“We’ve been robbed.”
Patsy turned sharply on him and said:
“Not of the drawings and models?”
“Yes, de same!”
Patsy’s disappointment was great, but, checking himself, he said, with forced calmness:
“Tell me all about it.”
It was not so easy for the two crooks, and they began such a mixture of oaths, assertions and contradictions of each other that Patsy was forced to stop them; and, telling Morris to be quiet and not say a word, instructed Spike to tell the tale.
Under his statement, it appeared that, being afraid of Lannigan, they had kept away all night, not alone from their usual haunts, but from their homes. They had spent the night in obscure, and, to them, strange places, drinking.
When daylight had come, and they thought it safe to venture into the part of the city where they lived, they had gone to Spike’s rooms to get the drawings and models here hidden away, with the intention of carrying them to a place where they could easily get them if the bargaining with Mrs. Pemberton turned out as Patsy had assured them it would.
But, on reaching that room, the drawings and models were not in the place where they had been deposited.