The face staring from the panel looked straight down the hall, as Beany had known it would. A pair of bright, ferrety eyes stared at the turn, but not once did they drop to the floor where Beany's bright eyes watched every move. Beany had to smile, it was so funny. The unknown person leaned from the panel and watched four feet above Beany's face, while in plain sight on the floor Beany lay motionless and unnoticed.
He watched while the person (he could not tell at first whether it was a man or woman) looked and listened. Then as if assured that the coast was clear, the man, (for it was a man), stepped out of the dark slit in the wall, carefully closed the panel, and once more stood listening at the door. He listened intently, then stooped, and bending in a comfortable position on one knee, looked fixedly through the great old-fashioned keyhole.
Beany watched breathlessly.
For a long time—it seemed days to Beany—the man held his stooping position. Beany wished he too could see what was going on inside that door. He was sure, however, that it was nothing more exciting than Porky's account of his chase after Bogardus; and as Porky was an aggravatingly low talker, he was pretty sure the man at the keyhole would not be able to hear very much. Just the same, Beany knew that here was something serious and threatening. The man listened and looked so intently that Beany seriously thought of trying to creep up behind him, give the alarm, grab him and hang on, trusting to luck that the door would be opened soon enough to prevent the man from killing him. It was a crazy idea and Beany banished it. It was well that he did, for at that moment the panel, which had been left partly opened, slid wide and a second man appeared. He was a tall man, apparently in uniform. What his uniform was, Beany could not see. It was closely covered with a long, closely-buttoned linen coat and a nondescript cap covered his head. He tapped the man at the keyhole sharply, and the fellow straightened to a stiff salute. Beany could not help admiring their utter coolness in the face of discovery. At any moment the door might open; at any moment some one might come down the hall. Of course in that case, reflected our self-appointed sleuth, they would walk over his legs, and stop to make a fuss, during which the two men would pop into the wall again.
Then while Beany watched, there followed a violent, soundless discussion between the two. One and then the other stooped to the keyhole. Then the second man noiselessly stepped back into the hole in the wall and closed the panel after him.
By this time Beany was so excited that he had no conception of time. It seemed a long while before he saw the man at the door turn his head and look at the panel. Then at last Beany saw what he so wanted to see—the secret of its opening. The man's hand sought something in the upper left corner, Beany could not see in the poor light just what it was, but the man pressed hard, swinging considerable weight against it, and the panel slid smoothly back. Another figure appeared. It was a little, stooped woman. She had a worn broom in her hands.
Beany recognized her at once as the deaf and dumb peasant woman who pottered around the offices brushing up and doing what odd jobs they could make her understand about.
At the present moment, however, she was anything but deaf and dumb. She seized the man at the door by the shoulder and shook him violently, whispering a stream of comment in his ear. She waved her broom threateningly, with an eye on the door meanwhile. Beany wondered what she would do if any one did come out.
He felt sure she would manage to carry off the situation.
Whatever she said was badly received by the man. He pulled back and shook his head violently. She stamped her old foot noiselessly. He still rebelled, but she insisted in a continuous rush of whispered words, while Beany felt his mouth sag open and his eyes bulge with amazement. Even in the midst of his surprise he could not help wondering just what personal remarks he and Porky had made about her on a dozen different occasions in the few weeks that they had been there. However, there was one happy thought. He and his brother had spoken in English, a tongue that must as a matter of course have meant nothing to her ignorant old ears.