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PARTNERS OF THE NIGHT · The Jailer of Souls

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  Chapter five of The Jailure of Souls. This liberyvox recording is in the public
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  domain. Read by Yoganund The Jailure of Souls by Hamilton Craigie, Chapter five,
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  Partners of the Night. Anester, pausing a moment at the corner of
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  the street, was conscious of a feeling of coldness, like a bleak wind
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  of the spirit, as if death in passing had touched him and gone on.
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  For the face of the man whom he had seen had been like the
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  face of a damned soul, unhuman, satanic in its sheer, visible malevolence.
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  So might Satan himself have looked after the fall somehow, Although the man
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  had looked straight ahead, seeming to see merely with the glazed, indwelling stare
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  of a sleepwalker, Anester had felt those eyes upon him. He was certain
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  that he had been seen and known. But now he had other things to
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  think about. He had intended going to the hotel. Now on an impulse,
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  he bent his steps away from it, turning to the building in which
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  where the offices of Rooke. But he did not enter by the main doorway.
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  There was an alley further along into this. He melted with the stealth
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  and caution of an Indian, feeling his way forward in the thick darkness to
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  Whey as he had marked it earlier in the day. There was a rusty
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  fire escape. Its trunks ran upward in the darkness. They creaked now under
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  his hand as he went slowly up. Rooke's office was on the second floor.
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  Anister reaching the window found it locked, but in a matter of seconds
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  had it open with the soft snick of a steel blade between sash and bolt.
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  The thing was done with the professional deftness, as if, say,
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  the man who had opened the window had done that same thing many times before.
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  Now crouched in the darkness by that dim squire of window, the intruder
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  stood silent, listening, holding his breath. A sound had come to him,
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  faint and thin, as if muffled by many thicknesses of walltz It penetrated
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  outward from the private office with a snack and slither of rasping steel and steel,
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  And at the instant that anister, with a grin smile in the darkness
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  recognized it for what it was, he knew too that someone had been beforehand
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  with him, someone interested also in Hamilton Rooke. For the sound that he
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  heard now loud on the singing silence was the sound of a steel drill upon
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  a safe. Anister had seen that safe. It was scarcely more than a
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  strong box. A sheet steel, but thin a can opener could have ripped
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  it from end to end easily in no time at all. Rooke must feel
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  sick. Oh, indeed, he thought to put his trust in so flimsy
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  a repostery, unless perhaps he had other means. The Indian, for instance,
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  the savage who but a few hours ago had missed with his long talents
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  for Anister's throat by inches. But somehow Anister did not think that the jivarrow
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  would be on guard. There was no burglar, alarmp protection. He had
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  made certain of that. But the man who was now busy with that safe
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  must have come up by the stairway. Doubtless he was on familiar ground.
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  Perhaps he might be some disgruntled confederate of the lawyers. Well, he'd have
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  a look see at any rate. Advancing silently on the balls of his feet,
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  Anester traversed the length of the outer office, peering around the doorway to
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  where, under the dim glow of a single droplight, a figure back toward
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  anister knelt before the safe. The droplight, carefully shaded, would not be
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  visible from without, Andred's cone shaped radiance. Aniester could see merely that the
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  man was wearing a cap pulled low over his forehead. But something in the
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  attitude of that kneeling figure, the turn of the head, the deft darting
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  movement of the hand was strangely familiar. Anester grinned in the darkness at the
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  same moment that he was aware of a curious contraction of the heart. This
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  lone hand cracksman worked evidently without confid rates, unless possibly he might have a
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  lookout posted on the sidewalk below. He spoke barely above a whisper. Hello,
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  he said, pretty careless, aren't you now? Do you think it's
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  safe? The figure wold the hand holding an automatic came up with the speed
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  of light, then dropped limply at her side as the girl surveyed him with
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  a stony look. It was a waitress of the Mansion house. Well,
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  she said, you've caught me, but it looks to me as if I
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  beat you to it. Black Steve anister, Oh, I've heard of you,
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  mister Black Steve. Well love you've caught me. What are you going
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  to do about it? The darkly beautiful face was scornful, the violet eyes
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  under the light stormy with the something that anister could not all define. Anister
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  bitter slip to find her like this, and all at once realization came to
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  him with a sudden tightening of the heart. This girl waitress or not,
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  crook or not. He had to confess that in all his wanderings up and
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  down the earth, he had never met her like a girl in a thousand
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  He had decided, back there in the dining room of the mansion house,
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  what a partner she would make? Now with a girl like that? For
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  a partner. On a sudden impulsey forward, his eyes upon the safe door,
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  it swung outward. Now somehow she had opened it pretty smooth, he
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  commented the communist. After all, eh, you've worked it. Now before
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  we have a look, I want to tell you something. I I am
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  looking for a partner, miss Ah, miss Allerton. She told him in
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  her eyes a sudden, leaping spark, the brief, baffling, enigmatic look
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  that he had seen back there in the hotel dining room. But it was
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  gone again even as she spoke all right, partner, she said, Lo,
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  when do we start? Right? Now, answered Anister, his gaze
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  upon the girl, frankly admiring. He'd expected the usual feminine evations, a
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  play for time, hesitation, anything, but this ready acquaiscence in his abrupt
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  proposal. He was not entirely sure of her. His admiration for her beauty,
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  her poise, had nothing to do with the cold judgment, whispering now
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  that the whole affair might after all be a blind a trap, devious in
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  crooker, as the devious and crooked turnings of Hamilton Drook. But with Anister
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  to decide, was to act bending, he swung by the safe door,
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  groping forward with exploring hand. His back was toward the gull. Consequently,
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  he did not see the sudden revealing gleam in the violet eyes, the quick
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  hardening of the mouth. Swinging forward his pocket flash, the light danced glimmering
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  upon a packet of papers, a sheaf of documents. Anist, running over
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  them, swiftly gave a quick exclamation, his hand in a lightning moment,
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  palming something which is secreted in an inner pocket. He turned sidewise to the
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  gul lord he exclaimed, disgustedly, nothing but papers, partner, We are
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  out of luck. Evidently the girl had been oblivious. Now, however,
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  her quick flashing fingers sought at the contents of that safe, as with the
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  practiced hand, to leave them, as had Anister, inviolate, save for
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  that oblong of paper, repulsing now in the pocket of his coat. In
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  the shadow of the entrance, it was black dark. As they parted.
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  The girl did not live in the hotel. She told him that had been
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  part of her plan. They would meet again, of course, but once
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  in his room, and with the shades drawn and the door locked and bolted,
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  Anister, taking the paper from his pocket, smoothed it out under the
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  light. He looked, then looked again, breath in drawn sharply through clenched
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  teeth, For that paper was a canceled check. It had been drawn to
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  cash, and the signature in a hand that he knew upon the instant was
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  the signature of his father, Travis Anista. The end of chapter five