“By Jove, it may be coming here,” Chick muttered, watching. “Dacey is returning, perhaps, just in time to prevent my search. Yes, by thunder, I am right—it is coming here.”
The car was slowing down. The outlines of a limousine now could be seen. It swerved into a driveway approaching the house—and Chick dropped flat on the ground,[Pg 35] close to the foundation wall, lest he might be seen in the glare of the headlights.
He now saw that there were several men in the car, but he could not distinguish their faces. The number surprised him.
“Great Scott! there are six, at least,” he said to himself. “I’m up against more of a gang than I expected. Where the deuce are they going?”
The car had passed a side door and was rounding a rear corner of the house. Chick crept out from his concealment far enough to see that it had stopped directly back of the dwelling. Presently, too, he saw four of the men alighting—for he naturally supposed that all of them were men.
One of them hastened to open a bulkhead door leading into the cellar. The chauffeur extinguished the lights of the car. Then a cry came from Dacey, as he returned from the cellar with a lighted lantern.
“All ready for them, Martin,” he said curtly. “Lend a hand, Sheldon. You stand aside, Floyd, and hold this lantern; we can lift them out and lug them into the cellar. We’ll lock them in the laundry till we have settled this business. I’ll send Sarah to bed, though she’s as deaf as an adder.”
“Would she squeal, Jim, if she knew?” questioned Kate Crandall.
“Never a squeal,” Dacey declared. “But she’s best out of the way, for all that.”
“By Jove, that was a woman’s voice, as sure as I’m over seven,” thought Chick, when he heard Kate’s question. “A woman in male attire, eh? Great guns! I begin to scent the rat in the meal. This bunch of rascals have in some way got the best of Nick and Patsy. But there still is a third string to the chief’s bow. It’s always safe to bank on one of us.”