FOR OLD TIMES’ SAKE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1715, 11 January 1905, Page 64

FOR OLD TIMES’ SAKE.

As he stepped out of Hie alley into the street, it began to -rain dismally. This pleased him, for it added to the blackness of the night, and had a tendency to drive away any late pedestrians. He was not hampered by luggage. Such .'tools as he needed —a bit of soap, an air pump, a can of nitroglycerine, some fuses, a jimmy, a dark lantern, a revolver —he carried in his pockets, and, under his coat, a folded grain sack.

A few strides took him to the side window of a building. The sill was cin a level with his head. He tried to raise the sash, but, as he expected, it was fastened. So he took the jimmy from his pocket and, slipping its thin edge under the frame, threw all his weight suddenly upon the handle-. With a report like that of a pistol the lock snapped. Ear five minutes, pei'll aps, the burglar crouched in the shadow under the window, watching, listening. But not a sound, save the patter of the rain in the gutter, did he hear; not a moving object did he see. Then carefully, noiselessly, he pushed up the sash and climbed in. He was in total darkness, but knew exactly where lie stood. He could have drawn an accurate, detailed plan of the interior of the building—knew precisely how many feet it was from the window to the safe; from the safe to the front doors; from the front window to hiis horse and cart, standing in the lane at the rear.

So, although he could not- see his liand before him, he turned confidently to his left and walked six paces. Then he circled to his right around the end of the counter, and took four steps more. Pausing, he reached out his hand and touched the safe.

Without losing a moment, lie filled the oracles around the door with soap, leaving one small opening. To this opening he attached his pump and exhausted the air on the inside. Closing the opening, lie cut a piece off the bar of soap and,, rolling it between Ins palms and moulding ul ivith his fingers, soon fashioned it into the

jsliapo of a small cup. This he fastened at the bottom of the door and filled with nitroglycerine. Then ho attached a fuse.

Ten feet from the safe, a door opened into the rear office of the bank, and in this room the safe-breaker had planned to seek a refuge while th© explosive was domg its work. Not d©shi..g to tarry unnecessarily in close proximity to a charge of nitroglycerine about to explode, h© concluded before lighting the fuse, to satisfy himself that the door of this inner room was not locked or bolted.

He turned the knob, the door opened, and he took one step across th© threshold. Then he paused. In the in.ease darkness he could not see an object; in the perfect silence lie could not hear a sound.

But something—premonition, instinct, some indefinable sixth sense —something sent a chill through him, and he trembled as one suddenly becomes conscious of the preence of unseen spirits. Without the power to move, lie stood staring into darkness, the perspiration standing in icy drops upon his forehead. With th© desperation that fear inspires, he drew his dark lantern, slipped back the slide, and threw the sea-rcli-mg glare around the room, lighting first h© most distant corner. Slowlv he

moved the lantern, bringing the round spot of brilliant light towards him across the carpet. Suddenly he uttered a low cry, and shrank back as the lighib fell fiercely upon an object- almost at his feet.

So near that by stooping the burglar could have touched him, a dead man lay, his waxen face and sightless eyes turned upwards. The carpet, where his head and shoulders rested, gleamed scarlet with his blood; the nerveless fingers of his right hand clasped a- pistol; m the centre of his forehead was a ghastly wound. With a- strange weakness in his knees the burglar bent over the dead man, brushed back his matted hair, took the pistol gently from his fingers and folded his hands gently across his breast. In th© corpse the cracksman recognised Fraser, the bank manager. On the desk beside him was th© following letter, unsealed: “Being no longer able to conceal my shortage, to hide th© fact that th© safe does not u contain th© amount of money that it should, and being a coward, I have chosen a coward’s method of paying my debt. Ido not ask for pity. I only ask compassion for my wife.” For a moment the burglar stood undecided, the letter in his hand. Suddenly, breaking the oppressive silence, came the loud ringing of a telephone bell. Instantly, involuntarily, the burglar closed the lantern-slide, gripped his pistol and crouched behind the desk. Again the bell rang, and mechanically lie arose and walked to the telephone. Standing with one foot on each side of the dead manager, he took down the receiver. “Hello !” he said, imitating the voice of one whose eyes h© could feel, but could not see. He was answered by a woman. “Oh, Henry,” she said, “I have just awakened from such a vivid —such an awful dream. I know it is silly; but it frightened me. I dreamed that you were in trouble, in disgrace. And then I awoke, and found you had not returned home. Oh, Henry, what is keeping you so late ? Oome home at once, will you not, dear?” “Yes,” tthe burglar replied, as one in a daze. “Do,” she continued, and there was anxiety in her voice. “I am so glad, so glad it was only a dream. I would rather see you dead than dishonoured, Henry, dear.” Th© cracksman crept back to the desk and seated himself in the dead man’s chair, the woman’s voice still ringing in his ears. That voice! It haunted him like a memory of the long ago like an echo of the days of childhood. It thrilled, it stirred him. It aroused that old mad love of his boyhood v Whose voice was it? Undoubtedly the wife of that dead coward lying ah his feet. But who had she been before —before she married him ?

That voice! Could it be (Martha’s? Years and years ago, when they were schoolmates, he had loved Martha, worshipping her from afar, for she lived in a large house in the best part of the town, and he was a child of the slums.

Once he had thrashed a boy for teasing her, and she had smiled at him. He had never forgotten that smile. That was years and years ago, brat, though she liad long since passed out of his life, he had never loved another. And now —was that voice indeed the voice of Martha?

Again the burglar deliberately opened the slide of his lantern and turned the gleam upon the desk. Directly in front of him he saw a picture in a silver frame. It- was a photograph of a woman —not a particularly handsome woman —but glorified by a dazzling smile —and lie recognised that smile! From that face he turned reluctantly at last to gaze with scorn at the cold featmes of the man lying there with the scarlet mark of sin upon his brow. With a smile he placed the letter—the contemptible letter—in his pocket.

picked up Fraser’s pistol, replaced the einpiy chamber with a loaded cartridge, and laid the weapon in a drawer. Then he tore the collar of the cashier’s coat, ripped one sleeve half its length, and overturned the chairs and scattered them about. _L: was nearly daybreak. In a few moments the gray would be creeping up til® eastern sky. Quickly the burglar blew the safe and scattered the gold and silver and banknotes upon the floor. “Now,” he said to himself, “they will find the bank broken, the safe looted, the cashier murdered !” Leaving his soap and dark lantern by the shattered safe, he fled, and two things only did he take'—rho cashier’s letter and the photograph in the silver

frame. Through the rain and darkness he drove away, penniless, hut not unhappy. A woman’s smiling face seemed to thank him. He laughed aloud as he fled through the gray of morning, thinking of a school girl smiling at a ragged urchin.