CHAPTER XVII
A CHANGE OF PLANS
The day dawned cloudy and gray and when Skippy woke at eight o'clock helooked in vain for a ray of heartening sunlight. Nothing but warm aircame in through the shutters and it was sticky and close.
Nickie sat up and stretched lazily. "Wow! What a headache, kid," hesaid, rubbing his forehead. "How's yours, hah?"
"Bad as last night," Skippy answered mournfully. "We gotta expectheadaches in a hot, dark house like this, huh? Gee whiz, Nickie,sump'n's gotta happen to get us outa here soon or I'll be like Timmy, Iguess. Here it's only the second mornin' an' I feel like it's a year."
Nickie was up and listening at the door while Skippy was talking."Where is he?" he asked, on the alert.
"Frost went downstairs most an hour ago, so don't worry. I heard himwalkin' an' walkin' round his room just like he had sump'n on his mind.Then all of a sudden he comes out into the hall'n' locks his door likehe always does an' beats it downstairs. Sump'n must be up."
Skippy was right--something was up. They found out what it was whenthey appeared in the kitchen for breakfast a few minutes later. Frostwas hurrying back and forth from the yard and down to the cellarbearing pails of water from the pump outside.
"I'm putting five days' water supply in the crock down cellar," heexplained after his last trip. "Keep the cover on it tight like I'mleaving it, and it'll stay fresh and cold. There's canned stuff andother grub so you can feed and I'll show you how else you can managebefore I leave."
"You beatin' it?" Nickie asked.
"Mm," Frost murmured. His colorless eyes dropped before their gaze.And, as if to change the subject, he asked: "D'ye know if them Greekkids are awake?"
"No, we didn't hear a thing when we come down," Skippy answeredpromptly. Then, out of a clear sky he hurled the query: "Why, you ain'ttakin' 'em away, are you, Mr. Frost?"
Frost was disconcerted. "Why--er--sure!" he stammered. "I am! I--ifDev--if Barker comes back--he should be here by Wednesday, tell himthere's a note in the room explainin' matters." He blinked hiscolorless eyes, then added: "I'm lockin' you kids up for five days, butI'm leavin' you the run of the house--that's how much I trust you!"
"Says you!" Nickie sneered.
Points of color appeared upon Frost's cheeks. He glared at Fallon andasked, "What d'ye mean, hey?"
"Ain't them ears pinned on your head?" was Nickie's retort. "It lookslike we're trusted with bars all over the joint an' even on the cellarwinders, hah? It looks like we're trusted when the bars ain't evenenough, so you hadda padlock all the shutters too. Yeah, that stuffgoes for Sweeny."
"That's Dev--Barker's idea--not mine--get me? Anyway, I ain't got notime to argue. We'll hash it over when I get back," Frost snapped.
He turned, went upstairs and Nickie proceeded with the making ofcoffee. Skippy got a package of bacon from the cupboard and silentlyset about the task of frying it. Words wouldn't come--he could donothing but listen and wait. For what, he didn't know.
When Shorty and Biff came downstairs and back to the kitchen they weretheir usual smiling selves. Nickie looked from his coffee pot to themand Skippy's eyes traveled back and forth from their round faces to thebriskly frying bacon.
"Frost tell you he's beatin' it with you guys this morning?" Nickieasked.
"Sure," Biff smiled.
"And you ain't nervous or nothin', hah?" Nickie asked, amazed that Biffcould smile.
"Nah. The queecker we go, the queecker comes the time we sneak home."
"We theenk maybe we tell dees Frost we rather not go to Peetsburgh orMaine or what it ees he wants to take us," Shorty spoke up. "We theenkwe ask heem to take us home so we can say hello, then we go Delafield.Maybe they lop off time for us too 'cause we come back, eh?"
"Maybe," Skippy said in a small voice.
"You never can tell," Nickie said, his eyes staring into space.
They ate in silence, a strange oppressive silence, and Skippy feltalmost glad when Frost's hurried steps sounded on the stairs. If it hadto be, it was better to have it over now than to endure the tension ofwaiting and living in dread.
A smile and a handclasp and they were gone. Nickie and Skippy stoodlistening as Frost locked the woodshed door from the outside. When thecar chugged softly outside they made no attempt to go to the windowsand look. Neither one moved an inch until the sound of the motor hadceased to echo in the clearing.
"If I thought Frost didn't have no gun, I'd jumped him," said Nickie atlast. "But catch him and Devlin in a racket like this without carryin'rods, hah?"
Skippy was again reminded of Carlton Conne's assurance that Dean Devlinwas not the gun-toting kind of criminal. The boy had no doubt but thatthat had been true of Devlin once, but not now. Too, the detective hadsaid that Devlin was after people's money--not people. In the light ofwhat Skippy now knew, that also was no longer true. Devlin hadevidently made rapid strides in criminality. He had taken on a partnerand whatever his mystery racket was, the fact that he trafficked inthese convicted boys, evidently for gain, robbed him completely of thesuperficial glamour his adventurous life might have previously givenhim.
"Say, Nickie," Skippy said at length, "we got five days here alone an'if we can't do a Houdini in that time we're a coupla bums."
Nickie's face became radiant. "Gotta plan, kid?"
"I gotta hunch maybe we can work loose a coupla bars in some window! Ifwe can't find a crowbar, maybe we'll find sump'n else, huh? We'll startdown cellar right away."
"You said it, kid!" Nickie was enthusiastic. "And when we scram outathis drum, I'll say like Biff and Shorty, we'll go home'n' say helloan' then tell the dicks we're reportin' for Delafield."
Skippy thought of an old saying of his aunt's about an ill wind blowingsomeone some good. Timmy, the Greeks, and now Nickie all seemed to losetheir defiance of the law under Devlin's evil roof. If it took an evilto cure an evil then their contact with the arch criminal had not beenentirely in vain.