Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/39

, throwing into relief a figure well above medium height, but whose proportions were hidden by a heavy overcoat buttoned to the neck. A fur cap, pulled close over the forehead and ears, was on his head. His face was completely in shadow, but as he turned now quickly and, rising, picked up the fender bar, there was a momentary gleam of dark eyes—and the eyes were splashed and wet.

The fireplace, wide, old-fashioned, built of brick, jutted out into the room, leaving a space barely more than five feet on each side between it and the walls; and here, on either side, just in the middle of this space and at the height of a man's shoulders—where the wainscoting ended—were the small cupboards, some two feet square, that Harold Merton had spoken of. They had been built originally with glass doors for Mrs. Merton's best china in the old days when she had presided there over her afternoon tea-service, but, with the years, the Doctor had come to appropriate the room as library, study and consultation room, and the glass doors had been replaced with stout wooden ones—and the china by the Doctor's cash-box, account books and papers.

Varge stepped at once past the fireplace to the right hand side and felt out with his hand. The cupboard door was still wide open, the key still in the lock; inside, his fingers closed on the metal cash-box. This he took out, closed and locked the door, and abstracted the key from the lock. He turned back for a moment now to where Doctor Merton lay, placed the cash-box on the rug and slipped the key into the Doctor's pocket.

Another instant, and he returned to the cupboard. He raised the fender bar across the door, his hands