Then they moved off.
Eric did not believe they had gone, and he followed them with his eyes.
They slipped into a vacant lot near by, and the detective began to get a new idea.
Perhaps these fellows were not in the employ of the artist after all, but skirmishing around on their own hook.
That meant knavery.
He was aroused.
To follow them was his first thought.
Stealing down to the vacant lot he too vanished amid its blackness.
At first he could see and hear nothing, but in a few minutes he caught a clew, and found that the two men had gone to the fence separating the vacant lot from Joe’s back yard.
Some old wagons and drays were scattered here and there about the place, for it presented an admirable wagon yard.