Too winded for further speech the friends stared at each other.
“Great snakes!” exclaimed the young Seminole chief at last. “A jolly way you have of receiving callers!”
“Well, why on earth didn’t you come to the front door and ring the bell like a Christian?” growled Bill. “What’s the idea? Snooping in through the wine cellar and scaring me half to death? This confounded house is creepy enough without you adding to the spooks!”
“The front door,” retorted Osceola, “was out of the question. How did I know you were in the place? Sanders has his men posted all around here. He came out of the back door with another guy less than half an hour ago, and I saw them.”
Bill picked up the torch and the automatic before replying. “You don’t happen to know how they got in?” he asked. “I locked the back entry from the inside, so they couldn’t have come that way.”
Osceola shook his head. “No. They got in the same way I did. Their footprints are all over the place.”
“But which way is that?”
“There’s an old shed in the woods about fifty yards from the house. Mr. Evans told me about it. Once upon a time it was used for storing firewood, and it connects with the cellar by a kind of tunnel. They broke in there, picked the cellar lock, and went on up into the house.”
“But they couldn’t have come through this cellar—I found both doors locked.”
“They didn’t have to come through here. There’s a circular stair that leads from where the phone is, up through that wall and out into the hall above.”