Chick now could hear the four men in one of the side rooms. He stepped noiselessly into the hall, leaving the door as he had found it, and he then sought concealment on a bare back stairway leading to the second floor.
“I may find it of advantage to steal up there,” he said to himself. “I must overhear just what comes off in this crib, and also learn how many I am finally up against.”
The hammer ceased at that moment, and he heard Margate say gruffly, addressing the elder Selig:
“That’s good enough, Zeke. Good enough.”
“It strikes me so, Andy.”
“Sure. Not a ray of light can get through the blankets, to say nothing of the curtains and blinds. We’ll be safe enough from detection.”
“They have been tacking blankets over the windows,” thought Chick.
“Light the lanterns, Angus,” Margate now commanded. “It’s getting infernally dark here, but not as dark as I found it last night, nor anything like as cold. That was a close call, if ever a man had one.”
“Close call is right, Andy,” Tony Selig vouchsafed.
“But the meds did me a good turn, at that,” Margate added. “They forced me into seeking other garments than my own, and put me in a way to pull off this job. We’ll clean up handsomely from the whole business, you[{33}] can bank on that, and there’ll be no clew left to show who turned the trick, after I have bolted with Nance for South America.”