“I must tell Mr. Newton about this,” he said. “He will be glad to know of it, and then it will be a chance to do those detectives a turn.” Mr. Newton was much excited over what Larry told him next day. “Are you sure Detectives Jones and Douglass are on the case?” he asked. Larry told what he had overheard at police headquarters. “Then I guess they are,” remarked the reporter. “Well, this will be quite a surprise for them. It will kill two birds with one stone.” “What do you mean?” asked Larry. “We’ll get a story for the paper out of it and fool the officers besides.” “It will be a queer story,” said Larry, and Mr. Newton nodded. For several days after that, the men in the rooms below the Dexter apartment were busily engaged. Larry no longer kept watch of them. Instead he kept a careful lookout on persons who loitered about in the street near the house. One evening at dusk he saw two rather poorly dressed men who walked up and down several times, and then ventured into the hallway of the house. “I guess they are the detectives in disguise,” thought Larry. “It is almost time to spring the trap.” In accordance with an arrangement he had made he telephoned to Mr. Newton. “So you think it’s time, eh?” asked the reporter. “I’ll come right over.” Mr. Newton joined Larry half an hour later, and the pair went to the boy’s room, above where the strange men had been working for some time. “Are they downstairs?” whispered Mr. Newton. “Yes,” said Larry, “and the detectives are hidden in a room across the hall. I guess they’ll break in any minute now. We can hear them through the crack. I have made it bigger so we can see well.” Larry and the reporter knelt down and applied their eyes to the hole in the floor. They could observe the men moving about, and could see the golden glow that filled the apartment. Suddenly, as they watched, they heard the sound of crashing wood. “They are breaking in the door!” exclaimed Larry. “The detectives are after them!” CHAPTER XXV A BIG ROBBERY “Now for some fun!” exclaimed Mr. Newton. “Those detectives will get the biggest surprise of their lives.” “Yes, and it will give you a chance to get back at them for the way they treated you,” remarked Larry. “There goes the door!” cried the reporter, as a louder crash betokened that the portal had given way. “This will bring everyone in the house out to see what is going on.” Following the crash there came a series of shrill cries from the apartment below. “Come on down!” called Mr. Newton to Larry. “We can see better. Besides I want Jones and Douglass to notice that I’m on the job when they get fooled.” Larry and the reporter raced downstairs. They saw a number of other tenants in the building making their way toward the scene of the disturbance, and the stairway was well crowded. “Here we go!” cried Mr. Newton as he passed through the burst-in door. “Come on, Larry!”