"This is one trick we have of doing our work quietly," said Allen. "It always answers pretty well."
I said nothing, but used my eyes. Coming from nowhere apparently, there were twenty men in the street. A few had crowbars in their hands. Others, native policemen, carried the canes with which they control the movements of the people. From the shaded doorway of a large house a native sergeant of police stepped out as we approached, and saluted Allen. Over the closed door, a large, dryly smiling, ancient crocodile hung.
"Have our men come and taken their places?" asked my companion in Arabic.
"Yes, Effendi," the sergeant answered. "All has been done according to order. The back entrance which was the water gate before the old canal was filled up, is surrounded, and the adjoining houses with which some communication may have been established are watched. Not a rat could have crawled out since we came, nor could one have gone in. To-day is the feast of a saint, and these people have their excuse not to open the house to visitors, for so it is with other show places. Look, it is written up, that until to-morrow there is no admission." As the man pointed to a card hanging from a hook, he and Allen smiled at the cleverness of this pretext for closing the door. In English, French, and Arabic, the reason was announced in neat print. Probably this was not the first time the same excuse had been used in the same way.
"They must have taken alarm at something, and thought they were being watched," Allen said to me. "That's why they've sported their oak. I expect we shall make a haul, as--for everybody's sake concerned--they wouldn't dare let their clients out, to fall into a trap. Yes, that's why! Or else--"
He stopped, and I did not ask him to go on, for I knew that to ask would be useless. Yet I guessed what he had meant to say, and why he had stopped. He didn't wish to alarm me, but it was in his mind that the house had teen closed because of something planned to happen inside. And that something might be connected with my friends. We should soon know!
My first thought was that we were to get through the door, by breaking it in, or by forcing those on the other side to open for us. In an instant, however, I realized that my idea was absurd. It would take an hour to batter down that thick slab of old cedarwood, and Allen had said that he wanted to do things quietly. No, the brown sergeant was not here to open the door, but to see that it did not open unless for our benefit.