"No, cleared itself some time ago."
"Damn! Just my luck! We shall have the devil's own job to find it now."
The two Shift Engineers laughed. "Sorry it's not raining, Farrell," Darwen observed.
"It's all very well for you chaps to laugh." Farrell went away in disgust.
Soon a little stream of men filtered in; jointers, half awake and surly; navvies, limply, subdued, bearing pick and shovel; it meant overtime for them.
Darwen and Carstairs stood on the doorway and watched them disappear into the night with a hand-cart full of tools and instruments.
They had been gone some time, Carstairs was preparing to go home, when the telephone bell rang violently. It was Farrell, very excited. "What do you think?" he asked. "Got it first shot, just outside that big house at the corner. When the lights went out, the footman was rushing about to get candles and lamps and unearthed a burglar, the burglar they think, skulking in the shrubbery. He bolted at once and the footman chased him all down the road. He'd have got away too, but a paving stone blew up right under his feet and tripped him up. Of course, that's the fault we were looking for."
"Of course; but how do they know he's a burglar?"
"Oh, he had a bludgeon with him and a big knife. One of the windows had been forced, and they found some jewellery in his pockets."
"Have you seen him? What's he like?"