"Uncle," he said, "I want you to come and look at something in our room."
"All right, Guy," was the reply. "What is it?"
"Something rather odd, I think," returned Guy, as they went down the passage. They entered the double-bedded room where the cousins slept, and Guy took his uncle across to the wall against which Guy's bed stood.
"Look at this, uncle," he said, kneeling on his bed and pointing to the wall. "What do you make of it?"
The wall was in fact nothing more than a fairly stout partition of varnished wood. Mr. Blakeney knelt beside Guy, and looked closely at the spot where the lad's finger rested. He saw at once that a neat hole had been bored through the partition from the other side, and a hollow left big enough to thrust the point of his little finger into.
"Well, what do you think it means, Guy?" he asked, screwing up his mouth with an odd expression.
"I think, uncle, it means," returned Guy, "that that fellow in the next room has been spying on us for some reason or other."
"Who has the next room?" queried Mr. Blakeney, manifestly with some anxiety.
"Why, that Portuguese brute who is always about with Karl Engelbrecht--Minho, his name is."
"Whew!" whistled Mr. Blakeney. "I wish I had known this earlier. What time does he leave his room?"
"Not for another hour yet," broke in Tom; "and he always locks his door and takes his key with him."
"Well, Tom," said his father, "you stay behind while Guy and I go out to the wagons and start the trek. Then we'll come back to breakfast, and afterwards ride out together and overtake the wagons by the mid-day outspan. Meanwhile if, by hook or crook, you can get into this fellow Minho's room, and see what this hole means, do so. Be careful, though, and don't get into any unpleasantness with the man. If you can't get in without trouble, leave it alone. I'll see the landlord about it."
They returned in an hour and a half's time, and were met by Tom with a smiling face.
"I've done the Sherlock Holmes business," he said quietly. "Minho went out and locked his door. I tried his window, which like ours opens on to the veranda, and found that the artful beggar had fastened it in such a way that, while the top sash is open, you can't pull up the lower part. It was impossible to climb in through the top without running the risk of breaking the glass. Well, I waited impatiently half an hour, and then Maria--the native woman who cleans the rooms up, and has evidently a second key--went in and did up the room. While she was gone with a bundle of clothes for the wash I nipped in, and had a good look round at the partition on that side. I found that a hole had been neatly bored with an auger, and the cavity filled up with a round piece of wood, which had been painted to look just like a knot in the pinewood. This, with a little coaxing of the finger nail, comes out, and then you have a view into our room, and I have no doubt can hear quite well everything that is said in here. I put the bit of wood back, and slipped out again before old Maria had got back from her errand."