“Explain.”
The man told his story. He said:
“I brought him up here. He was as quiet and meek as Moses, and when I seized hold of him to put him in the chair all power suddenly left me. I became as weak as a sick cat. I fell helplessly to the floor. He then lifted me up, placed me in the chair, worked the machinery and there I was, speechless and helpless, and with a grin upon his face—a demoniac grin—he walked off or vanished in thin air, I do not know which.”
“You’re a fool,” said the captain. “You have been outwitted by a smart kid, a detective’s apprentice, that’s all.”
The men descended to the lower room and held a long “confab,” and the captain finally said:
“We are in luck.”
“How?”
“In discovering that lad. He heard the whole business. We know now that the cops were on our track. Had the ‘kid’ got away we would have gone on with the job and every man would have been captured. Yes, we are in great luck.”
Our hero in the meantime managed to gain the street, and he proceeded direct to the house into which Burlein had gone. He lay around expecting the men to show up, but they did not appear. But the young man did come forth from the house and Ike fell to his trail. The lad followed until he saw the young man seek to enter a house, when our hero approached and called out:
“Don’t go in, I want to talk to you.”