"But I have sent no message, sir!" he replied. "I didn't know there were any burglars in the house, and I've not been near the key to-night."
"How is that!" Mr. Dailey exclaimed; "you have sent no message! A call for help certainly came over the wire. Go up and look at your instruments as quick as you can, Joe, and see whether they've been tampered with."
Joe struck a light and went up to his work-room, and returned in a moment looking more bewildered than ever.
"It's very strange," he said, "but my bell has been disconnected, so I couldn't have heard a call if one had come. I'm sure I left it all right when I went to bed."
"Not strange at all!" Mr. Dailey snapped; and Joe had never heard him speak so sharply. "We're a pack of fools, that's all. There are burglars in my house, at this minute, Bailey, unless I'm very much mistaken, and in Barker's too. I must get home; so must Barker."
The developments of the next ten minutes were highly interesting. Mr. Dailey and Mr. Barker both hurried to their homes, with Tom and Harry, and each found that burglars had been in his house while he was away. In each place the work had been done in the same way, evidently by the same men. Hats and coats were gone, and all the solid silver, and the cut glass, and many other things.
But no burglars were to be found in either place. They had done their work and escaped.
"This is the most mysterious thing I ever saw!" Tom said to his father, after they had searched the house and taken account of their losses. "You say Joe didn't send a call for help, but it certainly came over the wire. And I don't see yet how you knew while we were over at Baileys' that there were burglars in our house."
"Don't you?" There was a lot of sarcasm in Mr. Dailey's tone. "I should think the inventor of a private burglar alarm might see through a little thing like that. One of the burglars knew how to send a message; now do you see?"
"I don't quite understand it even then, sir," Tom answered.