“Getting on the nerves of the population, eh?” said he. “Well, I don’t wonder. A fellow can’t go slam-hanging around like that and not attract attention.”
He noticed, as he went along, that more than one person regarded him curiously; little knots of people gathered behind him, their heads together and no doubt deep in the discussion of the odd doings about Schwartzberg. He had left Marlowe Furnace some distance behind when an idea occurred to him.
“I’ll just top a few of these hills to the left,” said he, “and stop off at the inn. It wouldn’t surprise me if I saw or heard some little thing of interest. These fellows with the lame lungs and the lame legs seem to have more to them than a first glance shows.”
So Mr. Scanlon confidently took the path across the hills. As a rule a criminal caught in the act of housebreaking would not be expected to linger in the neighbourhood of his exploit; but that the man with the cough had departed was not at all in the calculations of Bat.
“According to the dope of both Kirk and Mrs. Kretz, Campe is afraid of the police,” was the way the big man reasoned it out. “Knowing the nature of the thing which makes Campe afraid, the housebreaker knows that the police won’t be called in. So, then, he’ll stick around, waiting for another chance.”
In the road which led to the inn Bat heard the sound of wheels; it was the rolling chair containing the man with the flattened skull. The black, glittering eyes of the invalid fixed themselves upon Bat as he came up with the chair. The big man noted this and nodded.
“Nice day,” said he.
“Splendid,” replied the invalid, in his peculiarly strong voice. “In fact there has been a succession of fine days. This district seems specially favoured.”
Bat nodded his head many times.
“I’ve been thinking something like that myself,” he said. “There seem to be things here which a fellow wouldn’t be likely to run into anywhere else.”