Читать книгу The Stolen War-Secret - Arthur B. Reeve - Страница 8

WE HAD scarcely turned down the street when I noticed that a man in a slouch-hat, pulled down over his eyes, was walking toward us.

As he passed I thought he peered out at us suspiciously from under the shelter of the hat.

He turned and followed us a step or two.

“Kennedy!” he exclaimed.

If a fourteen-inch gun had been fired off directly behind us, I could not have been more startled. Here, in spite of all our haste and secrecy, we were followed, watched—even known.

Craig had wheeled about suddenly, prepared for anything.

For an instant we looked at the man, wondering what to expect next from him.

“By Jove! Walter!” exclaimed Kennedy, almost before I had time to take in the situation. “It’s Burke of the Secret Service!”

“The same,” greeted a now familiar voice. “How are you?” he asked joining us and walking slowly down the street.

“Working on a case,” replied Kennedy colorlessly, meantime searching Burke’s face to discover whether it might be to our advantage to take him in on the secret.

“How did you come here?”

We had turned the corner and were standing in the deserted street near an electric light. Burke unfolded a newspaper which he had rolled up and was carrying in his hand.

“These newspaper fellows don’t let much get past them,” he said with a nod and a twinkle of his eye toward me. “I suppose you have seen this?”

He handed us a “war” extra.

We had not seen it, for our prolonged stay in the Mexican cabaret had, for the time being at least, superseded the interest which had taken us into the Vanderveer in the first place to look at the ticker. In the meantime an enterprising newspaper had rushed out its late edition with an extra.

Across the top of the page in big red-ink letters sprawled the headline: