“I heard a noise as I sat in my room,” said Miss Knowles. “I heard shots,” her face a trifle paler. “Has any one been hurt?”
“No such luck,” replied Mr. Scanlon. He replaced the automatic in his pocket and his broad back against the wall. “Fellow was just here making free with some papers. I chanced to catch him, and he headed for the window.”
The girl approached the table and looked at the papers curiously; her hands wandered among them and her eyes scanned one after another.
“Did he take any of them?” she asked.
A shock ran through the large frame of Mr. Scanlon; for it occurred to him that he did not know. He was busy wrestling with this somewhat unpleasant thought when hasty feet were heard tramping along the hall; and in another moment Campe and the sergeant-major were in the room.
“Who was it?” asked Campe. “Did you see him, Scanlon?”
“I did,” replied Bat. “And I let fly at him.”
Then in as few words as possible he related his experiences since leaving Campe on guard over the unconscious prowler; he was careful, however, to omit that part of it which dealt with the whispering and the rustling of skirts in the hall-way.
“Whatever his game is,” concluded the big man, “he was a pal of the fellow you’ve got down the hall.” Here he caught the expression that came into Campe’s face; at the same instant he noted that Miss Knowles had left the room. How long she had been gone he did not know; but it must have been while he was deep in his narrative. “The man’s still there, ain’t he?” he asked Campe.
“When I heard the shots I left the room,” said the young man. “Then Kretz ran upstairs, and we came hunting you.”