“Mr. Potts never asks questions, gentlemen! But he was just dying to know what we had in mind!”
“I’ll say,” laughed Hudson. “And if we had told him it would have spread all over town like wildfire.”
There were only four or five houses on Meadow Street and they had no trouble in finding the one owned by the laborer Peter Cozoza. The man was not home and his small, undersized wife stared in awe at the six erect cadets who so completely blocked up her back door. She was somewhat charmed because they took off their military hats while they talked to her and they spoke gently and courteously, something with which Mrs. Cozoza was none too familiar. She told them, in answer to their inquiry, that her husband was not at home.
“Not at home, Mrs. Cozoza?” Jim replied, blankly. Douglas addressed the little woman next.
“Was he at home last Wednesday night?”
Don grasped his arm warningly. “I’m not altogether sure we ought to ask her that, Doug,” he cautioned. “Might get her in trouble with the husband. You know how these people are.”
But the little woman answered frankly enough. “No, mister, he go out last Wednesday night, I not know where. Since then he go down in the swamp a lot. You see, his boots muddy.”
She pointed to a pair of muddy rubber boots that stood beside the stove. Jim quickly snapped up the lead offered.
“Down in the swamps?” he asked. “Which way? That way?”
He pointed at random toward the black swamp that crept up close to the house, but Mrs. Cozoza shook her head. “No, down the path, there.” She pointed to a path that showed faintly through the trees.