The space inside looked like a storeroom. The shaft went high up; a flashlight, turned on by Perry, showed the walls above. This shaft was separate from the other. As they clambered into the unused shaft, the cousins discovered that it had a solid floor of wood, fitted into the bottom space.
At Perry’s suggestion, they moved back into the passage. Leaning downward while Zane played the light, Perry found two small holes in the flooring. As he lifted, the wooden surface came upward in hinged fashion.
“Look there!” exclaimed Perry, in a whisper. “See it? A stone slab fitted in the floor! It has an iron ring in it!”
Springing into the shaft, Perry raised the slab and set it aside. He motioned Zane to turn out the light in the passage; then to close the door of the shaft.
Zane obeyed; he entered with the flashlight. The rays revealed a short iron ladder going down to a floor beneath the basement.
The young men descended. They found a narrow, stone-walled passage. At the end was a wooden door, which Perry opened. This revealed an iron barrier; a heavy blocking door that seemed to have no opening, save for a place where a doorknob should have been. There, revealed by the light, were five turning tumblers, evidently part of an unique lock, each bearing the letters of the alphabet. The tumblers were set so that they read:
A A A A A
“Jetty,” said Zane, in a low voice that was hollow in the cramped confines. “Turn the tumblers so they read ‘Jetty,’ Perry.”
Perry complied. Each tumbler revolved as he worked it with his finger. The required word came into place. Nothing happened, however, until Perry thought to press the barrier. Then the huge door groaned inward on its heavy hinges.
The next space that they entered was two feet deeper than the width of the door. They could have closed the barrier behind them, but they decided not to do so. The further wall was furnished with a cut-out space. Set in that cranny was a steel safe.
“The combination!” exclaimed Zane, his voice hollow in the tiny room. “Try it, Perry. Begin with the left.
Three — seven — two — one—”
Perry complied. His hand dropped to the safe handle as Zane repeated the final instruction from the signet:
“Turn!”
The door came open. The flashlight showed an arrangement of compartments at the back of the safe-all empty. But there was one object, squarely in the center, that gained the instant attention of the cousins.
This was an iron coffer, bound with heavy bands of metal clamped in place.
THE box was nearly three feet in width; its height and depth were each about two feet. Perry gripped a handle at one end. The box came up, heavily. Perry told Zane to take the other handle. Together, they lugged the box back into the passage.
While Zane waited beside the coffer, Perry closed the safe and turned the combination. Then he pulled the big door and hurriedly replaced the letters so they formed a series of five A’s. He went to the ladder, ascended it, and hissed to Zane to start the box upward.
This was no small task. Zane got the coffer on end and by shifting it from rung to rung, managed to move it part way up the ladder. Then Perry, leaning into the shaft, caught the end above. The heavy box came to the floor of the dummy elevator shaft.
“There’s plenty in it,” whispered Perry, as Zane joined him. “But we’re not going to open the coffer here. We’ll get it back into our house.”
“We can put it in the secret room,” added Zane. “Open it there, get a look at the contents. This may mean millions, Perry!”
“You bet. In gilt-edged securities or bank notes, too, if our grandfather knew his business. It’s ours, by possession, when we get it in the house. That’s where we’ll keep it. Under cover — until we find the right time to unload whatever we’ve got.”
“That’s the idea. But what about right now? Can we chance it, Perry, lugging this box out of the apartment house?”
“Why not? It looks enough like a trunk not to excite suspicion. Up the elevator into the hallway. There’s a back door that I saw when I came in. Let’s go.”
The cousins moved the box into the passage. Perry clamped the door of the dummy shaft. The elevator was still at the basement level. They took the coffer up to the ground floor. The hall was empty. The back door revealed an open space to the rear street.
Perry and Zane carried the box and set it down by the steps of a house. Perry walked quickly to the corner and found a cab. He came up in the taxi, alighted, and helped Zane lift the box into the rear of the car.
The cabby made no comment. To him, the coffer looked like a trunk; these young claps appeared to be respectable fellows who were probably moving from the house at which he had stopped.
The cab rolled off on its trip to the Dolger mansion. The heirs had recovered the fortune that they sought; soon they would be in the secret room that they had chosen for the hiding place. There they would learn the contents of the coffer. They had left no trace of their visit to the hidden strong room beneath the old apartment house.
YET the removal of the coffer was not to pass undetected. One hour after the visit of the cousins, another arrival moved from the elevator into the basement level of the Ajax Apartments.
This visitor had extinguished the light in the car. He was using a flashlight to blink his way to the door of the dummy shaft.
With methodical precision, the man in the dark raised the wooden flooring; then the iron slab. He descended the ladder. His light shone upon the letters on the metal door as his long fingers turned the tumblers to spell the word Jetty.
The heavy door swung inward. The light blinked on the safe. The same hand manipulated the combination. The door of the safe came open; the light swung to the floor. It stopped there. The new visitor stared; and his breath came in short, fierce gasps.
The removal of the coffer had been discovered by some one who knew the secret that the Dolgers had learned. The newcomer saw proof that the message in the signets had been gained. His hissed breathing ended. His voice fumed imprecations. The incoherent words that came from this visitor’s lips were proof of his identity.
For the utterances were phrased in the harsh crackle that belonged to Lucius Zurick. He — the chief of the three living philanthropists — had come here to make sure that the hidden wealth was safe.
The crackles died. The light blinked out. Lucius Zurick worked in total darkness as he closed the rifled safe and the metal door. His footsteps clicked in the underground passage. Again, low epithets were muttered by his parchment lips.
Hollow tones; fierce, crackled words. Those were foreboding. They stood as unheard proof that Lucius Zurick was planning drastic measures to regain the wealth that the three philanthropists had lost.
CHAPTER XIV. THE PHILANTHROPISTS MOVE
THE next evening, Lucius Zurick came down the stairs of his house at precisely eight o’clock. He stopped as he neared the ground floor. He stared at Timothy, who was standing in livery at the doorway of the parlor.
“What are you doing here, Timothy?” quizzed Zurick, harshly. “I told you that you could have this evening off. Why are you on duty?”
“It was inconvenient, sir,” came the response. “I decided to stay here at the house; but I did not wish to disturb you, sir.”
“Very well,” snorted Zurick. “But do not count upon another evening free instead of this one. I am receiving visitors tonight; I intended to let them in myself. But since you are on duty, you may answer the door as usual.”
“Very well, sir.”
“I am going into my study. Usher Mr. Laverock and Mr. Kent in there. Mallan goes in the parlor when he comes.”