“Why couldn’t they get in through a window?” pursued Rand.

“The windows were all locked on the inside as well as the doors.”

“I see.  They must have been professionals.”

“Then I don’t see what they wanted there.”

“Why not?”

“Because they wouldn’t get enough swag to make it worth while,” answered Jack,

“Swag?” questioned Rand.

“Oh, that’s slang for plunder,” explained Jack.

“You seem to be pretty well up in their slang,” commented Rand.

“Oh, that’s part of the newspaper business,” was Jack’s response.

By this time they had come to the building in which Judge Taylor had his office, which was on one of the main street corners of the town.  A little description of the building is necessary here to make the situation clear.  It was an old-fashioned, two-story brick structure, having been erected some years before.  At the time of its erection there were no other buildings near it, and there were windows on all four sides.  Some time later another building had been put on the adjoining lot, leaving a space of a little more than a foot between the two, thus making the windows on that side practically useless.  The wall of the other building upon that side was blank, and it was upon this space that the side windows of the judge’s office opened.  In the rear was a yard of the width of the building and about twenty feet deep, with a low fence upon the side next to the street.

“Let’s take a look around before we go upstairs,” proposed Jack.

“All right,” responded Rand.  “I’m green at this business, you know.”

Going in at the front door Jack led the way into the hall, from which a broad flight of stairs ascended to the second story.  By the side of the stairs was a narrow passage, through which Jack continued to a small hallway in the rear, in which were two doors, one giving access to the cellar, the other opening on the yard in the rear.

“Do you think that they could have come in through the cellar?” asked Rand, when they entered the back hall.

“I had thought of that,” replied Jack, “but every one says that these doors were bolted, and I don’t see how they could bolt the doors after they had gone out.”

“It does seem just a little difficult,” admitted Rand.

Going out in the yard, the boys examined the rear of the building.

“They couldn’t have got to the windows up there without a ladder,” decided Rand, after a study of the situation.  “And you say the windows were fastened?”

“That’s what they say,” responded Jack, “and I don’t believe burglars carry ladders around in their kits.  Besides there is an electric light right here, so that a ladder could be seen quite plainly from the street.  “I wonder,” he mused, looking into the space between the buildings, “if any one could get up through there.”

“Not unless he could fly,” returned Rand.  “There isn’t room enough for a man to get in there, and he couldn’t manage a ladder if he got in.”