CHAPTER IX
THIEVES IN THE NIGHT
The maroon car turned slowly and ran back along the road. At the wrought-iron, ornate gate before the Sudds’ front steps it halted suddenly. Billy shot another glance around the car.
A man had stepped out of the shadow of the gate post. The two in the car evidently recognized their comrade.
“Come on!” the new-comer said, commandingly. “You run on around the corner, George, and wait for us. Keep your power on. We may be ten minutes—we may be half an hour; but you wait.”
“All right,” assented the man at the wheel, and the car moved on slowly while Billy saw the speaker, and the man who had ridden in the back of the car, walk in at the gate and mount the steps.
The Sudds mansion was high above the street, and the door was gained by mounting several terraces. The couple of strangers were up three sets of granite steps when the maroon car slipped around the bend and Billy lost sight again of the house.
Now, Billy Speedwell had not the first idea what he should do. He believed these three men were criminals. He was sure this was the maroon car Dan had chased on his motorcycle on Saturday—the car that had thrown Maxey Solomons and his auto over the embankment. And the men in it had robbed the Farmers’ Bank of Riverdale of fifteen thousand dollars!
They had dared come back into the neighborhood. Not only had they come back, but Billy believed they were here for quite as bad a purpose as that which had made them notorious in the neighborhood two days before.
An honest car does not usually run without lights. The river road chanced to be deserted at this late hour (it was now approaching midnight) and standing where the chauffeur stopped it, this maroon auto could scarce be seen until one was right upon it.