“Yes, and let me in on it!” The large man by the fire stood up.
“Johnny,” Drew said, and there was a note of deep respect in his voice, “this is Captain Burns, a chief in the detective bureau. He—he seems to like being here in our shack now and then. But keep it dark,” he warned. “There are people who would like to meet the Captain here in a very unsocial way—boys of the under-world who’ve felt his steel. Right, Captain?”
“Maybe so,” the Captain rumbled. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want our happy retreat broken up.
“But this ‘House of a Thousand Eyes’?” He turned to Johnny. “Tell me more about it.”
“I will,” said Johnny with a broad grin, “when I have more to tell.”
CHAPTER V
PAST AND PRESENT
Several hours later, having quite recovered from his severe headache, and apparently not so very much the worse for the terrible thump he had received on the head, Johnny sat before the open fireplace in Drew Lane’s shack on Grand Avenue. About that same fire were gathered his friends of other days, Drew Lane, Tom Howe and Joyce Mills. With them was the ruddy-faced, smiling Captain Burns, one of the best known and most feared officers of the law in that city.
If you have read “Arrow of Fire” you will know that the “Shack” was the one remaining structure of days long gone by when the east end of Grand Avenue—which, after all, has never been very grand—was at the edge of a sandy marsh where in the autumn one might hunt wild ducks.
This shack was now surrounded by tall warehouses. Hidden away and quite forgotten, it made a perfect meeting place for such as Drew Lane and his little group of crime hunters.
Drew Lane was still young. With his derby hat, bright tie and natty suit, he looked still very much the college boy he had been. Endowed with great strength, trained to the limit, with a brain like a brightly burning lamp, he was the despair of evil doers. Scarcely less effective was his team-mate, Tom Howe. Small, freckled, active as a cat, silent, full of thoughts, Tom planned, while, more often than not, Drew executed.