“Why, deliver them!” answered Mellen.
“But the boys left the hotel last night!” replied the clerk angrily. “Without paying their bills!”
“But they are in their rooms now,” Mellen assured the clerk.
“And they stole woolen blankets off the bed, too!” the clerk almost shouted. “I ought to have them all arrested!”
As the clerk uttered the words in a loud tone a slender, black-eyed man who seemed to Mellen to move about the corridor with the sinuous undulations of a snake, stepped up to the desk.
“So the fugitives have returned?” he asked. “Shall I arrest them at once? You have made the charge, you know!”
“You will find the blankets in the boys’ room,” advised Mellen. “They took them because they had a long, cold ride before them.”
“It is policy to restore stolen goods after discovery!” snarled the man who had asked instructions of the clerk, and who occupied the very honorable position of house detective.
“Look here, Gomez!” exclaimed Mellen. “You keep out of this! The boys had a right to use the blankets outside of the hotel as well as inside.”
“I shall do as the clerk says!” snarled the detective.