“Perhaps not. Perhaps he’s frightened. Roy has a temper, you know, and maybe he got into a fight with some one who struck him in self-defense.”
“Any boy who would do such a thing, and then keep still about it with his victim in a dangerous condition, is a bad, bad fellow. There are some very bad boys in Oakdale, Billy, and you must know it. Roy has said more than once that you’re a regular detective. Here is something for you to detect—something worth while.”
“I’ve been a chump,” acknowledged Piper, with an unmistakable intonation of self-scorn. “I’ve played that detective game for my own amusement, and made lots of trouble by it. I’m done with it now, Mrs. Hooker, for it’s sneaky, cheap, underhand business. Any one who wants to become a detective may do so for all of me—I never shall.”
“Then you won’t try to find out? You won’t help us any?”
“I’ve promised already to do all I can, and I shall keep my promise, Mrs. Hooker. But I’m sure you’re unnecessarily worried. Roy will be all right to-morrow. Of course he will tell you everything.”
He departed with his head hanging and his feet dragging, a spiritless, downcast chap.
“Another lie,” he muttered. “What will she think of me when she knows? And she’ll find out. She was right, things like this always come out. Well, I see where some fellows in this town will have something to live down, and I’m one of them.”
Springer and Cooper received his report with disappointment.
“You made a fuf-fizzle of it,” said Phil. “You didn’t do anything.”
“Nothing except tell a lie. I led Roy’s mother to believe that I didn’t know a thing about it.”