Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 7, 1928 — page 46: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

186 _ It was covered over with plaster and the high oak wainscoting panels like the rest of the room. “ A lot of people lately have tapped the panels over that chimney,” he com- mented with a grin, “but they didn’t hear any hollow sound, or find any secret springs. Those panels set tight against concrete and steel and they haven't any ordinary secret springs. My ingenious dad fixed this up years ago in order to provide for a combina- tion of a secret wall safe and a secret fire escape.” So saying, he leaned his full weight against the left-hand panel on the front of the chimney. This panel and its concrete backing gave way slightly, so little that Marian Lord would not have noticed it if she had not been watching closely. But it released the hidden lock of the right-hand panel adjoining it, which was really a door with concealed hinges. Clutching with his finger tips the molding between the two panels, Ward pried at it till the secret door swung stiffy open, revealing the face of a modern burglar-proof wall safe. With practiced fingers, Ward spun the dial of the combination and opened the door. From an inner drawer he drew a sealed envelope and thrust it in his pocket. ; “There,” he said, “is the secret televisor formula that everybody’s hav- ing so much fuss over. I'll just take it along to make it absolutely safe.” At that instant, they heard, even through the nearly sound-proof wall, the crash of outside doors being burst open, and then the rumble of many feet hurrying up the stairs. The next in- stant there was a crashing blow, as of an ax against the steel door of the suite. Marian Lord clutched Ward's arm impulsively. “Tt’s all right,” he reassured her with a smile. “They won't find us here when they come in.” He shut the safe door and locked it. through the shrubbery. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Then, grasping the handle of the door firmly, he braced himself and pulled. To Marian Lord’s amazement, the heavy safe rolled noiselessly out into the room on well oiled and concealed ball-bearing and rubber-tired casters, between two extending steel guiding arms that kept it in line. Behind it yawned an entrance into the big chim- ney. The partitions between its flues had been removed, leaving ample room for the passage.of a human being down an iron ladder that was spiked against the brickwork. Ward motioned Marian into the opening behind the safe and followed her himself. He turned on a flash light and helped her on to the iron ladder. When she was down out of the way he followed, and as soon as his head was below the floor level he threw over a lever that protruded from the in- terior of the chimney wall. The safe automatically trundled back into position’ over his head, and the panel door shut after it. The big chimney connected with a long abandoned fireplace in the kitchen below, and with an old Dutch oven in the cellar which had not been used for an equally long time. A minute later Marian Lord and Edison Ward crawled out of the Dutch oven and let themselves out through a rear cellar door into the dark grounds. “ Now, just hang on to my arm and come along,” he whispered. “ Most of the gang are inside the house now, and the rest are stationed out along the walls to keep anybody from getting out or in. I want to find the place where that telephone line is cut. I got it pretty well located on the mirror up- stairs.” Silently, they felt their way out They could hear faint sounds of the battering at the steel door upstairs in the dark old house behind them. There were the muffled murmurs of the voices of the attacking party within. (C@ COPMICOOOKS