"I am going in," declared Dick, and pushed open the old kitchen door. It was damp and mouldy in the apartment, for the rain had soaked loose much of the plaster and caused it to fall.
The big open fireplace looked grimy and forbidding with its iron bars and chains. An iron kettle stood on the chimney-piece, a crack across the bottom.
"Somebody has had a fire here not so very long ago!" said Dick, and picked up a bit of half-burnt newspaper. He turned it over. "Here is a date. This newspaper is only four days old!"
"Then whoever made a fire here visited this house within the past four days," said Larry in a tragic whisper.
"Whoop! just listen to what a detective Larry is becoming!" cried Tom. "Regular Bowery Bob, the Newsboy Sleuth!"
"Perhaps it was only some curiosity seeker who came here," suggested Fred.
With caution, for the floors were very rotten, the cadets moved from one room of the old house to another.
"Anything in there?" asked Tom of Sam, as the latter peered into a room that was extra dark.
"I can't make out," was the answer, and Sam took a step forward. Then of a sudden there was a strange whirring, and something hit the youngest Rover boy on the ear, causing him to fall back in fright.
"Stop that!" he cried.