He listened attentively. Then "Yes, sir," he said. "I will come right over with him."
CHAPTER X
BY WAY OF THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR
The boys will never know how long it took to drive to the street and number given them by the poor Weasel. Arriving at the corner where the old brown stone house stood looking the picture of desolation, with its closely boarded-up windows, its dusty steps and seedy doors, the boys passed down the side street and left the car in the shadow of the buildings there. They separated and hurried back to the house, one at a time. Slipping through the dense shadows in the weedy, cluttered-up back yard, a yard that had once been a trim garden with smooth paths and neat little hedges, as back yards were once in the olden days, they met under the iron fire-escape attached to the house next door. This building, much higher than the corner house, was used as a private sanitarium or hospital by one of the highest-priced specialists in the city. The fire-escape, therefore, was in perfect condition, and safe as such a spidery stairway could be made, with strong rails and good treads.
Porky whispered a word of command, and noiselessly the boys ascended. The night was pitch dark, but their eyes growing accustomed to the gloom, they made their way without a stumble. Reaching the place where the lower building met the taller one, they found they could not get from the stairway to the other roof. There was nothing for it but to go on up the remaining story, cross the roof of the building and drop down to the lower level. They tiptoed over the flat, pebbled roof, clung to the eaves, and one by one made the long drop in safety, the only damage being scratched and bruised palms as they sprawled on the rough roofing.
A glass skylight was set in the middle of the roof. They hurried to it and Hen, with a quick twist, worked it loose, and tipped it noiselessly back on the roof.
"Take off your shoes!" he whispered.
They felt their way down the rough ladder that led from the skylight to the attic, and stood motionless, scarcely breathing in the dense darkness.
Hen, who had the flashlight, feared to press the button. There was not a sound, save a little sputter which they rightly laid to the wireless machine which the Weasel had told them about. In a moment, (it seemed years) Hen decided that they must have light, even at the risk of discovery, and his flashlight illumined the room in which they stood. Immediately Porky pointed to the big chimney, and the pile of lumber stacked beside it. He touched the others, and led the way. They went noiselessly across the uneven floor, and reaching the boards, found, as the Weasel had said, a narrow opening in the floor.
As the three neared the bottom of the ladder, a scream, muffled and choked but full of agony, sounded close to them. The boys recognized that thin, boyish tone, even in its torture. They felt their hair rise on their scalps as they listened.