e Hungarian for a moment, and darted well ahead. He got a good
start, and turned the corner of the block leading to the warehouse well
ahead of Hallo. In a moment he was inside. Luck was with him, and he hid
himself behind a big packing case in Hallo's room.

CHAPTER XII

IN THE NICK OF TIME

Crouched behind the packing case, Dick waited, wondering what was to
come next. Now that he was here, he felt that he had done a foolish
thing, and one only likely to lead to more trouble. There was so little
chance for him to accomplish anything of value, and he was not even sure
that Hallo would come here at all. Perhaps he was going somewhere else,
and he had simply walked into a trap without even a chance of getting
any results.

Yet luck had been with him so far in good measure. He had been almost
marvelously lucky in the boathouse. That Hallo had not seen him there
had been due only to fortune, and scarcely at all, in the first perilous
moment, to any action of his own. And he had been lucky again in his
trip into the city with Hallo ahead of him. In war time, as he knew,
people were likely to be suspicious of any stranger, even of one acting
in the most ordinary fashion. And his behavior, as he dodged and trailed
after Hallo, had been more than suspicious.

And finally, too, his getting into Hallo's office and finding a place to
conceal himself so well had been luck of the greatest sort. He had taken
a wild chance when he darted ahead of his man, for he might well have
found the door closed and locked, and have been caught by Hallo before
he could have got away. But he had staked everything on the hazard that
there ought to be a night watchman, as there would be, he knew, in any
American warehouse. And a night watchman there was. He had seen the
light of a man's lantern, as he came up to the door, from a second floor
window. The door had been open, and so he had slipped in.

The very fact that the door was open, too, encouraged him. It seemed to
him to make it certain that Hallo was expected some time that night. And
then a sound of brisk footsteps on the uncarpeted floor just outside the
office set his pulses leaping. Was it Hallo?

He could not tell, and he dared not emerge from his shelter enough to
see. In a moment the room was light, but Dick was still hidden, and the
movements of whoever had come in were hidden from him, too. But he was
sure of one thing after a very few moments. It was not Hallo with wh