"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - The Oakdale Affair" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

hidden by a bit of tapestry.

How, Oh how, this suggestive familiarity with the
innermost secrets of a virgin's sacred apartments upon
the part of one so obviously of the male persuasion and,
by his all too apparent calling, a denizen of that under-
world of which no Abigail should have intimate knowl-
edge? Yet, truly and with scarce a faint indication of
groping, though the room was dark, the marauder
walked directly to the hidden safe, swung back the
tapestry in its frame, turned the knob of the combina-
tion and in a moment opened the circular door of the
strong box.

A fat roll of bills and a handful of jewelry he trans-
ferred to the pockets of his coat. Some papers which his
hand brushed within the safe he pushed aside as though
preadvised of their inutility to one of his calling. Then
he closed the safe door, closed the tapestry upon it
and turned toward a dainty dressing table. From a
drawer in this exquisite bit of Sheraton the burglar took
a small, nickel plated automatic, which he slipped into
an inside breast pocket of his coat, nor did he touch
another article therein or thereon, nor hesitate an in-
stant in the selection of the drawer to be rifled. His
knowledge of the apartment of the daughter of the
house of Prim was little short of uncanny. Doubtless the
fellow was some plumber's apprentice who had made
good use of an opportunity to study the lay of the land
against a contemplated invasion of these holy pre-
cincts.

But even the most expert of second story men nod
and now that all seemed as though running on greased
rails a careless elbow raked a silver candle-stick from
the dressing table to the floor where it crashed with a
resounding din that sent cold shivers up the youth's
spine and conjured in his mind a sudden onslaught of
investigators from the floor below.

The noise of the falling candlestick sounded to the
taut nerved house-breaker as might the explosion of a
stick of dynamite during prayer in a meeting house.
That all Oakdale had heard it seemed quite possible,
while that those below stairs were already turning ques-
tioning ears, and probably inquisitive footsteps, upward
was almost a foregone conclusion.

Adjoining Miss Prim's boudoir was her bath and be-
fore the door leading from the one to the other was a