"Then we can't do anything until somebody gets here from town," said Tom, somewhat disappointedly.
"We can watch those rascals and listen to what they are talking about," returned Dick.
Both boys returned to the barn, to get out of the rain. Then they sneaked to the cellar of the house and up to the kitchen, and then to a little storeroom next to the dining room. From the storeroom they could catch much of the conversation coming from the three men in the dining room.
There were some matters Dick and Tom did not understand. But from what was said they learned that Japson was a distant relative of Josiah Crabtree and the two had been in several shady transactions together. Crabtree had agreed, if aided in his escape from the Plankville jail, to assist the brokers in making Anderson Rover a prisoner and keeping him such until he signed certain documents and until the time had passed when he could no longer take up the options which were so valuable to the Rovers and their friends.
"Well, I think these documents are all right," the boys heard Jesse Pelter say, presently. "Now we can turn them over to Belright Fogg and tell him to go ahead."
The boys looked at each other in amazement. Belright Fogg! The lawyer who had tried to outwit them in their claim against the railroad company because of the smashed Dartaway! Was that fellow mixed up in this game also? It looked like it.
CHAPTER XXIV
FROM A GARRET WINDOW
"This is getting interesting!" whispered Tom.
"I should say so," murmured Dick.