“Aw, what ails you?” said Eddie. “Nobody is going to know! What did you do with that book anyway, Dee—the one you showed Anna the day the man was run over?”
“I gave it to the police, but I copied the writing in it,” said Dee. “If Anna won’t tell me exactly what it says, I am going to take it down to the Public Library and find out just what it means. I can translate it near enough by one of the dictionaries there.”
“That’s a scheme!” said Bill.
“I am going home now,” said Dee. “I want to take a look at it.”
“Come back if you find it. It is early,” called Bill.
“All right, I will,” answered Dee, and went down the stairs three at a time.
When he reached the house his father and Zip had just crossed the street on their way around the Park. Dee could not help a feeling of sadness as he saw his stepfather, a man who should have been in full health, shuffling carefully along with the hesitating gait of the nearly blind. He called a greeting, to which Zip replied and his father nodded. Then Dee hurried up to his room. But he stopped there only long enough to get a key, and went up to the attic. He required no light but went over to his mother’s trunk, opened it, and found the paper he had hidden there.
As he retraced his steps he heard a familiar ticking, crackling noise. He smiled as he thought what tricks his brain was playing him. A mouse in Zip’s room of course, but it sounded exactly like a wireless that needs adjustment. With a smile he stepped down the hall and paused at Zip’s door. The noise continued, and with a paling face, blank with amazement, Dee recognized the sound of a wireless trying to pick them up!
Racing down the stairs, he heard Zip’s high prattle as the two returned. Dee slid off the side of the porch and sank down into the depths of the honeysuckle bush. The two men came up the steps.
They were talking rapidly but close as he was Dee could catch nothing of the low sentences until Zip turned the door knob. Then Mr. De Lorme said: “What was it—the thirteenth? We will have to make haste!” and together they disappeared in the house.