“I wish to size up that building next to the one on which you are working, Grady,” he said, having learned the other’s name. “I must do so without being suspected. I can get by, all right, if you’ll lend me your duck blouse, overalls, and hat, and remain here under cover while I get in my work.”
Grady grinned.
“In other words, Mr. Garvan, you want to take my place,” said he.
“Exactly. I’ll slip you a five-dollar note for it, Grady, and——”
“You kape the five bucks in your pocket, Mr. Garvan,” Grady warmly interrupted. “Faith, who wouldn’t do that much for Nick Carter! If you get into these togs as quick as I come out of them, you can be at work with me trowel in the shake of a lamb’s tail. I’ll hide here with my trap closed, be it long or short that you’re gone. That goes, too, by these five fingers across.”
“You’re all right, Grady, from your toes up,” replied Patsy gratefully. “Take it from me, all the same, you’ll get yours for this.”
Patsy sauntered out of the saloon in about five minutes. Only a close observer would have detected his subterfuge. One who had seen Grady at work would merely have supposed that another mason had taken his place.
Patsy devoted very little time, of course, to pointing up the brick wall. He began, instead, while pretending to be at work, a furtive inspection of the walls adjoining the basement to which he had seen Chick and Nolan descend. He could find, however, no window lighting the underground room.
“Gee! that’s mighty strange,” he said to himself. “Have they been stoned up for some reason? I’ll be hanged if I don’t think this crib figures in some way in the department-store robberies. I reckon I’ll go a step farther.”
Patsy already had found that a rear door and stairway led up to the dwelling over the store of the Acme Novelty Company. He could observe no one at any of the windows, however, and he felt quite sure that he could stealthily enter the place.