GAME OF HIDE AND SEEK.
"What a place for a ghost dance," commented Billy, peering into the
shadowy beyond, as he waited for Henri to join him in the big cellar.
Henri, letting go the last hand-hold, immediately announced that the
briefer the stay here the better it would suit him. "Trot along, Billy,"
he urged, "and get it over with."
They had passed under several arches in half-seeing endeavor to locate a
way to the floor above, when Billy came to a quick halt.
"I thought I heard voices!"
"You're likely to hear anything in this catacomb," replied Henri.
"No, it isn't nerves, Buddy; it's talking. Listen!"
The lads, standing mute and with ears attuned to acute pitch, were soon
impressed with the fact that there was a mumbling medley of conversation
somewhere about, but whether at hand or more remote they could not
decide.
So in tremor and doubt they moved with less haste, and stopping at
intervals to analyze every suspicious sound. But now it was only their
own breathing and footfalls that disturbed the tomb-like stillness.
At the bottom steps of a broad flight of stairs, which they had finally
located, to their great relief, the boys made resolve that the first
opening at the top that presented itself, offering opportunity of escape
from the building, would not be neglected for the space of even a half
minute.
The excitement of breaking in had now no show with the desire to break
out.
At the top of the stairway the climbers saw before them an immense
platform, very likely the place of loading, for several trucks in
advanced state of disuse were here and there in view.
But what most interested the lads was a clearly outlined path, through
the heavily settled dust, stretching across and beyond the platform, and
leading to a door of white pine.
"I expect the voices we heard belonged to the same parties who made this
trail," was Billy's low-toned opinion.
"Whoever they belonged to," softly observed Henri, "I prefer to give
them the benefit of the doubt, and if there is a window handy, opening
on the good old outside, it's me for it."
"I'm with you this time, Buddy," promptly agreed the Bangor boy; "I've
had my full of this expedition, and ready to play quits."
If Henri had anything further to say, it did not reach utterance, for
quite distinctly now the lads could hear in varying strain the muffled
intonation that had at first startled them in their stumble through the
lower regions beneath.
Stealthily skirting the platform, the boys took to their knees in the
dust, with their eyes on a level with the raised flooring, at a point
immediately to the right of the big door.
It had been their intention to make their way past the door to the first
turn of the counting room enclosure, which they were sure would set them
going in the direction of the street flanking the west side of Memorial
Square.
Off the platform they were afforded better opportunity for quick
concealment in case any of the mysterious inmates of the supposedly
deserted warehouse should suddenly appear on the higher plane.
From the near point of hiding the boys got a new idea of the center plan
of the working floor, as adapted to the business for which it had been
designed.
The counting house was arranged like a deck cabin of a ship, open space
all around, a fact not apparent to the boys when they first emerged from
the cellar.
"It's a cinch," whispered Billy, "that we can get by on one side or the
other if we haven't forgotten how to do the Indian crawl."
"If it wasn't for that talk buzz," asserted Henri, "I'd be inclined to
tell the neighbors that the old plant was as empty as a last year's bird
nest."
"Not to mention the tracks on the platform," reminded Billy.
"No definite telling when those marks might have been made," continued
Henri, "and as I was saying, the talkfest mystery is the one absolute
assurance that we are not alone in these diggings."
"In the passing," intimated Billy, "there may be a crack in that hut in
which an eye would fit, and there is no use leaving an unsolved problem
behind."
Henri grinned. "I've been expecting that, Buddy," he said.
Alongside the counting house the boys moved on all fours, and it did not
take Billy long to find a place to put his eye. Just over his head was
the checking window--a small aperture, masked by a curtain of green
baize, from which projected a rounded shelf. There had been a warp
between this projection and the window setting, and through the open
seam a free view of the enclosure was presented.
When Billy had completed his look-in, he resorted to the sign language
as a means of conveying the word that the room was occupied. Henri,
surmising as much from the fragments of conversation sifting through the
loose lines of the wooden wall, took his turn as an observer.
In the same rough garb of coal heaver that he wore on the day of
delivery to the young aviators of the summons to the twin towers, Ricker
was lolling on a rickety bench, and another man equally shabby in makeup
was perched upon a dingy counter. On the floor at their feet, gagged and
bound hand and foot, was the heavyweight policeman, who had officially
invoked the services of the silversmith as an expert examiner of the
battered remains of the time clock dug out of the ruins of the
explosion-rent military storehouse.
Ricker had occasion to several times admonish his companion for getting
too high a pitch in his rumbling voice. These vocal lifts at intervals,
no doubt, were the sounds that had from the first convinced the boys of
the presence of other life than theirs in the building.
"This carrion," Ricker was saying, prodding the prostrate officer with
the toe of a hobnailed boot, "is too much of a blunderhead to kill
outright, and it would be a shame to deprive the rats of such a splendid
spread of live meat. But, after all, seeing that the game is up here as
far as I am concerned, I will let the palace of justice keep their
numbskull. There's a lout that will let them know in twenty-four hours
after we are gone."
The man on the floor spluttered in his gag and strained at his bonds.
"Heigho, Casper," yawned Ricker, rising and stretching himself, "it's
soon farewell to Warsaw for us; we were good citizens, eh, Casper? We
leave our mark, too--and we will also leave that crazy Hamar if he does
not show his ugly face within the next ten minutes."
Ricker consulted a heavy gold watch, which he produced from the folds of
his woollen shirt. Two gunny-sacks, bulging at both ends and roped in
the middle, might have furnished evidence that the silversmith was
taking most of his stock with him.
The boys, taking turn about at the look-in point, concluded to sheer off
for the time being, when Ricker bestowed a parting kick upon the trussed
policeman, shouldered the gunny-sacks and started for the door of the
counting house.
"I suppose Hamar will know where to find us?" questioned the man called
Casper.
"Blast him for a crank, there is no telling anything about him," fumed
Ricker; "he had the hour pounded into his addled brain, and it is
nobody's fault but his own if he misses fire."
Billy and Henri were prepared for the sport of hide and seek, until they
could learn the direction that Ricker and his companion proposed to
take.
Each took a corner of the counting house at the rear, and each on the
alert to work the disappearing act.