Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

Every Tuesday over the knob of a big steel door. His back was towaa-ds his visitor, and conse- quently he did not sec that visitor remove his pince-nez and hold to his eyes a pair of opera-glasses he took from his ix)ckcl. The knob was turned this way and that, but more than a minute elapsed before the steel door was opened, disclosing the Interior of a built-in safe almost the size of a small room. And by then the opera- f;lasses were back in Banford's pocket and he pince-nez were back upon the bridge of his nose. "Ti-icky combination." Huxley turned to remark. "Hard to remember." "Yes. I imagine so." said Banford. Huxley went into the safe and emerged from it with a package in his hand. He closed the safe and presented the packet. "There you are," he said. "Still sealed." "Thank you very much." Banford was on his feet. "I guess there's no place safer for gems than your vault." "Oh." chuckled Huxley, "a burglar would find opening the vault was the easiest part." Banford asked him wliat he meant. "I'll show >ou. I wasn't satisfied with the ordinary burglar alarms and the kind of police protection we've been getting" "So you added some trick alarm?" "No. a silent policeman that shoots to kill." He led the way over to the wall facing the safe. It was in a recess and there was a little metal flap there. He raised the flap and revealed a switch with a vul- canite handle. "When this switch is down," he said, "an electric beam is thrown across the front of the vault.'' "And flashes a signal to Headquarters?" suggested Banford. "No. it doesn't wait for that." The flap was replaced and Huxley turned to the safe and pointed to a moimted sub- machine-gun on a shelf at the back of its interior. "Look! That machine-gun goes into action, once the door is opened and anyone crosses the invisible ray. No thief coiild live through the baiTage of bullets." "Well, thanks very much for telling me about it." said Banford. "Oh. not at all. If you're thinking of installing one, I can give you the details." "No. I think you've told me everything I need to know. Thanks again for taking care of this parcel." And Banford re- tiu'ned to his own office with the stolen gems he had left in Huxley's care directly word had reached him of Bixby's arrest. ON THE TRAIL DANNY and Grazzi entered the building in Fifth Avenue shortly after six o'clock, when the janitor had been relieved by the night watchman. They had a long conversation with that grey-haired stal- wart, who was a retired police officer, and they went with him to the cross corridor at the rear end of the first floor, reaching it by way of the back stairs. "There it is," said the night watchman. and he jerked a thumb at the steel door Bixby had used. The main corridor and the cross corridor , ended there, forming an "L" by the win- dow outside which was the fire-escape. "You mean that's the back door to Banford's?" asked Danny. "Exactly," grinned the night watchman. "There ain't none! He installed that steel wall because he said the police weren't givin' him any protection." "Okay." said Grazzi glumly. "Thanks." The watchman left them, and the detec- tive thrust a shoulder against the steel. "It seems solid enough." he grunted. "Yeah." said Danny, and suddenly stooped over the carpet that covered the floor. "Look." Grazzi did look. Many feet had crushed the pile of the carpet. "So what?" he asked. "A lot o' foot- prints." "Yes," said Danny, "footprints where there isn't any door." BOY'S CINEMA "That's right!" Danny produced a microscope and went down oh his knees with it to examine the footjN-inls. Grazzi looked on with amuse- ment. "Even Sherlock Holmes gave up that technique." he drawled. "It's still the best way to find diamond particles. " said Danny. "Diamonds?" "Yeah." Danny put away the micro- scope. "Every one of these footprints has diamond dust on 'em. Probably stuck to the shoes of the workmen inside." "That means there's drilling in there?" "That's right. Dr. Watson." Danny got to his feet and slared at the steel that had replaced an ordinary door. "The room is probably sound-proof," he said. " Now the next thing is how do we get inside?" "You're givin' all the answers," said Grazzi, more impre.^sed than he cared to admit. Danny went to the window, opened it, and climbed out on to the fire-escape. Grazzi leaned over the sill to watch him as he looked along the rear wall. "There's a window over there, about twenty feet away." announced Danny. "Probably leads into Banford's workshop." "Twenty feet's a long jtunp," growled Grazzi. "I think I can make it on the ledge." A stone ledge about six inches wide, stretched along the wall on a level witir the platform of the fire-escape, but there was no sort of hand-hold, except a stack- pipe half-way, and there was a drop of eighteen feet to the concrete of the court below. "I think we'd better get a squad and knock that door down," urged Grazzi. "And by the time we got in, the place would be deserted," declared Danny, and he clambered over the rail of the fire- escape on to the ledge. It was a risky journey along the wall, and Grazzi looked on with much mis- giving. But Danny's gymnasium training had made him as lithe and sure-footed as a cat, and he reached the lighted window, held on to its sill and peered into the workroom. He saw a man at a lathe; he saw other men removing their leather aprons and preparing to depart for the night. He turned and motioned Grazzi to make him- self scarce because he felt sure they would go out at the door that did not appear to be a door. He was not mistaken. One of the men pressed the button in the wall, the steel door slid open, and one after another the whole staff of workmen trooped out into the corridor Grazzi had deserte,d, the last of them switching ofif the lights in the room and jabbing a finger at the button as he went. The steel door closed slowly, and then Danny managed to raise the bottom sash of the window and heaved himself over the sill. He closed the window, and witli an electric torch in his hand moved amongst the benches and the machines. On several of the benches there were trays, and in them gems that had been cut and gems that had been polished. He had been in the workroom some five minutes when a sound of footsteps, some- where behind a wall, reached his alert ears, and he ducked under a bench. The panel of the secret passage slid back, and Prenchy stepped into the workroom. He switched on a light in the ceiling and went round the benches, gathering up the trays. Danny held his breath as his hiding- place was passed, but Frenchy performed what was a nightly task almost auto- matically, and with the trays piled on top of one another in his arms went back to the open panel. He turned off the light and re-entered the passage, and the panel was closed. Danny remained where he was for a few minutes, then stole over. In the light of his torch he found the switch that opened the panel, and tiptoed along the passage. IJ The panel between it and Banford's ofDcf was shut, but as he reached it he heard voices, ui'id he strained his ears to catch what was being said. Banford was at his desk, and Crystal Morland was in a chair beside it wearini? her hat and coat. Frenchy was putlin;^ the trays away in the safe. "He .should have phoned by now.' grumbled Banford. "Remember." Crystal, to keep that money in your purse, and don't turn it over until you get a receipt from him." "I don't trust that weasel any more than you do," .she told him in what she believed to be a convincing manner. "I know that," he lied. Frenchy had put away all the trays, and had seated himself in a chair, when the telephone-bell rang. Banford answered the call, but immediately handed the tele- phone to Crystal. ."Hallo," she said into it. "Well, it's about time you called." Bixby was on the line, speaking from a telephone-box in a drug-store. "Never mind that," he .said. "Can Banford hear? He can't? Good! You've got the money? Right, I'll meet you at the little place where we had dinner the other night. I've got the diamonds I held out of the last batch—and a couple of steamship tickets." "That's fine," said the girl in as calm a voice as she could command. "I'll be there in thirty minutes." She handed the instrument back to Banford, but he merely slammed it down on to its plunger. "I'll be glad to get Bixby out of my system," he gritted. "You know where to meet me when you've finished. " "Yes, darling," purred Crystal, and she picked up her handbag. "Goodbye." Most of this conversation had reached Danny's ears. He heard a door being shut, and then Banford's voice rang out, harsh and vindictive: "Follow her to Bixby! You know what I want!" "Yeah.' di'awled Frenchy, "I know." Danny crept back along the passage to the workroom and across the workroom to the steel door. Grazzi had returned to the window and was leaning out over its sill when Danny emerged beside him, startling him nearly out of his wits. "I've got to follow the girl to Bixby.' Danny told him hurriedly. "Report back to Dugan and ask him to stand by." THE END OF A CROOK THE 'little place" to which Bixby had referred was an old-fashioned res- taurant down-town in Chambers Street. Net curtains covered the windows and instead of chairs at the tables there v.ere high-backed seats \yhich ensured a measure of privacy to all who patronised the establishment. Crystal Morland alighted from a taxi- cab outside the restaurant without the slightest suspicion that she was being followed and Bixby was waiting for her at a table close to a telephone-box. She sat down facing him, and he oi'dered a meal. "We've got two hours before the boat sails," he informed her, as she ate a sand- wich and drank coffee and he consumed a hamburger and drank beer. "Are you sure Banford doesn't suspect anything?" "Of course I'm sure, " she responded. Curtains over a bay window were parted suddenly, and Danny looked down at them. "Mind if I come in?" he inquired. Crystal started violently; Bixby glow< ered, but made room for the intruder. "Still looking for heel-prints? " he sneered. "One set is enough to send .vou up,'' Danny retorted. "Those phoneys?" "Listen, Bixby, and listen carefully, because what I'm going to say is serious." Danny spoke quietly but impressively. "Those heelprints were on the level. \Vc November 11th, 193;'.