Damn it,
man, it's open!"
They hurried outside. French blew his whistle. One of the plain-clothes
men came running up from the avenue. He was looking a little sheepish.
"What's wrong?" French demanded.
"He's gone off," was the unwilling reply. "I guess that chap's given us
the slip."
"Speak up," French insisted.
"The only place," the man went on, "we hadn't our eyes glued on, was the
front door. He must have come out through that. There's been a motor truck
with one or two queer-looking chaps in it, at the corner of the avenue
there for the last ten minutes. I'd just made up my mind to stroll round
and see what it was up to when Jim, who was on the other side, shouted
out. A man jumped up into it and they made off at once."
"Could he have come from this house?" French asked sternly.
"I guess, if he'd come out from the front door, he might just have done
it," the man admitted.
Quest and the Inspector exchanged glances.
"He's done us!" Quest muttered,--"done us like a couple of greenhorns!"
The Inspector's rubicund countenance was white with fury. His head kept
turning in the direction of Laura, to whom the Professor was busy
rendering first aid.
"If I never take another job on as long as I live," he declared, "I'll
have that fellow before I'm through!"
2.
The Professor roused himself from what had apparently been a very gloomy
reverie.
"Well," he announced, "I must go home. It has been very kind of you, Mr.
Quest, to keep me here for so long.
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