“That’s the house she is in,” said Chick.
Nick tried the door, and found it was locked. It took him but a minute to pick the lock, but this did not open the door, for it was soon apparent that it was barred from within as well as bolted.
Chick was preparing to put his strength against it, when Nick checked him, and said:
“Let’s try if there is an entrance from that yard.”
Hurrying to the door in the fence and through it, they closed it after them and began an examination of the yard in which they found themselves.
The brick wall of the house, on the door of which were the red marks, made one side of the yard, and at the rear of this side was a door to which they went. This door opened to them on the first trial, and Chick’s lantern came into play again to show a hallway with stairs leading up.
They mounted these stairs revolvers in hand, and on reaching the landing, found an open door opposite them.
Turning into this room, the first thing that they saw was a large black cloth bag on the floor, the next a woman’s handkerchief, which Chick said belonged to Ida.
It was the handkerchief which Ida had wound around her hand with which to break the pane of glass, through which she had talked to the boy who had helped her.
A hasty examination of the adjoining rooms satisfied the two shrewd detectives that the house was not occupied regularly.