The boy did. The bait was as alluring as the threat terrible. After Garrick had given him final instructions not to start with the papers for at least five minutes, we slipped quietly around the next street and came out near the Old Tavern, but not in front of it.
Garrick left the car—I had been riding almost on the mud guard—in charge of Warrington's man, who was to appear to be tinkering with the engine as an excuse for waiting there, and to keep an eye on anything that happened down the street.
We made our way into our room at the Tavern with more than ordinary caution, for fear that something might have been discovered. Apparently, however, the discovery of one detectaphone had been enough to disarm further suspicion, and the garage keeper had not thought it necessary to examine the telephone wires to see whether they had been tampered with in any way. The wire which he had thought led to the warehouse had seemed quite sufficient to explain everything.
In the room which we had used so much, we found the other detectaphone working splendidly. Garrick picked it up.
By the sound, evidently, someone in the garage was overhauling a car. It may have been that they were fixing one up so that its rightful owner would never recognize it, or they may have been getting ready to take one out. There was no way of determining.
We could hear one of the workmen helping about the car, a man whom we had listened to when the instrument first introduced us to the place. The second machine, connected with the telephone, did not transmit quite as clearly as the broken detective device had done, but it served and, besides, we could both hear through this and could confirm anything that might be indistinct to either of us alone.
"The Chief has gone up-state," remarked Garrick, piecing together the conversation where we had broken into it.
"We had to hustle to make that boat," remarked a voice which I recognised as that of one of the men.
"But she got off all right, didn't she?"
"Sure—he had the tickets and everything, and her baggage had already gone aboard."