We stopped around the corner in the shadow, and Kennedy and
Andrews talked earnestly. As near as I could make out Kennedy was
insisting that it would be best for Andrews and his men not to
enter the building at all, but wait down-stairs while he and I
went up. At last the arrangement was agreed on.
"Here," said Kennedy, undoing a package he had carried, "is a
little electric bell with a couple of fresh dry batteries
attached to it, and wires that will reach at least four hundred
feet. You and the men wait in the shadow here by this side
entrance for five minutes after Jameson and I go up. Then you
must engage the night watchman in some way. While he is away you
will find two wires dangling down the elevator shaft. Attach them
to these wires from the bell and the batteries--these two--you
know how to do that. The wires will be hanging in the third
shaft--only one elevator is running at night, the first. The
moment you hear the bell begin to ring; jump into the elevator
and come up to the twelfth floor--we'll need you."
As Kennedy and I rode up in the elevator I could not help
thinking what an ideal place a down-town office building is for
committing a crime, even at this early hour of the evening. If
the streets were deserted, the office-buildings were positively
uncanny in their grim, black silence with only here and there a
light.
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