Chapter XII

STEPS IN THE HALL
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Bob leaned back in the taxi. It was restful listening to the steady hum of the tires on the wet pavement. His uncle looked at him quizzically.

“Pretty much all in?” he asked.

Bob nodded. “Well, I’m willing to admit that I’m more than a little tired and my muscles ache a good bit from that tussle in the dark back in the office. I thought for a minute that fellow was going to get away from me. It’s a good thing you put in an appearance when you did.”

“I knew speed was essential and I corralled a few of the local police to help me out,” chuckled Merritt Hughes. “Still think you’d like to be a real federal agent?”

“And how!” said Bob sincerely. “It’s got the thrilling kind of a life I’d like to follow.”

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking it is all thrills and fun. There are months upon months when the cases are the merest of routines and the work is real drudgery. But every so often something bobs up that does add a zest to living. Where do you suppose that radio document went?”

“I wish I knew. Jacobs will worry himself sick until it is recovered. I knew something was in the air, but none of us thought anything important had been sent over.”

“Well, someone knew it and that someone must have had inside knowledge. There was no guess work in rifling those files.”

“No, but someone got into the wrong office the first time,” said Bob, recalling the ransacking of the other office on the same corridor. He felt in his pocket for the thin steel wedges which had been used in the doors. Snapping on the dome light in the taxi, he held them in the palm of his hand.

“These wedges were used in an attempt to lock the doors and keep me in,” he explained. “I forgot all about them until just now. What do you make of them?”

His uncle looked at them sharply, but refused to touch them. Pulling out a clean handkerchief, he had Bob drop the wedges into the cloth, covered them carefully and placed them in an inside pocket.

“I’ll turn them over to the laboratory. They may be able to find some fingerprints if they haven’t been handled by too many people.”

“I’m the only one who’s handled them outside of the man who put them in place,” declared Bob, who felt that here might be a really important clue.

The taxi swung toward the curb. A dull light gleamed over the entrance of the apartment house where Bob had a room.

“Sure you’re all right?” his uncle asked.

“Absolutely. I’ll take a shower and hop into bed. Don’t forget to stop for me when you go down town to interview those fellows.”

“That’s a promise,” agreed the federal agent.

Bob jumped out of the cab, hurried across the parking and into the entrance of the apartment. Turning, he watched the cab pull away from the curb. Then he inserted his key in the lock and entered the building. The air was warm and dank and it made him sleepy.

His room was on the third floor at the back and the lights in the hallway were none too bright. Bob’s room was part of an apartment occupied by an elderly couple, but it had an outside entrance on the hallway and he could come and go as he pleased.

Another feature of it was a private bathroom. In spite of its comparative luxury, he was able to obtain the room for a rent well within his modest means for Bob also acted as a sort of caretaker for the apartment when the older people were away on one of their extensive trips.

Bob unlocked the door of his room. He had left one window partially open and the air here was fresh. Turning on the lights he undressed quickly and stepped into the bathroom where he was soon under a shower.

A rough toweling down made his body glow and then he pulled on fresh pajamas. The clock on the dresser showed the time to be three thirty. The night was nearly gone when Bob tumbled into bed and turned off the light on the bedside stand. In less than a minute he was sound asleep.

Bob’s slumber for the first hour was deep and dreamless. Then his mind, as his body threw off part of the fatigue, became restless and pictures of the events of the night flashed through his brain. Bob stirred restlessly once or twice and finally aroused enough to mutter in his sleep.

He must have been reliving the vivid struggle in the darkness of the office for he was tense when he sat up suddenly—wide awake and listening for some sound from the hall.

Sleep vanished from his eyes. There was no mistake about it. Someone was outside his door, trying the knob ever so gently. At that moment Bob longed for some other weapon than his two capable hands. The side of the bed nearest the door creaked and Bob knew if he eased his body over that edge the creaking of the bed might scare away the marauder. Moving cautiously, he slid out the side next to the wall and put his bare feet on the floor.

An alleyway ran back of the apartment and a street light at the head of this sent just enough light down to mark the window as a lighter square against the general pattern of darkness.

This turning of the doorknob was getting to be too much for Bob and he cast about for some object which he could use as a club. His golf bag was in the corner and he managed to extract a steel shafted midiron which would make an excellent weapon if he had a chance to swing it.

There was no thought of fear in Bob’s mind as he moved toward the door. His bare feet padded softly across the floor and he reached out and touched the doorknob with his finger tips. It was moving.

For a moment Bob recoiled like he had been struck by an electric shock. Then he got a grip on his nerves and reached down for the key which he had left in the lock on the inside of the door.

To his surprise the key was not in the lock. Then he understood the slight noise that had aroused him. Whoever was on the other side of the door had pushed the key out of the lock and the noise made when it had struck the floor had brought him out of his sleep.

Bob leaned down and felt along the floor. He reached out in his search for the key, became overbalanced, and before he could regain his equilibrium, dropped to his knees with a thud that was plainly audible in the hall.

Bob’s hands closed on the key he sought, but as he drew himself upright again he heard someone running down the hall. Seconds later came the slam of an outside door and Bob knew that it would be useless to attempt any pursuit.

He turned on the light and opened the door. The same dim lights were burning in the hallway. Closing the door, he was sure that it was locked and then wedged a chair under the doorknob.

When Bob got back into bed he was a sadly perplexed young filing clerk. Why should an attempt be made to enter his room? The riddle was beyond him. Perhaps his uncle could solve it in the morning.