“I say!” exclaimed Professor Skeel, “I hope you’re not going to bring any more into this. The more there are the more risk there is, and the money I expect to get from Mr. Fairfield, for giving Tom back to him, won’t go so far if we have to split it up——”
“Oh, don’t worry! No one else but us three will be in it. I should have said I hadn’t forgotten the country up around here—not so much the people. I don’t care anything about them. But I know every cross-road and bridle-path through the woods, and it will be funny if I can’t get this lad where I want him. They’re strangers up here, and they have to depend on signposts, and what that guide tells them.”
“But they are smart fellows,” said Professor Skeel. “I know, for I taught them in school. If they have a signboard to go by, it will be as good to them as a printed book would be to most people.”
“That may all be very true,” chuckled Murker. “But tell me this. A wrong signboard isn’t much use to anyone, is it? Not even to a smart lad.”
“A wrong signboard? What do you mean?” asked the professor.
“I mean just what I said—‘a wrong signboard’—one that gives the wrong direction. It’s worse than none at all, isn’t it?”
“Well, I should say it was,” was the slow answer of the former teacher. “But are you going to get Tom Fairfield——”
“Now, don’t ask too many questions,” was the advice of his evil-faced crony. “When you don’t know a thing, you can say so with a clear conscience in case the detectives get asking too many personal questions of you.”
“That’s so,” agreed Professor Skeel, readily understanding what was meant.
“Detectives!” exclaimed Whalen. “Did you say detectives?