The Gold Kloof

by H. A. Bryden

"Why, that Portuguese brute who is always about with Karl Engelbrecht--Minho, his name is."

"Whew!" whistled Mr. Blakeney. "I wish I had known this earlier. What time does he leave his room?"

"Not for another hour yet," broke in Tom; "and he always locks his door and takes his key with him."

"Well, Tom," said his father, "you stay behind while Guy and I go out to the wagons and start the trek. Then we'll come back to breakfast, and afterwards ride out together and overtake the wagons by the mid-day outspan. Meanwhile if, by hook or crook, you can get into this fellow Minho's room, and see what this hole means, do so. Be careful, though, and don't get into any unpleasantness with the man. If you can't get in without trouble, leave it alone. I'll see the landlord about it."

They returned in an hour and a half's time, and were met by Tom with a smiling face.

"I've done the Sherlock Holmes business," he said quietly. "Minho went out and locked his door. I tried his window, which like ours opens on to the veranda, and found that the artful beggar had fastened it in such a way that, while the top sash is open, you can't pull up the lower part. It was impossible to climb in through the top without running the risk of breaking the glass. Well, I waited impatiently half an hour, and then Maria--the native woman who cleans the rooms up, and has evidently a second key--went in and did up the room. While she was gone with a bundle of clothes for the wash I nipped in, and had a good look round at the partition on that side. I found that a hole had been neatly bored with an auger, and the cavity filled up with a round piece of wood, which had been painted to look just like a knot in the pinewood. This, with a little coaxing of the finger nail, comes out, and then you have a view into our room, and I have no doubt can hear quite well everything that is said in here. I put the bit of wood back, and slipped out again before old Maria had got back from her errand."

"The brute!" ejaculated Mr. Blakeney. "He has evidently been spying on us. And when he bored that hole he must have got into this room and cleared away any traces of his work." He knelt on Guy's bed and examined the aperture carefully again. "He has even taken the trouble to put on some dark paint round this side of the hole," he added, "so that the place looks just like a pine knot from this side. I wonder you spotted it, Guy."

"Well, I noticed it from the bed this morning," said Guy, "just before I got up. It was a mere chance. The place looked uneven, and when I examined it I found I could just get the tip of my little finger inside the hole. Then I saw that the place wasn't natural."

"Well, the mischief's done now," said Mr. Blakeney. "I have half a mind to tell the landlord--in fact, I think I will straight away."

Senhor José Moseles, whom Mr. Blakeney at once interviewed, was no friend of Antonio Minho. He knew the man to be a shady character, and a friend of the filibustering Boer, Engelbrecht. But in Mossamedes such characters were not uncommon, and landlords had to put up with them, if they paid their bills. Minho was just now flush of money, and indeed was usually well supplied with that commodity. But Senhor Moseles would look after him. It was not Mr. Blakeney's plan to arouse the man's suspicions just then. Moseles therefore arranged to take measures concerning the peep-hole a week or two later; which, Minho having left the hotel, he did. The hole was plugged and varnished, and the matter, so far as he was concerned, ended.