“Did you know that you were likely to encounter me tonight?”
“No. I knew that you had gone to the Van Dusen’s, and I knew that the affair wouldn’t be over until two or three o’clock in the morning. I thought I had at least an hour.”
“That’s what I got for being bored with the party,” Brokay said.
“This is what you get for being bored with the party.” West told him, and chuckled. “Come on, we’ll try the window over there on the south side — the one that has the shade tree growing near it.”
“You mean we’ll climb up in the shade tree?”
“No, we’ll take advantage of the shadow. Let’s go.”
“Suppose the window’s locked?” Brokay asked.
“I’ll show you all about that,” Sam West said.
He led the way across the narrow strip of lawn, to the place where the tree flung an inky shadow against the house. Calmly, methodically, he took a small leather case from beneath his coat, selected a curved steel bar, fitted a telescopic handle to it, placed one end of the curved bar beneath the sill of the window, and pressed downward.
There was a sharp clicking noise, and the window rose for an inch or two, shivering slightly. Sam West casually inserted gloved fingers and raised the sash. “Remember,” he said in a whisper, “no matter how inconvenient it is, keep the gloves on your hands. We don’t want to leave any fingerprints.”
With the lithe grace of an athlete, West swung up from the ground, flung one leg over the window sill and then disappeared in the darkness. “Want a hand?” he whispered.
“No,” said Brokay, and slid up and across the sill as easily as West had performed the operation.
From the darkness, the burglar watched him approvingly. “You keep in pretty good condition,” he said.
“Fair,” Brokay remarked nonchalantly.
“I’ve got a floor plan of the house,” Sam West said. “The safe that we want is in the bedroom, on the second floor. We won’t bother with anything else, but we’ll go right up there.”
“What’s in it?” Brokay inquired.
“You can never tell,” West said, leading the way to a corridor, where the beam of his spotlight showed a huge winding staircase which stretched upward, into the realm of mysterious darkness above the circle of illumination.
“We take the stairs,” said Sam West.
Keeping his feet well to the sides of the stairs, so that no creak would betray him, and motioning to Brokay to do the same, Sam West padded upward. As he traveled, the flashlight sent its beam darting about to the right and left, up and down, dissipating the shadows.
There was not a sound in the dark house. It might have been untenanted, for all the noises that came to Brokay’s straining ears.
Sam West found the upper corridor, turned and touched Brokay with his hand, guiding him gently to the left and through a door which was open. West crossed a room, his feet making no noise as they moved across the carpeted floor with a sure-footed caution which would have done credit to a stalking puma. He paused with his hand on the knob of a door.
“Get ready for anything,” he whispered. Gently, he disengaged the latch and. opened the door.
The room was dark and silent.
“Guess we’re O. K.,” said West, and pushed the button on the flashlight, which sent the pencil of brilliant illumination darting about the room.
The light showed that the bedroom was that of a woman; that it was handsomely appointed. It showed a dresser on which glittered toilet articles in an orderly array. The beam of the flashlight slithered across the reflecting surface of a mirror, then darted across the bed.
There was something which caught the gleam of the flashlight, a white silent something which caused Brokay to stiffen, caused Sam West to give a quick flick of his wrist, sending the flashlight back so that the beam rested on the bed.
Brokay gave an involuntary exclamation of horror.
The body of a young woman lay upon the bed — a young woman who was clad only in the most filmy of underthings. The body was beautifully formed. Filmy lace rippled over firm, white bosom. The hair was a warm, rich brown, and was spread about in a tangled confusion, contrasting with the deathly pallor of the face. The legs were stockinged, but there were no slippers on the feet.
Clinging to the top of the bed, his tail wrapped around and around the brass of the bedstead, was a monkey which sat perfectly motionless, staring with wide eyes at the flashlight.
“Good God!” said Brokay. “What’s that?”
“Steady!” said Sam West, and there was the noise of rustling garments which accompanied swift motion as the burglar reached to his hip pocket and pulled out a revolver.
For a long moment the two men stood silent, staring at the form on the bed, at the monkey which perched motionless on the top of the bed.
“Let’s get out of this,” said Sam West.
“Wait a minute,” Brokay told him, “we’ve got to find out what’s happened. Maybe the woman is unconscious.”
“Not me,” said Sam West. “We’re going to get out. We can’t tell what’s going to happen here. Remember, we’re flirting with the electric chair.”
Brokay took two steps toward the bed. As he moved, the monkey screamed with terror. Sam West switched out the light and left the room in darkness.
“Wait a minute,” called Brokay. “You can’t leave that way, West.”
There was no noise from Sam West, who moved with such feline stealth that his footfalls were silent.
Brokay turned and made a lunge toward where he thought the burglar would be. His questing fingers encountered only darkness. He stumbled, lurched against the wall and then groped with his fingers until he found a light switch. He snapped on the light switch.
Sam West was not in the room. The monkey started to chatter with terror a nervous, hysterical chatter that sounded almost like the clicking of castanets. Brokay flung himself toward the door, wrenched it open, looked out into the corridor and caught the gleam of Sam West’s spotlight.
“Come back here, West,” he said, “or I’m going to shoot.”
The flashlight snapped out. The corridor was as dark as pitch.
“I mean it,” Brokay said.
“Listen,” came Sam West’s voice, sounding cold and ominous, “that’s a game two can play at. But remember, there’s been a murder committed here. You start shooting and you’re going to alarm the neighborhood, and if you don’t quit making such a confounded racket, you’re going to do it anyway. Do you know what it means for us to be caught here?”
“I say come on back,” Brokay said. “We’re going to see what we can do.”
There was a moment of silence, then he heard Sam West sigh. “You,” said the burglar, “are just about foolish enough to start making a racket. Come on, if it’s going to suit you any better. What do you want to do, hold a post mortem?”
“I want to find out something about this business,” Brokay said.
He turned and walked back toward the room, conscious of the fact that the burglar was padding noiselessly along just behind him. As Brokay entered the room, he felt something hard prodding into his back.
“I’m just sticking a rod on you,” the burglar said, “so that you’ll know who’s running this show.”
Brokay said nothing, but advanced into the bedroom. He stretched forth a cautious hand and touched the bare flesh of the woman’s arm, then, muttering an exclamation, he took off his glove.
“Leave that glove on!” Sam West cautioned. “You leave a fingerprint here and it’ll mean the electric chair.”
Brokay still remained silent, but with his bare fingers felt the flesh of the woman’s wrist.
“She’s dead,” he said, after a moment, “but she hasn’t been dead longer man a few minutes. The body is still warm.”