CHAPTER XIOVERHEARD
Sleep wouldn’t come to Skippy that night. Hours after Timmy had dejectedly gone to his cot and Nickie had sunk into deep, untroubled slumber beside him, he lay on the hot bed worried and lonely. Aunt Min and Carlton Conne seemed separated from him by a dark and terrible abyss, and he shivered with the fear that he might not get back again to the people and places that typified law, order and safety. Particularly safety.
He hadn’t any illusions now. Clearly, nothing but a miracle would get him out of the web which had so entangled him the moment he had been placed in Dean Devlin’s car. Nothing save an almost impossible combination of favorable circumstances would make it possible for him to get word to Mr. Conne. And how, if it were true that Devlin kept them imprisoned until he saw fit to embark them on the dark, mysterious “job,” could those circumstances occur so that he might be of any real help to Carlton Conne? He despaired of any such good fortune.
The breeze was not strong enough to penetrate through the shuttered window now. Nothing but damp, humid heat found its way to his burning cheeks. He felt the stillness about the air augured a heavy storm and soon he heard thunder in the distance.
The buzz of crickets, the tin-like sound of locusts vied with the deep throated chorus of frogs about the house. Once an owl lent its eerie hoot to this droning night symphony and, as if in answer, another chorus of insects filled the air with dismal chantings.
Skippy stood it as long as he could, then got up and tiptoed to the window to get a breath of air. Through the bars he could see the quarter moon, a shimmering bit of silver light gleaming upon the swamp and here and there transforming it into pools of shining, black lacquer. Overhead, however, sullen clouds were slowly trespassing and it would be only minutes before the lonely place would be surrounded by darkness and storm.
He clung to one of the bars and peered down upon the roof of the woodshed just below the window. It would be an easy jump down there, he decided—easy, if it were not for the five long strips of iron that so effectually barred the way. Crude and amateurish though they looked, Skippy knew that they had been put there to withstand any such feeble attacks as his two bare hands might make upon them.
While he was digesting this fact he became aware of voices, Frost’s and Devlin’s, coming from the hall. He stepped toward the door noiselessly and pressed his ear close against it.
The men were not in the hall as he had at first thought, they were in their room with the door ajar. It was evident that they had intended to converse in whispers, but presently they were launched upon an argument and caution was forgotten.
“Tell me if you can,” Devlin was saying angrily, “what I’m going to do with those two Greeks, eh? It isn’t enough that you didn’t discover what they were before we brought them all the way here, but on top of it, you tell me I’ll think of what to do about them!I’ll think, eh?” He sneered. “All I can think of is that they’re Greeks and that I don’t look anything like a Greek or talk anything like one! How can I pass them off as my sons, eh?”
“Easy, boss, easy,” Frost said placatingly, “I didn’t know they was Greeks no more’n you. They was sentenced before I gets into court. The ones I counted on was that Nickie and that other kid, Dippy and that smart-looking youngster John Doe. You coulda knocked me cold with a feather when Fallon tags the Greeks along. There wasn’t no time to argue, was there?”
“All right—all right,” Devlin boomed. “Just tell me what I’m going to do with ’em! They can’t go back and tell what they’ve seen here and I’m not going to go to the trouble of getting them off my hands without getting some money out of it, that’s all there is to it!”
“O. K., boss. It’s soft—soft.” Frost’s voice was rasping yet servile. “There’s black wigs a guy can buy, ain’t there? Well, I’ll grab me one, fix myself up like a grease ball, talk spig, take the kids one at a time and try my hand at your racket.”
“Now you’re talking, Frost. Take one—say, to Pittsburgh, eh? You’ll be father and son looking for work in the mills. And I’d only aim for the minimum price on both of them. They’re not worth taking any chances on big money. The other Greek you could take—say to Maine. That’s putting a safe distance between, eh?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Frost crowed. “And say, listen, why not lemme clean up the job right on the spot, hey? No use makin’ extra trips back here. I can work it careful.”
“Hmp—it’s an idea, Frost. We’ll dope it out after tomorrow night and Timmy’s off my mind. Don’t try to do anything until then.” There was a pause, then: “Do you think he’s wise to anything? I sort of feel that he was doing more than just whisper his family history to those other kids.”
“Nah; what could he say, hey? He ain’t seen nothin’ no more’n the others. You’re just gettin’ nervous, that’s all. But I’ll tell you what, Dean, youwillmake them kids wise that something’s phoney with your big heart racket, when you don’t even trust ’em unless you got the key to their room in your pocket. You’re puttin’ the lid flat down and scarin’ the life out of ’em too soon. Now if I was you, I’d let ’em loose in the house. Maybe if you’d done that in Chi, Tucker wouldn’t got away like he done. If he’d known where you hung out he’d been back and you’d cashed in on him.”
“Well, I didn’t and that’s my funeral,” Devlin said in measured tones. “I’m only glad Tucker wasn’t caught so he could spill out my racket. I guess he got away all right or we’d have seen some flat-footed dick keeping our trail warm before this. Anyway, I think you’re right about locking up the kids. I’ll make ’em think I trust ’em even if I don’t.”
“O. K.,” Frost chuckled, “I’ll do it right now and give ’em a surprise in the morning. Long’s I got the keys to the downstairs doors in my pockets, we ain’t got no cause to worry that they’ll sneak.”
Skippy did not wait to hear more. He made a running jump from the door to the bed and had assumed a restful, sleeping posture before Frost’s key scraped in the lock. But the man made no effort to enter. Instead, he turned on his heel and recrossed the hall to his room and presently a deep silence pervaded the house.
Not many seconds later, the storm broke and the dark, eerie house trembled and groaned like some stricken thing in the whistling gale.