"Two beggar cronies," muttered Felipe, in Spanish, as he closed the door after they had vanished shufflingly into old Spooner's room. "Now I know quite well how the old man lives, but it is a poor living he gets."
Once or twice Felipe fancied he detected faint, suspicious sounds in the hall; but when he listened at the door he heard nothing more.
He did not see a number of shadowy figures which came up those unsteady stairs in a marvelously silent manner and vanished into the room occupied by old Spooner.
It was quite late when the listening boy fancied he heard a familiar step on the stairs. In a twinkling he was close to the door. Two persons were coming.
Then sounded a sharp, familiar knock, upon which Felipe flung open the door, crying:
"Welcome, señors! I had begun to fear you would not come to see me this night."
"Oh, we're here, me boy," chuckled Hagan, as he entered, with Alvarez Lazaro at his heels. "It's suspicious our friend Lazaro became on account of a queer thing. He's been shadowed by the police since yesterday. Now you can't guess why he grew suspicious?"
"I cannot," confessed Jalisco, closing and locking the door.
"The coppers stopped watching him," laughed the Irishman. "Although he tried to discover some one chasing him about, not a soul took the trouble. When I met him all ready to come here, he told me the action of the police worried him and made him suspicious."
"Had they continued to watch me," said Lazaro, "I could have given them the slip and laughed; but when I could discover no one watching, I knew not what to do."