Chick Carter stepped back of the parlor door and peered between it and the casing, shifting a revolver to his side pocket.
Jim Dacey turned abruptly, however, and entered the sitting room.
Chick heard him shout to the deaf housekeeper and order her to go to bed. She came out with a lamp in a few moments, and Chick saw her disappear up a back stairway.
She scarce had vanished when Floyd, or Kate Crandall, still in male attire, came through the cellar doorway and was joined in the hall by Dacey, who asked abruptly, with a look of grim misgivings:
“Where is Sheldon? What’s turned him so sour and—”
“Cut it!” Kate sharply whispered, audible to Chick. “He must not hear us. I have something to say to you. I have ordered him to watch the laundry door till Moran returns.”
“Where has he gone?”
