Just then he found himself attracted by the actions of a couple ahead of him, a man of middle age and a woman. Apparently she had been seized with some sort of vertigo, for the man was acting as though dreadfully alarmed. He had thrown an arm about her, and was looking around in an appealing way.
It happened that Frank was about the only person nearby, and it was only natural for him to hasten forward.
"Oh! please help me support my wife, young sir!" exclaimed the citizen as Frank arrived. "She is fainting, and just when we had reached our home here. Would you mind supporting her on the other side, and assisting me to get her to the door?"
An appeal like that could not be easily resisted, especially by one so ready to help others as Frank Chester had always been in the past.
Somehow it did not appear to strike him as singular that the citizen should be so fluent in his English when he was supposed to be a Frenchman. All Frank thought of then was that the man was in difficulties, and it would be next to nothing for him to lend the other a helping hand.
So he took hold on the other side of the woman who was acting as though swooning. Frank could not but notice that she appeared anything but fragile.
The door of the modest looking house was close by, and between them he and the distracted husband managed to half lead, half drag, the fainting woman up to it. The man immediately opened the door with one hand.
"Please assist me a little further, and I will be so thankful!" he pleaded.
Frank might have actually entered the house, only for a little thing that he had noticed. As they approached the door he had seen the man cast a quick glance upward toward the second story. The latticed blinds were shut, but as Frank used his eyes to advantage he believed he saw someone's face back of the screen.
Like a flash it struck him that the man must have made some sort of quick signal to the party who was hidden up there. Frank became cautious in that second, remembering the warning given him by Major Nixon.
These spies were up to all manner of trickery in order to carry out their well-laid plans, and might not this pretended swooning of the woman be only a bait intended to coax him into a trap?