Clowes thought so too, but admitted that he did not see of what use the suspicion was going to be. Whether Rand-Brown knew anything about the affair or not, it was quite certain that the bat was not with him.
O’Hara, meanwhile, had decided that the time had come for him to resume his detective duties. Moriarty agreed with him, and they resolved that that night they would patronise the vault instead of the gymnasium, and take a holiday as far as their boxing was concerned. There was plenty of time before the Aldershot competition.
Lock-up was still at six, so at a quarter to that hour they slipped down into the vault, and took up their position.
A quarter of an hour passed. The lock-up bell sounded faintly. Moriarty began to grow tired.
“Is it worth it?” he said, “an’ wouldn’t they have come before, if they meant to come?”
“We’ll give them another quarter of an hour,” said O’Hara. “After that—”
“Sh!” whispered Moriarty.
The door had opened. They could see a figure dimly outlined in the semi-darkness. Footsteps passed down into the vault, and there came a sound as if the unknown had cannoned into a chair, followed by a sharp intake of breath, expressive of pain. A scraping sound, and a flash of light, and part of the vault was lit by a candle. O’Hara caught a glimpse of the unknown’s face as he rose from lighting the candle, but it was not enough to enable him to recognise him. The candle was standing on a chair, and the light it gave was too feeble to reach the face of any one not on a level with it.
The unknown began to drag chairs out into the neighbourhood of the light. O’Hara counted six.
The sixth chair had scarcely been placed in position when the door opened again. Six other figures appeared in the opening one after the other, and bolted into the vault like rabbits into a burrow. The last of them closed the door after them.