When he had done this, he tipped over a chair and smashed some books to the floor. Then he went on silent feet to the staircase and concealed himself near the head of the stairs.
There were no further sounds of noisy slumber from the other room where the heavy man had sleeping. In place of that, there were the sounds of slippered feet slithering from the bed toward the door.
Slicker Williams glided into another bedroom, half closed the door and waited.
Old Stanwood, looking like an elephant in his gaudy bathrobe, slippety-slopped down the corridor, stood at the head of the stairs, listening. Then he cautiously descended. He held an electric flashlight in his hand.
Slicker Williams went to the head of the stairs, watched the descending figure. He was cool, as a veteran fighter, listening for the sound of the gong.
As Stanwood went into the room and gazed upon the piled up rugs which blanketed the safe, saw the overturned table and chair, the crashed glassware, Slicker Williams could hear the “whoosh” of surprise, the startled exclamation of fear. He heard the slippered feet start on a half run for the stairs once more.
Slicker ducked back out of the way as Stanwood came up the stairs on the run. He saw the flabby face, the joggling jowls, the livid hue of the skin, caught a glint of the panic in the man’s eyes.
Then he heard the bedroom door slam, the click of the key in the lock. He heard the sound of a telephone clicking, the quavering voice of Stanwood, summoning the police.
Slicker Williams went softly down the stairs.
He paused at the safe to light the fuse which would set off the nitroglycerine. Then he slipped out of the window and lit a cigarette, waiting patiently.
Ten seconds became fifteen.
There was a deep throated “BOOM” from the safe.
Slicker pinched out the cigarette, nonchalantly climbed back into the room.
The souping had been done in a bungling manner. The whole door of the safe had been ripped away and back. Acrid fumes eddied about the room.
Slicker saw to it that the papers were dribbling out on the floor, and that there was no fire. Then he left the house for the last time and melted into the shadows.
He could see dancing lights from the windows, hear the run of feet, the rattle of voices as the servants became aroused. In the distance, he heard the scream of a siren.
Slicker Williams lit another cigarette when he was a couple of blocks from the house, and casually stepped into the parked automobile he had rented.
He drove back to the city, returned the car, got a room and went to bed.
Twenty-four hours later he read two news items which were of interest to him. One related how a safe cracker, evidently a bungling amateur, had opened the safe at the palatial suburban residence of H. W. Stanwood, head of The Stanwood Construction Company. The thief, it seemed, had been heard by the master of the house, had been frightened away by the police just as he had the safe open. A check of the contents, made by the police immediately upon their arrival, had disclosed that nothing was missing. The thief had overlooked a large sum of money and missed a valuable collection of gems.
The second item had to do with the fact that one Ruth Mowbrae, arrested under a mistake by the police, had been released upon a dismissal of the charges against her by her employer. The item mentioned that there had been a cash consideration as a settlement of any claims for false arrest.