CHAPTER XIII IN WHICH THE DEED IS MISSING Larry decided it would be better not to tell his mother anything concerning the blue-handed man, or his connection with the safe-robbery. He felt it would only make her worry, and would be of no particular good. “I’ll solve this thing myself,” thought the young reporter. “I guess Mr. Newton and I can do it.” So, after a few more questions, and added injunctions to his mother never to let the deed go out of her possession, Larry went to bed. His mother soon sought her room, and presently the household was quiet. It was now past midnight, and everyone in the tenement seemed to be asleep. It was rather a quiet neighborhood, and persons living in it were not in the habit of staying up late. The policemen whose beats took in those streets seldom paid a visit to them, for they knew there would not, in all likelihood, be any disturbances. It grew a little cooler as the night wore on, and people who had been kept awake by the previous hot spell were making up for their lost sleep. If any persons in the tenement, or apartment, where Larry and his mother lived, had been awake about three o’clock that morning they might have wondered at the sight of two figures stealthily creeping up through the side alleyway that led to the rear cellar door, and the stairs leading to the back doors of the various rooms. Two dark figures there were, moving along, almost as silently as shadows. Now and then they would stop and whisper together, but, so quiet were their voices and so silent their steps that not a person heard them. The policeman on the beat came to the head of the street, and looked down it. He saw nothing. How could he see the two figures in the alley? The officer remarked: “It’s all quiet there. What’s the use of walking down? I’ll just go over to the avenue, and have a chat with Hennessy, and smoke a cigar before the roundsman comes along.” So the policeman passed away. Meanwhile the two dark figures crept on. In a little while they had reached the cellar door. Cautiously one of the men drew from his pocket a small instrument like a cold chisel or a screwdriver, except that it had no wooden handle. One edge was broad and sharp, like a wedge. The man went close to the cellar door. He put the edge of the instrument between the door and the jamb, close to the lock. There was a little crackling sound, hardly enough to waken the lightest sleeper. “Is it all right?” whispered the man who had remained on guard outside the cellar door. “All right,” was the whisper in return. “Then go ahead and start the blaze. Don’t make much of a one. Put it near the dumbwaiter shaft, so the smoke will go up quickly. Use wet paper. It makes more smoke.” “Go ahead,” came back, in whispered accents. “I’ll do my part, if you do yours. Do you know where they keep the papers?”