“Hello!” said Scanlon, his hands at his mouth like a megaphone. “That’ll be about all of that.”
The sergeant-major lowered his gun, and stood looking down; and within a few minutes the big man was at the gate and hammering to be let in.
Kretz admitted him, sullen-faced and silent.
“Suppose you always take a look,” spoke Scanlon, after the gate had been closed and fastened, “a good look, mind you, before you cut loose with that gun of yours. And let this be especially the case when I’m known to be outside.”
“Twice to-night have I seen people near the river before I saw you. Each time I called, but they said nothing. The third time I fired.”
“And I just happened along in time to be the goat,” grumbled Bat. Then, with a sharp side glance at the sergeant-major’s grim face, he added mentally, as he turned away, “That is, if you didn’t know who it was.”
Inside he found the room where he usually spent the evenings with Campe deserted. But from another apartment the voice of Miss Knowles was heard laughing, and that of Campe answered with much animation.
“Oh, come now,” said Mr. Scanlon, “if it was somebody other than that blonde girl who was with him I’d say that this wasn’t half bad.”
An atmosphere of change was about the rooms which had been so gloomy; for the first time since he had been there, fear was sharing the centre of the stage with something else.
“If I’d only thought of Ashton-Kirk sooner,” said Bat, “the whole thing might have been straightened out by now. His just coming here for an hour, and Campe not even knowing who he was, has put a new face on things.”