In the barren room below a candle burned on a table. The head waiter whom Penny first had seen at The Green Parrot sat with his legs resting on the fender of a pot-bellied stove. Opposite him was the older man whose face she could not immediately see.
“I tell you, I’m getting worried,” she heard the old fellow say. “When the Coast Guards took me off that coal barge they gave me the third degree. I can’t risk having anything hung on me.”
Penny pressed her face closer to the glass. Her pulse pounded. She was certain she knew the identity of the old man.
“I wish he’d turn his head,” she thought. “Then I’d be sure.”
As if in response to the unspoken desire, the old man shifted in his chair. The light of the candle flickered on his face, and Penny saw it clearly for the first time.
“Carl Oaks!” she whispered. “And to think that I ever helped him!”
CHAPTER
21
THROUGH THE SKYLIGHT
Greatly excited to learn that the old watchman and the waiter of The Green Parrot were fellow conspirators, Penny strained to catch their words. She heard the waiter reply:
“You’ve done good work, Oaks. All you have to do now is sit tight for a few more hours. We’ll give you a five hundred dollar bonus if the job comes off right.”
“That won’t do me any good if I end up in jail.”