Читать книгу Hidden Foes; Or, A Fatal Miscalculation онлайн

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“By Jove, I feared for a moment she was gone,” he said to himself, straightening up. “I’ll try to raise the sergeant. He said he’d show up about midnight.”

Donovan walked away toward the gate again and blew his whistle, a shrill, sinister sound on the night air. Thrice he had to sound it, and then he heard a distant reply. Several moments later hurried footsteps fell on the pavement, and an officer in plain clothes appeared at the gate.

“That you, Jim?” he called quietly.

“Yes, sir.” Donovan’s hand went to his helmet. “I thought I might get you, Sergeant Brady, as you said you’d drop around about this time.”

“Something doing?”

“Yes, sir, the same old job.”

“The devil you say! Have you seen no one, nor heard anything?”

“Not a soul, sir, nor a sound,” Donovan declared, approaching the gate. “Faith, I think my eyes and ears have gone to the bad. I was round here twenty minutes ago. The padlock then was on the gate, and this thread, tied so that the gate could not be opened without breaking it, was just as I had fixed it. It’s a cinch, now, that this is the gate the rascals have been using. The chief thought, you know, that the padlock might have been taken off only for a blind. The breaking of the thread settles it.”