“If he makes a sound you know what to do, Rad?” said Jake Rook, with a sinister look at the trembling boy.
“I know, all right,” muttered the other, producing a revolver from his hip pocket and tapping it suggestively.
Jake Rook’s disguise was thrown into the hole in the wall also, and then the panel was slid into place again. This done, it would have defied the keenest eyes to tell that there had ever been an opening there. As the panel was slid shut the vastly altered Jake Rook tiptoed softly across the room to the door and listened intently. He was just in time to hear somebody descending the ladder.
Instantly he slid across the room and threw himself on the couch, drawing the dirty blankets up to his chin. He had just done so when a sharp rap sounded on the door. Jake instantly began to cough in a painful manner.
“Ugh-ugh-ugh! Who’s there?”
“Open this door at once!”
“Ugh-ugh, I’m sick in bed. Open it yourself. What is it? Ugh-ugh-ugh—what do you want?” As he spoke the door was flung open and two policemen, with Tom just behind them, stepped into the room.
“Who are you?” demanded one of them of the figure on the ragged bed.
“Ugh-ugh—oh, my cough!—My name’s Tattered Terry. I was selling papers up to a week ago, when I took sick. Ugh-ugh, how my cough hurts!”
“Guess we’re on the wrong scent,” said one of the policemen.