“The confounded door over there is still open,” continued Chick to himself. “Just as I left it. Well, I’ll soon fix that.”
He hastened across the room, closed and locked the door, leaving the key in the door, as before.
“Don’t know how I came to do that! It isn’t like me to forget a door when I’m in a place full of crooks. I shouldn’t like the chief to know I’d done it. He’d think I’m going dippy. Well, it’s all right now. That’s a great comfort.”
He was halfway across the room to the door by which he had entered, when the latch clicked, and he saw it jump up, indicating that somebody was pressing it down on the other side.
“Trapped!” muttered Chick. “Cut off, by Jupiter! Now what am I to do?”
CHAPTER XI.
THE RAID.
Chick was thinking at electric speed as he hesitated for a second in the middle of the floor.
He was in a bad fix, and he knew it. Only, it was not his habit to cry over spilled milk. What he wanted to do was to hit on some method of meeting the crisis.