“I don’t know,” said Devlin. “He looks a little too much like a moving-picture hero to suit me. He may have it on him.”
At this moment Trent sat up with an effort and looked from one to the other of the visitors. As drunken men do, it appeared not easy to get them in proper focus.
Devlin was not easily put in the wrong. His manner was most respectful.
“Mr. Dangerfield wants you to join him in a little game of bridge,” he began ingratiatingly.
“Sure,” said the inebriate. “Any time at all.” He attempted to get up.
“You can’t go like this,” Devlin assured him. “You’d better sober up a bit. Take a cold bath.”
O’Brien obligingly turned the water on and five minutes later Devlin assisted him into the tub, while O’Brien examined the clothes he had left in his sitting-room.
Then the two left him abruptly and made no more mention of bridge or Dangerfield. Trent rolled on the bed chuckling. The honors were his.
The great black bird swooping from nowhere to relieve Dangerfield of his great ruby and other stones of value, to strike that worthy upon his strong wrists with such startling effect as to make him fall down a dozen steps, was capable of a simpler explanation than he had supposed.
Trent, a week before the robbery, had observed with peculiar attention the window leading to Dangerfield’s private stairway. He could see one easy approach to it and one of greater difficulty. The first was approach by a step-ladder. The second was a great arm of the enormous tree that reared its head above the hotel roof. This arm hung down from the roof almost twenty feet above the little window. He believed that his weight would bring it swaying down to the window-ledge. He tried it one moonless night and found the scheme feasible. Already the chiller mountain breezes following the heat spell were making visitors close their windows. On the evening of the third of September he stole from his room by climbing over the roof until he came to the side where the big tree was. In one hand he held a coil of rope to hold the branch when his weight was taken off it. This rope he tied to the iron staple of the shutter outside the window. It was easy to open this.
Dropping silently on to the stairs, he unscrewed the bulb of the light until the staircase was in partial darkness. Tense, he knelt on the edge of the window and waited for the millionaire. And as the man came in sight he suddenly lifted from a step his landing net, the same collapsible one Devlin had examined with such care. But this time it was draped in dark material to conceal its form. The brass rim, sharp and heavy, struck Dangerfield’s wrists as he held the box by both hands on a level with his heart. Into the open net the precious casket fell silently. Trent was in his room ten minutes ere Dangerfield came to consciousness. His next move seemed strange and unnecessary. With a used golf ball in his pocket, he slid down the veranda posts until he came, by devious routes, to the shed in which the lockers were of those who used the links. It had long since been closed for the night. Parker unfastened Dangerfield’s locker and placed the ball in the pocket, where it lay with others of similar age and make.