Jack showed his companions the house to which he followed his man the night before. There was nothing much to see there. The place was empty and unoccupied. But strangely, the front door was open. They entered and searched about. All the rooms were empty and dusty. In the hall again Paul noticed some scraps of paper in one corner. He looked at them but thought nothing suspicious of it. He sniffed the air and then shook his head.
Outside again, they walked calmly off. “No clues here, it seems,” muttered Ken.
“No,” asserted Paul. And again he thought of the scraps of paper but the next moment dismissed them from his mind. “What seems to bother me most,” he added, “is how he came to suspect that he was being followed?”
“I don’t think he really suspected,” said Jack. “My opinion is that he came upon me by accident.”
“A very unhappy accident,” commented Ken.
“Yes, rather.”
“I should think so,” remarked Paul. He shook his head doubtfully. “Yet somehow I can’t quite believe it. Of course, you’re most likely right, but—”
He broke off his sentence in the middle, not quite decided upon his opinion. Jack thought out loud. “I wonder who this man is and what is wrong with him?”
“You say there is a grocery store at the corner house, is that right?” The boys stopped and Jack nodded. “Then,” continued Ken, “let’s go down there and inquire in a roundabout way in the store. They might know him.”