Page:The Blind Man's Eyes (July 1916).pdf/194

170 close to where Eaton stood; she seemed to measure with them a definite distance from the door and a point shoulder high, and to resist the impulse to come over and put her hand upon the spot. As Eaton followed her look, he heard a slight and muffled click as if from the study; but no sound could reach them through the study doors and what he heard came from the wall itself.

"A safe?" he whispered.

"Yes; Miss Santoine—she's in there, isn't she?—closed it just now. There are two of them hidden behind the books one on each side of the door."

Eaton tapped gently on the wall; the wall was brick; the safe undoubtedly was backed with steel.

"The best way is from inside the room," he concluded.

She nodded. "Yes. If you—"

"Look out!"

Some one now was coming downstairs. The girl had time only to whisper swiftly, "If we don't get a chance to speak again, watch that vase." She pointed to a bronze antique which stood on a table near them. "When I'm sure the agreement is in the house, I'll drop a glove-button in that—a black one, if I think it'll be in the safe on the right, white on the left. Now go."

Eaton moved quietly on and into the drawing-room. Avery's voice immediately afterwards was heard; he was speaking to Miss Davis, whom he had found in the hallway. Eaton was certain there was no suspicion that he had talked with her there; indeed, Avery seemed to suppose that Eaton was still in the study with Harriet Santoine. It was her lapse, then, which had let him out and had given him that chance; but it was a lapse, he dis-