The window slid up easily–too easily–and Mike waited a long time,listening, before he made a move. The whole huge pile of the factory wasstill. There were no lights anywhere, except that dim one by the gatethrough the stockade. Lying quite still in the darkness, Mike waited.There was no sound, no ringing of alarm bells, no bustle of activityanywhere. The manufacturing plant of the Whitney Jewelry & WatchCompany remained as it had been before, a vast, still pile of brick,with empty-eyed windows staring blankly at the night.
And yet.... That window had opened very easily. Mike meditated, hislittle eyes gleaming in the darkness. Then he saw a tiny flicker oflight in the distance. The window he had opened was at the end of a longcorridor, and he saw the watchman walking unhurriedly away from him. Thewatchman’s legs threw monstrous shadows from the lantern he carried,Mike could not see his face, but he could see the uniform and note theabsolute leisure and confidence with which the man was moving. Hepaused, as Mike watched, and inserted his key in a watchman’s clock. Heturned it, registering his presence and vigilance on a strip of paperwithin the mechanism. Then, casually, he went on his way. In a fewmoments he turned a corner and was lost to sight.
Mike grinned to himself in the obscurity. With monkey-like agility hescrambled through the open window, making no sound. Once within thewalls of the factory he waited another long minute for a noise. Distantand hollow, he heard the watchman’s footfalls, unhurried, methodical, ashe made his round.
Then, softly, Mike lowered the window. He wore rubber-soled shoes.His eyes were those of a cat, and his ears were attuned to the slightestwarning of danger, but he heard no faintest sound–not even his ownfootfalls–save the distant, regular steps of the watchman. The watchmanwore creaky shoes.
Like some night-flying moth the intruder slipped through thecorridors of the untenanted factory. All about him there were smells.Oil–that would be the delicate lathes where precious metals were worked.Once he smelled fresh paint. And there was that curious odor offreshly-mopped floors. The scrub-women had come after the closing of thefactory and done their work. Then he smelled faded flowers. Someone hadbrought them and put them in a glass of water, and they had beenleft.
Mike paid little or no attention to smells. The place he sought wason the second floor, in the rear–the colossal vault where all theprecious things in which the factory dealt were gathered for safetyduring the night. He made his way there, silently. Every little while hestopped to listen for the unvarying footfalls of the watchman. They wenton, unsuspicious and confident.
Through an arduous and twice interrupted apprenticeship in his chosentrade–interruptions spent perforce behind stone walls–Mike had haddrilled into him just two things. One was the fatality of haste. Theother was the necessity for scientific, painstaking attention to detail.Therefore, Mike let his flashlight slip over the huge surface of thevault door with barely a pause. He knew the watchman would look in on itas he went downstairs. Primarily, he was looking for a place to hideduring that moment.
There was a door in the room which contained the vault, but Mike wasnot certain but that the watchman would return through it. He swept hislight around the room–keeping it low, lest it flash out through awindow–and regretfully decided against remaining. He went out again,swiftly and silently, looking for a hiding-place.
He found it in a washroom, and listened from there while the watchmanretraced his steps, coming downstairs again, going to the v