“I don’t know.”
“How about the junction-box in the alley? Could it have been there?”
“Well it could—come to think of it. I scraped an’ cleaned th’ connections to make sure. They’re all right now.”
“Did you see anybody about?”
The lineman hitched up the satchel and scratched his ear. “Seems to me, I did. A fellow climbed over the fence from the back yard of this house just as I swings in from the side street. It was snowin’ a bit an’ I couldn’t see very well.”
“What kind of looking fellow?” snapped Drew with awakened interest. “German?”
“You took th’ very words right out of my mouth,” said the trouble-hunter. “He looked like a German.”
“Describe him! Tall, fat or small?”
“I wasn’t near enough to notice for sure. Tall, I think. He went out the alley and turned toward Fifth Avenue.”
“Could he have called us up from that junction-box?”