“This belongs to Kirschell's secretary probably,” he decided. “The other door from here opens, of course, into Kirschell's private office. Wonder what Mr. Isaac Kirschell's business is?”
He closed the door leading into the outer office, and moved across the room to the second door that already stood wide open, and almost directly faced what he had taken for granted was the secretary's desk. He stepped over the threshold. Mr. Kirschell's sanctum was somewhat more elaborately furnished. Apart from a rather expensive flat-topped desk in the centre of the room, there was a massive safe, new and of modern design, a heavy rug upon the floor, and several very comfortable leather-up holstered chairs. A washstand, the metal taps highly polished, and a mahogany towel rack occupied the far corner. The Hawk inspected the safe with the eye of a connoisseur, scowled unhappily by way of expressing his opinion of it, and turned to the desk. He opened a drawer, and picked up a sheet of business stationery. The letterhead read: ISAAC KIRSCHELL LOANS, MORTGAGES & GENERAL EXCHANGE
“Ho, ho!” observed the Hawk. “Sort of a glorified pawnbroker, eh? I——”
The sheet of paper was shot back into the drawer, the flashlight was out—and on the instant the Hawk was back in the other office, and crouched on the floor behind the desk. Some one had halted outside in the corridor before the main office door, and now a key was turned in the lock. The door was opened and closed, footsteps crossed the general office, paused for a moment outside Mr. Kirschell's door, then the lights in Mr. Kirschell's room went on, a man entered, tossed his hat on a chair, and sat down at the desk. It was obviously Mr. Kirschell himself.
Through the wide opening between the ends of the desk that sheltered him, the Hawk, flat on the floor, took stock of the other. The man was rather small in stature, with a thin, palish face, sharp, restless, very small black eyes, and he was extremely well dressed—the Hawk noted the dainty little boutonnière in the lapel of the man's coat, and smiled queerly. From Mr. Kirschell's face he glanced at the face of Mr. Kirschell's safe, then back at Mr. Kirschell again—and fingered his automatic in the pocket of his coat.