In good order they reached the private house where the two flyers slept and soon were sitting in the most comfortable fashion possible in the apartment. Perk had carefully closed and locked the door, something Jack could not remember him doing all the time they had been housed under that hospitable roof which showed how wrought up Perk must have become.
“An’ I’m still a’wonderin’ what their silly game could a been,” he was saying in a whining tone accompanied with another shake of his head. “None o’ us look a bit like bloated plutocrats, ’less it might be Cyclone here but seems like that tall lad was a’tryin’ to shove you into his blamed old car, Jack like they wanted to kidnap you—noticed that didn’t you?”
“Well it struck me that way too, Perk,” he was told unhesitatingly, “which has me guessing good and hard; what reason could they have for wanting to knock me out of the running—taking me for a ride that way?”
“Shucks! partner,” commented Perk immediately, “they be a’plenty o’ guys who’d laugh to know you an’ me’d kicked the bucket, pe’ticularly you, Jack. Some o’ them lads you’ve sent up to the pen might have pals at large who’d be ready to make you cash in for playin’ them a trick that cost ’em their liberty. Revenge I kinder guess is a poisonous weed that takes a quick rooting in the average prison bird’s heart—sorter helps to make him better able to bear the years he’s got to serve. If on’y he could know the man as sent him into quod had been rapped on the head and kicked out o’ a speedin’ car.”
“That makes me think of something,” Jack remarked just then as he rammed a hand down into one of his coat pockets and drew a yellow piece of paper out. “I chanced to see this lying on the pavement after our birds had taken French leave; it may help us to understand what now looks like a dark mystery beyond our solving.”
He glanced at what turned out to be a much handled telegraph sheet with typewriting on one side. Perk showed sudden interest when he saw how his partner seemed startled and uttered as exclamation indicative of pleasure.
V
WHEN A COG SLIPPED
“What’s up, partner?” demanded Perk who always admitted to being more or less curious-minded.
“Something I happened to pick up,” replied Jack, grinning happily, “after that chap dived into his car and tore off down the street like a house afire.”
“Huh! strikes me it looks kinder like a telegraph message buddy,” Perk replied eagerly as if he began to smell something like a fire burning.