He paused
as he came to a wing on the right of the house.
I had followed more laboriously, carrying the box and noting that
he was not looking so much at the house as at the sky, apparently.
It did not take long to fathom what he was after. It was not a
star-gazing expedition; he was following the telephone wire that
ran in from the street to the corner of the house near which we
were now standing. A moment's inspection showed him where the wire
was led down, on the outside and entered through the top of a
window.
Quickly he worked, though in a rather awkward position, attaching
two wires carefully to the telephone wires. Next he relieved me of
the oak box with its strange contents, and placed it under the
porch where it was completely hidden by some lattice-work which
extended down to the ground on this side. Then he attached the new
wires from the telephone to it and hid the connecting wires as
best he could behind the swaying runners of a vine. At last, when
he had finished to his satisfaction, we retraced our steps, to
find that our only chance of getting out of town that night was by
trolley that landed us, after many changes, in our apartment in
New York, thoroughly convinced of the disadvantages of suburban
detective work.
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