"Humph! rather late," remarked the man.
"Better say early, Jack," laughed the other. "It's ten after two."
"Is that so! Great Scott! Time we got to bed!" And the two men passed into a nearby room, locking the door after them.
After that came another period of silence, broken only by the sounds of the two men undressing. To keep himself awake Dick commenced to walk up and down the long hallway again.
"I guess I'll call Tom," he thought, at last, after more than an hour had passed. "I've got to get some sleep, or I won't be worth anything in the morning. And if I am to call on Messrs. Pelter, Japson & Company I want to have my wits about me."
He stepped around the corner of the hallway, in the direction where his own room was located. He did not know that a man with eager eyes was watching him,—a man who stood on a chair in one of the rooms, peering through the transom light of the door.
"Gone at last—I was afraid he would stay here all night!" muttered the man. "Now is my chance to get away. I didn't think they'd get here to-night. I should have gotten that key made sooner." And opening the door noiselessly, he came out into the hallway. He wore a thin overcoat and a slouch hat, and a heavy beard covered his face.
Dick hurried his steps and called Tom, and then went back to the other hallway, unwilling to leave it unguarded even for a few minutes. He was just in time to see somebody disappearing down a broad flight of stairs to the floor below.
"Hello! who's that?" he asked himself, and ran towards the stairs. When he arrived there he looked down, to see the man going down further, to the ground floor of the hotel.
"The same fellow, I'll bet all I'm worth!" cried Dick. "There is that heavy beard! He must have been watching for a chance to get away! What a chump I was to let him get out! I've got to stop him!" And he bounded down the stairs three steps at a time.