Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/185

 He was being taught the detective’s patience—the patience of a cat at a mouse hole.

One afternoon, Mrs. Dart came in with a workman, carrying a table to replace the card table which she wished to remove. Barney was sitting by the window, apparently absorbed in a picture book; and he watched them with an interest that was not assumed. Any intrusion was welcome.

The workman scrutinized him casually. “Looks as if he could kick,” he said to the table. And Mrs. Dart answered, hurriedly: “Sh! He can read your lips.”

She nodded and smiled to Barney, who watched her blankly. As they went out, taking the card table, he heard the man mutter something about “blind-fold.”

And he sat staring at the closed door as if he were indeed a dummy. He had been so intent upon his own deceits—and Babbing’s—that he had neither seen nor suspected the deceits of his opponents. He had accepted Mrs. Dart as a mildly-scheming bore who had been