Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

158 страница из 895

In the course of about twenty minutes, or from that time to half an hour, Peace arrived at the warehouse which he had chosen as the scene of his operations.

He glanced furtively around.

Not a solitary passenger was in sight.

The warehouse stood in a part of the town where few chance pedestrians were to be seen even in the busiest part of the day. Now there were none, and the burglar therefore had it all to himself.

He tried the lock of one of the side doors with more than one of his skeleton keys, but was not at first successful in shooting back the bolt.

He was, however, not a man to be easily baffled. On many occasions he has boastfully displayed to his companions his ability in tampering with locks of every description.

After some further efforts he managed to turn back the lock. This done, he gently pushed against the door, which he found was fastened by a top bolt—​the bottom one had evidently not been driven home into its socket.

He had now but one thing to contend with, this being the top bolt. He had provided himself with a small piece of flexible steel with a sort of claw at its end, wherewith to operate on this.