Chapter V

A SLIVER OF STEEL
★

The time seemed endless. Actually it could only have been seconds that Bob sat there watching the turning of the doorknob. Then the knob started back. Unseen fingers had learned what they wanted to know. The door was not locked.

Through the hulking building there seemed no sound except Bob’s own strained breathing. In the corridor it was as quiet as in the room, yet someone must be outside the door, testing the lock.

Bob shook his head. He must be dreaming. His nerves must be over-wrought from too much work and on edge from the talk he had earlier in the evening with his uncle.

Reaching out, he tilted the shade of his desk lamp back and a flood of light struck the doorknob. No! His eyes had not tricked him. The knob was still turning. There was a faint click and then the knob remained stationary.

Bob leaped into action. In one fast lunge he was across the room, his hands gripping the doorknob. He tugged hard, but the door refused to open. Then he paused for hurried footsteps were going down the hall. Bob shouted lustily. Perhaps his cry would reach the guard at the elevators.

Then he shook the door. It couldn’t be locked, of that he felt sure. Bracing himself again he tugged at the door and almost fell over backwards when it suddenly opened.

Bob stepped into the corridor. There was no one in sight but from a distance he could hear someone hurrying toward him. A guard came around a turn in the corridor.

“Did you call just then?” demanded the watchman.

“I’ll say I did,” replied Bob. “Someone was trying the door here and when I tried to open it, the door stuck. Then I let out a whoop. Didn’t you see anyone?”

“No one came my way,” said the guard quickly, but his eyes did not meet Bob’s squarely. “We’d better look along this end of the corridor. If someone was here, he might have slipped into one of the other offices.”

Bob shook his head.

“No, he wouldn’t have done that. Besides, I distinctly remember hearing him running down toward the elevators.”

“Well, I wasn’t asleep and no one came my way,” insisted the guard. “Maybe you were dreaming a little. You look kind of tired.”

“I am tired, but this was no dream,” insisted Bob. Then he remembered the door. What had made it stick? It hadn’t been locked.

“Give me your flashlight,” said Bob and the guard handed over a shiny, metal tube.

Bob turned the beam of light on the floor, and searched closely.

“What are you looking for?” asked the guard.

“For the reason why the door stuck,” said Bob tartly. Then he found it—a thin sliver of steel that had been inserted as a wedge. It was an innocent enough looking piece, but when placed properly in a door could cause considerable delay.

Bob picked it up and placed it in his pocket. Although he was not aware of it at the time, it was the first piece of evidence in a mystery which was to pull him deep into its folds and require weeks of patient effort to untangle.

The guard had edged over to the door and now reached out to pull it shut. Only a sharp order from Bob stopped him.

“Keep your hands off the doorknob,” he ordered. “Someone was tampering here and I don’t want you messing your hands around the place.”

The guard hesitated as though undecided whether to obey Bob, and the clerk stood up and doubled up a fist.

“Better not touch that door.” There was a steelly quietness in the words that decided the guard, and he stepped well back into the corridor.

“You’d better get back to your post. I’ll take care of this situation,” said Bob. “I’ll keep your flashlight and return it to you when I leave the building. I want to do a little scouting around and may need this light.”

The guard grumbled something under his breath, but retreated down the corridor and finally vanished from sight. Bob disliked him thoroughly for his attitude had been one of sullen defiance; so unusual from the men generally on duty at night. It might be well to speak to Jacobs about it in the morning.

Just to make sure that no one came along and touched the doorknob, Bob took out his handkerchief and tied it around the knob in a manner which would protect possible fingerprints.

That done, he picked up the flashlight again and started to reconnoiter in the corridor, trying one door after another. There was just a possibility that the marauder had found a hiding place in an office which had been left unlocked. Bob knew that it was almost a useless quest, for the offices were checked each night.

He made the rounds along one side of the corridor and started back on the side opposite his own office. The night lights were on and at the far end of the corridor it was necessary for him to use the flashlight.

Door after door proved unyielding to his touch and he was about to give up the quest when he came upon a door that swung inward when his hands gripped the knob.

Bob drew back suddenly and flashed the beam of light into the long room, which was almost identical with the one in which he had been working. What he saw there startled him more than he dared to admit later, and he stepped inside and moved toward the nearest desk.

The ray from the flashlight revealed the utter confusion in the room. Baskets of papers on top of the desks had been upset and even the drawers in the filing cabinets had been pulled out and their contents hurled indiscriminately over the floor.

A slight sound startled Bob and he swung around, the beam of light focusing on the door.

It was closing—swiftly and silently.

Bob leaped forward, stumbled over a wastepaper basket, and then reached the door which clicked shut just before he could grasp the handle.

Bob tugged hard on the door, but like the one which led to his own office, it stuck.

Could it be another wedge of steel? Bob wondered and braced himself for another lusty tug. The door gave way and Bob toppled backward in a heap, the flashlight falling and blinking out.

Bob had fallen heavily and for a moment he remained motionless on the floor listening for the sound of someone moving along the corridor. He could have shouted for the guard, but an inward distrust of the man kept him from doing that. Instead, he groped around for the flashlight, turned it on, and got to his feet, considerably shaken in mind and body by the experiences of the last few minutes.

The young clerk reached for the light switch and a glare of light flooded the room, revealing even further the destruction which had been wrought there.

Bob looked around. Hundreds of papers had been strewn on the floor; some of them had been ruthlessly destroyed and he wondered how many valuable documents would be lost when they finally checked up.

But this was no time for inaction, he decided, and he hastened to one of the desks and picked up a telephone. He dialed quickly, but it was nearly a minute before a sleepy voice answered.

“Hello, Uncle Merritt?” asked Bob anxiously.

“No, I’m not home; I’m still at the building. I wish you’d get down here as soon as you can.

“No, I haven’t had an accident, but some mighty strange things have been going on around this floor tonight. One of the offices has been completely ransacked. I’m in it now. Papers have been thrown all over and the filing cases opened and a lot of stuff destroyed.

“Who did it? Gosh, I wish I knew. Someone’s been shutting doors on me and leaving steel wedges in them. It’s giving me the creeps.”

“I’ll be right down,” promised the Department of Justice agent.

Bob placed the receiver back on its hook and backed out of the room. The fewer things he touched the better it would be and as he drew the door shut, he was careful to keep his hands off the knob for there was a possibility of valuable fingerprints being there.

An eerie feeling raced up and down Bob’s spine as he turned toward the door which opened into the office where he worked. The building was so quiet it was disturbing, yet he knew some unknown marauder had been busy on the floor while he had been bent over his desk. Could the unknown be after the radio secrets his uncle had hinted about? It was certainly worth considering.

Bob reached the door that led into the office where he worked and stopped suddenly. He felt cold all over as he stared at the doorknob. He remembered distinctly having wrapped his own handkerchief around the knob to preserve possible fingerprints. But there was no handkerchief there now and the door was slightly ajar. The light had been on when he stepped into the hall, but now the room was in inky darkness.