Andy Wildwood started in the direction of Tipton.

CHAPTER XXIV

ANDY’S AUNT

Andy went straight to an old dwelling house in a retired part of the town.

He had been there twice before when younger, and remembered that an old couple named Norman lived there.

The Normans were distant relatives of his Aunt Lavinia.  She had other acquaintances in Tipton, but, Andy recalled, usually made the Norman home her headquarters, paying them some small sum for board and lodging whenever she visited them.

The old ramshackly house stood far back from the street.  Its front fence was broken down, and Andy crossed the lot from the side.

There was no light downstairs except in the kitchen at the rear.  An upstairs middle room, however, seemed occupied, for chinks of light came through the half-closed outside shutters.

The slats of these were turned upwards, to catch light in the daytime and shut out a view from street and garden.

Just beneath this window was a door and steps.  The latter had nearly rotted away, and the door was nailed up and out of use.  A framework formed of hoop poles rose up from the steps.  Once green vines had enclosed these.  At present, however, only a few dead strands clung to the original framework.

The half-open top of this framework was not three feet under the window sill of the lighted room.  Across it lay some fishing poles and nets, also some old garden tools, it apparently being used as a catch-all for useless truck about the place for a long time past.

“I’ll assume that aunt is in that room,” thought Andy, halting near the hoop-pole framework and looking up at the window.  “She always has the middle room here.  Yes, she is there, and a man with her.  Maybe I’d better skirmish around a little, instead of running the risk of being nabbed before I can have an explanation.  I want a little private talk with aunt, alone, if I can get it.”

Andy bent his ear.  He caught no words, only the sound of human voices.  His aunt’s high, strained tones were unmistakable.

He seized one of the supporting poles of the framework.  It rattled and quivered, yet he believed it would hold him if he proceeded carefully.  It was no trick at all for Andy to make a quiet and rapid ascent.  He perched across the top of the framework and raised his head.

Andy saw his aunt closing up a packed satchel on a chair.  She had her bonnet on, as if just going out.

At the hallway door was a man taking his leave.

He was excessively polite, hat in hand, and making a most respectful bow.

“Well!” commented Andy, fairly aghast.

Andy recognized the man instantly.  He was the individual he had seen in the hay barn.  He was Daley’s companion, the man who had “doctored” the Benares Brothers’ trapeze in the circus at Centreville.