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Page 36
In pursuance of Bristol's plan, I concealed myself that evening
just before the closing of the Museum doors, in a recess behind a
heavy piece of Babylonian sculpture. Bristol was similarly
concealed in another part of the room, and Mostyn joined us later.
The Museum was closed; and so far as evidence went the authorities
had relied again upon the bolts and bars hitherto considered
impregnable, and upon the constable in the hall. The broken window
was mended, the cut blind replaced, and within, in its shattered
case, reposed the slipper of the Prophet.
All the blinds being lowered, the Assyrian Room was a place of
gloom, yellowed on the western side by the moonlight through the
blind. The door communicating with the Burton Room was closed
but not fastened.
"They operated last night," Bristol whispered to me, "at the exact
time when the moonlight shone through the hole in the westerly
blind on to the case. If they come to-night, and I am quite
expecting them, they will have to dispense with that assistance;
but they know by experience where to reach the case."
"Despite our precautions," I said, "they will almost certainly
know that a watch is being kept."
"They may or they may not," replied Bristol. "Either way I'm
disposed to think there will be another attempt. Their mysterious
method is so rapid that they can afford to take chances."
This was not my first night vigil since I had become in a sense the
custodian of the relic, but it was quite the most dreary. Amid the
tomb-like objects about us we seemed two puny mortals toying with
stupendous things. We could not smoke and must converse only in
whispers; and so the night wore on until I began to think that our
watch would be dully uneventful.
"Our big chance," whispered Mostyn, "is in the fact that any day
may change the conditions. They can't afford to wait."
He ceased abruptly, grasping my arm. From somewhere, somewhere
outside the building, we all three had heard a soft whistle. A
moment of tense listening followed.
"If only we could have had the place surrounded," whispered Bristol--
"but it was impossible, of course."
A faint grating noise echoed through the lofty Burton Room. Bristol
slipped past me in the semi-gloom, and gently opened the
communicating door a few inches.
A-tiptoe, I joined him, and craning across his shoulder saw a strange
and wonderful thing.
The newly glazed east window again was shattered with a booming
crash! The yellow blind was thrust aside. A long something reached
out toward the broken case. There was a sort of fumbling sound, and
paralyzed with the wonder of it--for the window, remember, was
thirty feet from the ground--I stood frozen to my post.
Not so Bristol. As the weird tentacle (or more exactly it reminded
me of a gigantic crab's claw) touched the case, the Inspector leapt
forward. A white beam from his electric torch cut through to the
broken cabinet.
The thing was withdrawn . . . and with it went the slipper of the
Prophet.
"Raise the blinds!" cried Bristol. "Mr. Cavanagh! Mr. Mostyn!
We must not let them give us the slip!"
I got up the blind of the nearer window as Bristol raised the other.
Not a living thing was in sight from either!
Mostyn was beside me, his hand resting on my shoulder. I noted how
he trembled. Bristol turned and looked back at us. The light from
his pocket torch flashed upon the curator's face; and I have never
seen such an expression of horrified amazement as that which it
wore. Faintly, I could hear the constable racing up the steps from
the hall.
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