Stealing nearer, with eyes and ears alert, he crawled up the pile of refuse and peered in through the narrow slit between the shutter and its casing.
The interior of the old stable met his gaze. One of the men, Simp Sampson, so called, had unhitched the horse and was making him fast in a near stall.
In another, out of which he had kicked a quantity of straw and bedding, Mullen was raising a large trapdoor, drawing it up by means of a ring in the floor.
Patsy could see through the opening a flight of wooden steps leading down into a dark hole under the floor, the depth and extent of which he could only conjecture.
"Gee! that’s a secret hiding place, all right," he said to himself. "The bedding in the stall would ordinarily conceal the trapdoor. Besides, who would be looking for one in a horse’s stall? I’m evidently up against a gang that makes a business of crooked work. If I can corner them——”
Patsy’s train of thought ended when Mullen, having tipped the trapdoor back against one side of the stall, turned and said to Corson, who had been grimly watching him:
"Lend a hand, Jim, and we’ll lug her down there. It will be safer than keeping her in the house until we learn how the cat’s going to jump. Is the old woman in the house?"
"Not now," said Corson, with his habitual growl. "She’s gone to market. It takes some grub, Mullen, to feed you fellows."
"We’ll have coin enough for grub, Jim, if his nibs gets all he’s banking on from this job," Mullen pointedly answered.
"I hope he’ll get it, then. We need it."