r.

"Yes. For God's sake, is this you, Breitmann?"

"Sh! Not so loud! What are you doing here?"

"And you?"

"Listen! It has stopped. He has heard our scuffling."

"It seems, then, that we are both here for the same purpose?" said
Fitzgerald, pulling down his cuffs, and running his fingers round his
collar.

"Yes. You came too late or too soon." Breitmann stooped, and ran his
hands over the rug.

The other saw him but dimly. "What's the matter?"

"I have lost one of my studs," with the frugal spirit of his mother's
forebears. "You are stronger than I thought."

"Much obliged."

"It's a good thing you did not get that hold first. You'd have broken
my arm."

"Wouldn't have given in, eh? I simply cried quits in order to start
over again. There's no fair fighting in the dark, you know."

"Well, we have frightened him away. It is too bad."

"What have you on your feet?"

"Felt slippers."

"Are you afraid of the cold?"

A laugh. "Not I!"

"Come with me."

"Where?"

"First to the cellar. Remember that hot-air box from the furnace, that
backs the chimney, way up?"

"I looked only at the bricks."

"We'll go and have a look at that box. It just occurred to me that
there is a cellar window within two feet of that box."

"Let us hurry. Can you find the way?"

"I can try."

"But lights?"

Fitzgerald exhibited his electric pocket lamp. "This will do."

"You Americans!"

After some mistakes they found their way to the cellar. The window was
closed, but not locked, and resting against the wall was a plank. It
leaned obliquely, as if left in a hurry. Fitzgerald took it up, and
bridged between the box and the window ledge. Breitmann gave him a leg
up, and in another moment he was examining the brick wall of the great
chimney under a circular white patch of light. A dozen rows of bricks
had been cleverly loosened. There were also evidences of chalk marks,
something on the order of a diagram; but it was rather uncertain, as it
had been redrawn four or five times. The man hadn't been sure of his
ground.

"Can you see?" asked Fitzgerald.

"Yes." Only Breitmann himself knew what wild rage lay back of that
monosyllable. He was sure now; that diagram brushed away any lingering
doubt. The lock had been trifled with, but the man who had done the
work had not been sure of his dimensions.

"Clever piece of work. Took away the mortar in his pockets; no sign of
it here. The adm