Page:Keeban (IA keeban00balm).pdf/126

 One matter was off my mind when I went away; this was my qualm as to whether I ought to inform the police of Jerry's connection with Klangenberg. They would pick up mighty small change at that address, I thought; and when I returned two days later, I was sure of it.

Though I entered the door at the precise time of my appointment, neither the boy nor the dyke-keeper was there; a little girl of ten years tended the cash register and piled the computing scales with noodles. This child gave me no particular attention until she had cleared the shop of customers, when she said, "That's the door back there."

I went through it to an area between the shop and an old moved-over frame building. Some one—I didn't know who—relieved the child in the shop, for she came out to me and led me through a shed where a horse was stabled. We sidled about another shed and climbed a tunnel of wooden stairs, built on the outside of a clapboard house, and roofed and walled against the weather.

"That's the door," the child said, when we came to the top; obviously she was speaking,