“A false alarm, I guess,” he reported finally.
“But your mother is positive that she saw a man enter the shed,” suggested Mr. Hardy.
“Then it was some wandering tramp,” decided Ben, “and he slipped out while I was getting down stairs. At all events, nothing appears to have been disturbed or taken.”
They closed up the shed and returned to the house. Ben drew his bed up close to the window of his room, to command a good view of the rear yard. He watched without results for nearly two hours and then fell asleep.
“We are having quite a series of midnight alarms,” remarked Mr. Hardy at the breakfast table the next morning.
“I hope they don’t signify anything of importance,” observed Ben. “The man with the lantern the other night, and this latest visitor with a bag over his shoulder, are certainly mysterious.”
Ben went out to the shed and looked it over searchingly in the daylight. Nothing was missing, so far as he could discover. As he started to return to the house, however, he paused, stooped over and picked up something from the floor.
It was an unfamiliar object about the size of a big breastpin. It resembled a badge, for at the back of it was a hinged pin and a snap catch to hold the pin in place. The front of the device consisted of a dozen criss-cross alternate threads of copper and silver. These were of wavy formation and resembled spider’s legs.
“How did this ever get here?” ruminated Ben. “It wasn’t here yesterday afternoon, for it is too conspicuous to miss. Maybe our midnight visitor with the bag dropped it.”
“Now then, for a good day’s work,” said Mr. Hardy briskly, appearing on the scene.