The room was in darkness, and there was a complete silence. Crouching down in the doorway, he flung the gleam of his electric torch into the room. It was empty!
His officers came crowding in at his heels, the lamp on the table was relit—the glass chimney was hot—and a search was made of the room. It was too small to require a great deal of investigation. There was a bed, under which it was possible to hide, but they drew blank in this respect. At one end of the room near the bed was a wardrobe, which was filled with old dresses suspended from hangers.
“Throw out those clothes,” ordered Elk. “There must be a door there into the next house.”
A glance at the window showed him that it was impossible for the inmates of the room to have escaped that way. Presently the clothes were heaped on the floor, and the detectives were attacking the wooden back of the wardrobe, which did, in fact, prove to be a door leading into the next house. Whilst they were so engaged, Dick made a scrutiny of the table, which was littered with papers. He saw something and called Elk.
“What is this, Elk?”
The detective took the four closely-typed sheets of paper from his hand.
“Mills’ confession,” he said in amazement. “There are only two copies, one of which I have, and the other is in the possession of your department, Captain Gordon.”
At this moment the wardrobe backing was smashed in, and the detectives were pouring through to the next house.
And then it was that they made the interesting discovery that, to all intents and purposes, communication was continuous between a block of ten houses that ran to the end of the street. And they were not untenanted. Three typical Frogs occupied the first room into which they burst. They found others on the lower floor; and it soon became clear that the whole of the houses comprising the end block had been turned into a sleeping-place for the recruits of Frogdom. Since any one of these might have been No. 7, they were placed under arrest.
All the communicating doors were now opened. Except in the case of Maitland’s house, no attempt had been made to camouflage the entrances, which in the other houses consisted of oblong apertures, roughly cut through the brick party walls.