Chance of a Lifetime by Grace Livingston Hill Read Free Book Online Page A

store?”
    “Why, no!” said Alan. “Of course not.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Abso-tively!” said Alan. “I know because I stumbled over a box of tin things Joe had left in the way.”
    “Well, there’s one on there now,” said Keith impressively. “Just saw it as I went by. And what’s more it’s moving around like a flashlight, in the back of the store.”
    “Wait a second. I’ll be down!” said Alan, flying into his clothes.

Chapter 4
    D on’t get up, Bob,” said Alan struggling into a sweater. “Remember you’ve got a journey to go to tomorrow. It’s likely nothing. Go to sleep. I’ll be back in three jerks of a lamb’s tail.”
    “Cut it!” said Bob, jerking on his shoes. “Whaddaya think I am, anyway, Mac?”
    Keith was waiting for them downstairs, the engine running softly, and he had the car moving before they were fairly in.
    “Sure you weren’t dreaming, Wash?” asked Alan, wondering why his teeth had a tendency to chatter, and trying to remember whether he had finally brought those papers home with him or left them in the safe. He had a ghastly feeling that he had left them in the safe. Oh, if Dad were only well!
    “Dreaming!” said Keith contemptuously. “Well, I might have been of course. I saw the light when I first rounded the corner of the post office and I thought it was odd. Thought you must have forgotten to turn it out, or else you decided to leave it burning. But when I got around the front of the store, it was all dark, so I concluded I had been mistaken. Thought it was just a reflection or something. But when I got down to your corner, I looked back, and it flashed up again and moved around. Then I decided you had gone down to the store after something, but somehow I wasn’t easy and thought I’d better see if I could get in touch with you. Thought maybe you could explain it.”
    They were rounding the corner into the main street now, and suddenly Bob laid a detaining hand on the wheel.
    “Better stop here, Washburn,” he suggested. “If you go nearer, the engine can be heard.”
    “That’s right, Lincoln. I ought to have thought of that. I’ll park here in the shadow, and we’ll sneak up. Probably it’s only some trick of the streetlights reflecting somewhere, and I’ll feel like two cents. Probably I’ve only got a case of nerves, riding half the night. If it is, I’ll feel cheap as dirt to think I woke you up, but it’s always just as well to be on the safe side.”
    “Sure thing,” said Alan with set lips, as he swung to the ground softly and wondered for the fortieth time whether he had taken those papers home or left them in the safe.
    “There is a light in there,” whispered Bob as they stole along, walking on the grass at the edge of the pavement so that their feet made no sound. “There! See there! It’s moving around. Now, it’s gone. No, there it is again.”
    “I’ll slide around to the alley,” whispered Alan. “It might be I can look in the back window. They’re operating down by the safe, whoever it is. You two watch this side and the front, will you?”
    “Don’t do anything rash, Mac! Perhaps we better call the officer. He ought to be in the region about now.”
    “No, wait! I want to get a line on things first,” said Alan as he slid off into the darkness, plunging swiftly down the alleyway that separated his father’s store from the millinery store just beyond, and passed the window behind his father’s desk.
    Softly Washburn and Lincoln stepped up to the front of the store and tried to look through the front windows, but the window decorations prevented their seeing more than an indefinite dancing light that went here and there, and sometimes disappeared entirely.
    Keith stepped to the door and peered through the window, but a stand full of brooms stood right in his line of vision, and he could not be sure, though once he thought he saw a dark form move across the dim distance, and then the light appeared from a new