“I’ll show you what we’re going to do about it!” cried Joe, starting forward.
But Bob stopped him.
“Wait a minute, Joe,” he said. Then he turned to Buck. “Do you mean to say,” he demanded, “that you’d take a solemn oath in court to tell the truth, and then go on the stand and swear to a downright lie?”
The contempt in his tone stung Buck into fury.
“You can put it any way you like,” he shouted. “I’m simply not going to let you get the best of me. Who cares for the old confession as you call it? You can have as many of those as you like and it won’t do you any good. Here’s another one now for good measure. We were in the house late that night. We were smoking cigarettes. Probably that’s what caused the fire to break out later. I tell you these things just because it won’t do you any good. In court I’ll deny that I ever said them. You’ll say I did. But the court will know that you have as much interest in lying as I have, and it’ll just be a standoff. You’d have to have a disinterested witness, and that you haven’t got.”
“Oh, yes, they have,” came a voice from the doorway, and Mr. Salper stepped into the shack.
An exclamation of delight broke from the lips of the radio boys, while Buck and his cronies slunk back in terror and confusion.
“I was out taking a stroll,” explained Mr. Salper, “and as I heard loud voices coming from the shack I stepped up to see what was the matter. I was just in time to hear the full confession of this estimable young man”—here he turned a withering glance on Buck—“and while I’m here, I guess I’ll take it down.”
He drew from his pocket a notebook and a fountain pen and wrote rapidly, while Buck and his companions looked at each other like so many trapped animals.
In a few minutes Mr. Salper had finished. Then he read in a clear voice just what he had written. It was a complete confession similar to that which Buck had made, with date and place affixed. He handed this over to Buck with the fountain pen, with a crisp demand that he sign it.