Page:O'Higgins--The Adventures of Detective Barney.djvu/187

 air with jubilant leads and counters, ducking and side-stepping and planting mighty blows.

By the time that he had winded himself with the violence of this exercise, he had worked off enough of his excitement to sit again. Gee! if Babbing would only come now. But Babbing was not due till five, and it was vain to expect him before that time. As Adam Cook, it was part of his character to be methodical.

At four o’clock the doorbell rang, and Barney put his ear to the hall-door, alertly. He heard the maid go to answer the bell. In a moment he heard her returning down the hall, followed by a heavier footfall. He darted back to his seat by the window in time to be busy with a picture book when she knocked. He disregarded the knock, of course. She put her head in. “That ’s him,” she said.

Barney looked up. A young man with a wrinkled mouth smiled falsely at him, shifted his flat-brimmed derby from his right hand to his left, took an envelope from the pocket