"Trough of the waves!" cried Jack.
"What are you talking about?"
"Why, about the Whildens, of course. What are you talking about?"
"Oh, pshaw! I was talking about the burglars."
"Oh, I see," said Rand. "How did they get in?"
"That is what we would all like to know," replied Jack. "There isn"t anything to show how they got in or how they went out, unless they went out through the door and locked it after them."
"That is possible, isn"t it?" asked Rand.
"I suppose it is possible," admitted Jack, "but I don"t see how they managed it."
"Not if they had a key?"
"It must have been that way," agreed Jack, "but where did they get this key? That don"t lessen the puzzle. It was a Yale lock, and keys to them are not to be had easily, and they must have had one for the front door, too."
"Well, if they could get the one they could get the other," said Rand.
"I suppose so," agreed Jack. "It probably wouldn"t be much harder to get two than one."
"Why couldn"t they get in through a window?" pursued Rand.
"The windows were all locked on the inside as well as the doors."
"I see. They must have been professionals."
"Then I don"t see what they wanted there."
"Why not?"
"Because they wouldn"t get enough swag to make it worth while,"
answered Jack,
"Swag?" questioned Rand.
"Oh, that"s slang for plunder," explained Jack.
"You seem to be pretty well up in their slang," commented Rand.
"Oh, that"s part of the newspaper business," was Jack"s response.
By this time they had come to the building in which Judge Taylor had his office, which was on one of the main street corners of the town. A little description of the building is necessary here to make the situation clear. It was an old-fashioned, two-story brick structure, having been erected some years before. At the time of its erection there were no other buildings near it, and there were windows on all four sides. Some time later another building had been put on the adjoining lot, leaving a s.p.a.ce of a little more than a foot between the two, thus making the windows on that side practically useless. The wall of the other building upon that side was blank, and it was upon this s.p.a.ce that the side windows of the judge"s office opened. In the rear was a yard of the width of the building and about twenty feet deep, with a low fence upon the side next to the street.
"Let"s take a look around before we go upstairs," proposed Jack.
"All right," responded Rand. "I"m green at this business, you know."
Going in at the front door Jack led the way into the hall, from which a broad flight of stairs ascended to the second story. By the side of the stairs was a narrow pa.s.sage, through which Jack continued to a small hallway in the rear, in which were two doors, one giving access to the cellar, the other opening on the yard in the rear.
"Do you think that they could have come in through the cellar?"
asked Rand, when they entered the back hall.
"I had thought of that," replied Jack, "but every one says that these doors were bolted, and I don"t see how they could bolt the doors after they had gone out."
"It does seem just a little difficult," admitted Rand.
Going out in the yard, the boys examined the rear of the building.
"They couldn"t have got to the windows up there without a ladder,"
decided Rand, after a study of the situation. "And you say the windows were fastened?"
"That"s what they say," responded Jack, "and I don"t believe burglars carry ladders around in their kits. Besides there is an electric light right here, so that a ladder could be seen quite plainly from the street. "I wonder," he mused, looking into the s.p.a.ce between the buildings, "if any one could get up through there."
"Not unless he could fly," returned Rand. "There isn"t room enough for a man to get in there, and he couldn"t manage a ladder if he got in."
"A boy might," remarked Jack.
"But this wasn"t a boy"s work," objected Rand.
"Can"t always tell," replied Jack, "almost anything is possible."
Going back into the building, Jack led the way up to Judge Taylor"s office, where they found an officer in consultation with the judge.
"Good morning, judge," said Jack as they entered. "We came in to see if there was anything new about the robbery."
"Good morning, boys," replied the judge. "Looking for news, as usual, eh, Jack? Well, I am sorry to say there isn"t any. We are just as much in the dark as ever. It is beyond my comprehension how any one could get in and out of this place and not leave any signs to show how they did it."
"It beats me," chimed in the officer. "It was a good job, too.
Looks as if there were two or three in it, the way they handled the safe," pointing to the large, old-fashioned safe, good enough in its day, but not offering much resistance to modern tools, which was standing in the middle of the room.
"They certainly made junk of it," remarked Rand; "how did they do it?"
"Steel wedges," replied the officer. "It wasn"t very much of a job for yeggmen, such as these must have been. They drove the wedges in alongside of the door and burst it open,"
"But didn"t that make a good deal of noise?"
"Not if they used pieces of cloth to deaden the sound of the blows,"
explained the officer.
"Did they get very much?" asked Rand.
"Not very much," replied the judge, "some papers and a few coins."
"h.e.l.lo!" interjected Jack, who had picked up a sheet of paper from the floor.
"Found something?" asked the judge; "what is it?"