“I’m not sure of that,” retorted the tramp-like man, still unconvinced, “if I thought,” he added with a vicious leer, “that he overheard us, I——”
The sentence was not completed for the reason that at the moment a lusty voice was heard coming up the path from the aerodrome singing at the pitch of its lungs:
“Three times round went the gallant ship;
Three times round spun she,
Three times round spun the gallant ship
Then down to the bottom of the sea,—the sea,—the sea.
Then down to the bottom of the sea.”
As the singer came upon the scene in front of him he broke off abruptly and the two men who had intercepted Lathrop took to their heels.
“Hullo, there, my hearty,” cried Ben Stubbs, for he was the vocalist, as his eyes took in the situation, “what’s all this?”
His voice held a sharp note of interrogation, for he had immediately recognized one of the two men who had made off as the fellow who had sneaked up the by-street in White Plains the day before.