Gordon’s pale eyes glittered with greed as he read names and dates, and all the precise array of facts which had been accumulated by the painstaking labors of the great detective and his staff. “It’s a gold mine, nothing else!” the master rascal told himself, his hands trembling with eagerness. “If I have time to work it as it ought to be worked, I can pull down a quarter of a million—half a million!” His enthusiasm carried him away into the region of fairy possibilities, where a rosy light played over everything. He did not realize how important was that little word “if” which he had passed over so lightly. This was just the sort of thing that appealed to him most, this bleeding of those who could much better afford to pay large sums in hush money than to have gossip busy with their names. He made a selection of the records that appealed to him most at first glance, then bundled the others up carefully and thrust them back into the safe. “This will be all I will need,” he told himself; “for the present, at least.” Therefore, he risked closing the inner door of the safe, but, lest there should be any uncertainty about it, he made sure that he could open it later. After that he closed the outer door, but, of course, did not lock it, for he had put the locking mechanism out of commission. Thanks to his care in covering up his traces, however, it was not likely that any ordinary eyes would detect the fact that the safe had been violated, and, to further minimize the possibility, he placed a chair with its back against the safe door. Leaving the bundle of documents in plain sight of the desk, he rang for Joseph. “I shall want dinner by six-thirty to-night, Joseph,” he said. “Very good, sir,” the butler replied. “Any special orders?” “No, no—the usual thing.” After the butler had departed, Green Eye hastily bathed and changed his clothing, after which he seated himself at the desk, and began going through the papers in a more careful way, stopping to consider their possibilities now and then, or to jot down a note. Dinner was announced long before he expected it, and, after keeping it waiting for ten minutes or more, he rose, stretched himself, and, with a little hesitation, thrust all of the papers into his pockets, to which he had already transferred the stolen money. “For all I know, I may never return here,” he told himself. “It isn’t likely that Cray has located Simpson’s treasure chest, but if he has, the situation will call for immediate action on my part—and the worthy Cray and I will hardly be friends afterward, if he survives. He’ll know I’m not Carter if I stick him up for the eighty thou, and that means that I’ll have to make myself scarce, and be quick about it.” CHAPTER XXI. THE MASQUERADER JOINS CRAY.