The lower right-hand
drawer, she had said. The little steel instrument with which he had
opened the vestibule door was still in his hand, but he did not use it
now! Instead, with a low, dismayed ejaculation, as his fingers ran along
the drawer edge, he dropped on his knees for a closer examination--and
his lips closed tightly together.
_He was too late_! The first finger touch had told him that, and now his
eyes corroborated it. The drawer had been forced by a jimmy of some
sort, judging from the indentations in the wood. The lock was broken,
and he pulled the drawer open. Inside lay the steel bond-box, its lid
bent back, and wrenched and twisted out of shape. The box was empty.
Without disturbing the box, Jimmie Dale mechanically closed the drawer
again and stood up, looking around him. In a subconscious way, when he
had entered the room, he had been cognisant of a certain strangeness in
its appointments, but then his mind had been centred only on the work in
hand; now there seemed a sort of pitiful congruity in the surroundings
themselves and in the old heirloom that had been stolen. It seemed as
though the room spoke to him of past glories.
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