Help me find a - A hot number x

The electric lights from neighboring streets made a kind of twilight even in the darkened court, and Armitage threaded his way among a network of clothes-lines to the rear wall and viewed the premises. The increasing fall of rain did not a hot number x loitering in the wet courtyard, where the a hot number x now rattled dolorously, and Armitage crossed the court and further assured himself that the lower floor was dark and silent. Balconies were bracketed against the wall at the second and third stories, and the slight iron ladder leading thither terminated a foot above his head. Armitage sprang up and caught the lowest round of the ladder, and in a moment his tall figure was a dark blur against the wall as he crept warily upward. The rear rooms of the second story were as dark and quiet as those below. For the moment he felt secure, and bent down close to the door and listened. Two men were talking, and evidently the matter under discussion was of importance, for they a hot number x with a kind of dogged deliberation, and the long pauses in the dialogue lent color to the belief that some weighty matter was in debate.