“My Gawd!” said the captive; and he was still saying it over softly to himself when they switched off the lights, shut the office doors, and went away.
“There is a good example of the power of matter over mind, Archer,” said Sprague whimsically, when they reached the street. “If that fellow would use his reason even a little bit he’d know that I hadn’t made any very elaborate preparations to hold him; there wasn’t time between the turning off of the lights and our leaving. Yet I’ll bet a small chicken worth twenty-five dollars that we find him still crouching in his corner and afraid to move when we go back. He saw me using acid in my little experiment; saw the fumes and probably got a whiff of them. That was enough.”
They found Maxwell and Starbuck sitting on the hotel porch, smoking. Sprague took the superintendent aside.
“It’s rather worse than I thought it was, Dick,” he began, when they had drawn their chairs a little apart. “That is my excuse for keeping you up so late. We have one of the conspirators under a sort of mental lock and key over at my place in the Kinzie Building, but he is only a hired striker, and I’d like to flush the big game. Are you good for a watch-meeting—you and Starbuck? It may last all night, and nothing may come of it, but it’s worth trying.”
Maxwell spread his hands.
“Whatever you say, Calvin,” he acquiesced. “After the jolt you’ve given me to-night, I can only get into the harness and pull when you give the word.”
“All right. We’ll take Tarbell for a guide. Tarbell, you know your way around in the shops pretty well, don’t you?”
“I reckon so,” was the young man’s reply.
“We want to go to the foundry, or to some place near by where we can keep an eye on the pickle shed. Can you get us there without arousing anybody’s curiosity?”
“Sure,” said Tarbell.