“Vic, do you think it could have been he? I wasn’t going to let on to Aunt Sophia that I thought it for a minute, but I do feel kind of shaky about it.”
“Why, Peter, do you really?” said Victoria. “Wouldn’t it—at least, why should he have chosen that way of letting the burglars in? If it was really Dave who opened the door, I should think he could have found some other way of doing it. He is around the kitchen so much, he might have left a window unbolted, or something of that sort. It would have been easier than climbing up to my room. And now I come to think of it, Dave knew that was my room. He came up there once, to hang my book shelves. He never would have been so stupid as to climb in that way!”
Victoria’s tone expressed a sense of relief. She had not thought of this before. She almost forgot her surprise at Peter’s suspicions.
“But, Vic,” said her brother, “I must tell you something I have never told anybody, and it kind of bothers me. I never told you what Carney was doing when I first saw him.”
“No. Was it anything wrong, Peter?”
“He was—now don’t you tell any one, Vic, unless we decide that we had better. Now mind you don’t!”
“No, I won’t. Hurry, for I hear Sophy calling.”
“He was stealing apples from a barrel outside of a provision store in Fordham.”
“Peter!”
“Yes, he was! I caught him at it. He said he hadn’t any money to buy anything to eat, and he was awfully hungry, so I gave him some. And then he helped me,—in that fight, you know,—and he came home with me.” Peter could not yet endure to mention the name of Sirius.