“Fine! We’ll do it!” Dorothy’s alert mind had grasped the plan before Uncle Abe’s tongue could give utterance to it.
“An’ de bes’ part of it is, honey,” grinned Liza, “dat all de rooms on dis flo’ has fireplaces an’ mos’ of dem upstairs too. Marse Joyce, he’s a crank on open fires.”
Dorothy chuckled. “Lucky break for us.” She took a small armful of kindling that Uncle Abe held out to her.
“Yo’all better foller me,” said the old darky, “I knows de way ’bout dis house, Miss Do’thy.”
He pushed open a swinging door and they slipped into a dining room, panelled in white pine. It was an attractive room and Dorothy decided that despite his criminal traits, John J. Joyce was a man of taste. Uncle Abe tiptoed across the room and paused in the doorway to the hall.
“We better see who’s downstairs befo’ we goes up,” he whispered, and trotted off along the corridor.
He stopped at a closed door near the foot of the staircase and lifted his hand to knock. But before his knuckles had touched the panel, the heavy oak swung inward and they were confronted by the prizefighter whom Dorothy had last seen heating a poker in the Conway house.
“’Scuse us, suh. We’se bringin’ wood fo’ de fire.”
The big man glared at them for a moment. Then apparently satisfied, he stepped aside. “O.K. Thought I heard someone snoopin’ around. Dump those logs in the box and then get out.”
He paid no more attention to them. Slouching stiffly in a big chair before the fire, he became immediately engrossed in the Sunday paper.