CHAPTER XIII—JAKE ROOK AND CO.
“Tom, run out and get a policeman, and come back as quick as you can!”
Jack flung the words back as he leaped forward and stumbled against the bottom step of a flight of stairs. Higher up he could hear his quarry scuttling off in the darkness like a rat.
“You’re going after him?”
“Yes. I must. We’ve got a chance to get on the trail of these rascals right now, and I don’t intend to miss it.”
There was a snap in Jack’s tones as he spoke that convinced Tom it would be useless to argue. He hurried out to get an officer of the law while Jack plunged blindly up the staircase, stumbling at every other step. Ahead of him he could still hear the retreating footsteps.
In his anger at the behavior of the rascals who had stolen the model and kidnapped young Ingersoll, Jack gave little thought to the grave danger he was running. Guided by the sound of the unseen man’s flight he bounded up the stairs at top speed, barking his shins and bruising himself as he stumbled and slipped in the darkness.
One—two—three landings he passed, and then he came to what appeared to be the top story of the old house. At any rate, above his head was a square of star-spangled sky, framed apparently by a skylight. Jack reached out a hand and encountered the rungs of a ladder. Clearly it led to the roof, and the man he was pursuing had used it to reach the top of the rickety old edifice.
“Well, here goes!” exclaimed Jack; “it’s taking a big chance, but if I lose him now I might as well bid good-bye to the chance of ever getting on his tracks again.”
While this thought flashed through his mind he was rapidly scaling the ladder. In a jiffy he was on the roof of the tenement. But not a trace of the man he was following could he see. All at once, however, he spied a sort of raised doorway on what appeared to be the roof of an adjoining house.