“What’s the matter?” asked the big ruffian. “Don’t bother me!”
“The Chief is on the wire!” came the answer, and Tom and Ned recognized Snogg’s voice. “He wants to talk to you. Step on it—the Chief’s in a hurry!”
“In that case your affair can wait,” said the big fellow, with a threatening gesture toward the two young men. “Don’t think you’re going to get away,” he added. “I’ll be back!”
He walked to the door, still facing the two, tapped on it without turning about and, when it was opened from the hall, evidently by Snogg, the big plotter stepped outside and quickly locked the door again before Tom and Ned had a chance to rush him, which Janner evidently expected would happen.
“There was a chance we missed!” exclaimed Ned, when he heard the lock click. “We might have bowled them over, Tom, and gotten away.”
“Yes, that idea occurred to me. But it was too risky. These fellows may not intend to kill us, but even if they only shot at us to cripple us something might go wrong and we’d get a bullet where it would do a lot of damage. I think we can get the best of them in another way.”
“How?”
“We’ll have a look around this place and see if we can’t escape—perhaps not now, but after dark. It will soon be night. This room looks strong, but from the outside the house didn’t look either strongly built or in good repair. We’ll have a go at it.”
“I’m with you, Tom. But what do you think’s going on now? What was that talk about the Chief being on the wire?”
“It bears out what I have been thinking for some time,” replied the young inventor. “These fellows who have kidnapped us are not the principals in this matter. They are an organized gang, but they are working at the behest of others. I could tell, from the way Janner asked questions about my inventions, that he had no real, scientific knowledge. He had been told to ask those questions by some one who did know, however. He made several breaks that I passed over. I wanted to see how far he would go.”