So they waited, counting each heavy step and listening with increasing dread as they came nearer. It seemed to take an interminable time for those feet to span the distance between the top of the stairway and the door of their room. They squeezed each other's fingers tensely. At last the footsteps ceased--not at their door, but across the hall! Skippy gulped hard. Whoever it was, he was discovering that the door had been opened, the lock picked ... now he knew that his memorandum book was gone ... now he had noticed that the ladder had been taken from the closet. They heard him rush out of the room and to the rear of the hall where they had left the ladder standing propped against the attic opening. Skippy could see the feeble glimmer of the lantern as it cast a lonely ray under their door. Time stood still after that; they seemed to be in a state of suspended animation. Skippy could not hear Nickie breathe; Nickie listened in vain for a heart beat from Skippy's breast. The only sound that reached their ears was that of the rushing footsteps coming back now along the hall and suddenly stopping before their door. Then the doorknob rattled. The door did not give, of course; the bed was too tightly jammed against it. The boys waited and presently they knew that there was a desperate effort being made to open the door, for the bed vibrated from the impact. Finally there came a furious pounding on the oaken panel. "Fallon--Kid?" the familiar, deep voice called insistently. "You boys there?" Skippy felt then that his time had come. CHAPTER XXIII NICKIE REASONS "You deaf?" came the funereal query. "Who's in there?" Nickie was gulping audibly, but he could not speak. Skippy was forced to do something about it though every instinct within him rebelled against opening that door to Devlin. He pressed Nickie's hand, then released it and sat up straight. "Huh? Who--who's there?" he asked, feigning sleepiness. "Me--Barker! Who'd you think?" was the harsh reply. Then: "What's holding this door--_open it!_" Skippy stepped out of the bed on feet of ice. "A m-m-minute," he said, in a quivering voice. "J-J-just a-a minute." Nickie seemed urged into action too. He jumped out and sprang to Skippy's side. "No matter what, kid," he gasped quickly, "you'n me are pals--see? It's him or us n' we'll stick! You do the talkin' an' I'll watch his mitts. He's a big guy but there's two against one!" "Yes," breathed Skippy, and together they pulled the bed away from the panel. As the door flew open, Devlin stood partly in the shadow, his face black with wrath. His eyes, so light and staring, seemed now to be on the verge of popping out of his long, narrow head, and his beetle brows were all but obscured by the straggling wisps of his unkempt hair. "What's the big idea, eh?" he demanded, glaring at the boys and then at the bed.