He was especially interested in a house across the street in the middle of the block.  To this house he paid most attention.  No matter what way he looked, nor what way he walked, his looks and his steps always returned to it.  Except for an open window above the porch, there was nothing unusual about the house.  Nothing came in nor out.  Nothing happened.  There were no lighted windows, nor had lights appeared and disappeared in any of the windows.  Yet it was the central point of his consideration.  He rallied to it each time after a divination of the state of the neighborhood.

Despite his feel of things, he was not confident.  He was supremely conscious of the precariousness of his situation.  Though unperturbed by the footfalls of the chance pedestrian, he was as keyed up and sensitive and ready to be startled as any timorous deer.  He was aware of the possibility of other intelligences prowling about in the darkness—­intelligences similar to his own in movement, perception, and divination.

Far down the street he caught a glimpse of something that moved.  And he knew it was no late home-goer, but menace and danger.  He whistled twice to the house across the street, then faded away shadow-like to the corner and around the corner.  Here he paused and looked about him carefully.  Reassured, he peered back around the corner and studied the object that moved and that was coming nearer.  He had divined aright.  It was a policeman.

The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter of which he watched the corner he had just left.  He saw the policeman pass by, going straight on up the street.  He paralleled the policeman’s course, and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he returned the way he had come.  He whistled once to the house across the street, and after a time whistled once again.  There was reassurance in the whistle, just as there had been warning in the previous double whistle.

He saw a dark bulk outline itself on the roof of the porch and slowly descend a pillar.  Then it came down the steps, passed through the small iron gate, and went down the sidewalk, taking on the form of a man.  He that watched kept on his own side the street and moved on abreast to the corner, where he crossed over and joined the other.  He was quite small alongside the man he accosted.

“How’d you make out, Matt?” he asked.

The other grunted indistinctly, and walked on in silence a few steps.

“I reckon I landed the goods,” he said.

Jim chuckled in the darkness, and waited for further information.  The blocks passed by; under their feet, and he grew impatient.

“Well, how about them goods?” he asked.  “What kind of a haul did you make, anyway?”

“I was too busy to figger it out, but it’s fat.  I can tell you that much, Jim, it’s fat.  I don’t dast to think how fat it is.  Wait till we get to the room.”