“I want Mr. Clayton’s signature to these letters,” Garside remarked, displaying two typewritten sheets. “It will do in the morning. Would you mind taking them up to my room, Peterson, and leaving them on my desk?”
“No, sir. Very willing, sir,” said Peterson obsequiously.
He received them with a bow and went upstairs.
Garside sauntered toward the side hall, into which he vanished, only to peer out cautiously and watch the butler until he disappeared. Then he seized a woolen cap from a rack on the wall and stole quickly toward the rear door of the house.
Patsy Garvan caught sight of him a moment later, a stealthy figure noiselessly picking his way around a corner of the house, against the lighter background of which his dark outlines were dimly discernible.
“Gee whiz! the chief sure has called the turn,” thought Patsy, instantly alert. “The rat is coming from his hole. It’s that private secretary, all right, or my lamps have gone mighty misty. Yes, by Jove, I’m right. Let the chief alone to drive him from cover.”
Garside was passing one of the lighted windows, when, for a moment, he could be seen more distinctly and his identity positively determined.
He paused briefly, then moved on like an evil shadow, darker than the surrounding darkness, until he came to[Pg 21] the veranda steps. Up these he crept, crouching on his hands and knees, until he was within a yard of the broad French window, through which he cautiously peered, lingering and listening.
“Driven from cover is right,” thought Patsy, intently watching him. “He’s out to play the eavesdropper, just as the chief suspected. What will he do next, after Nick has filled his ears with that fake story about a Philadelphia physician? It’s dollars to fried rings, now, that it will drive him to a move of some kind. It will be a chilly day, by gracious, if I fail to get next.”
Nearly half an hour passed.