Everything was pretty clear in my mind as to what had been going on the last day or two, and it was that John Till had maybe been what police call an “accomplice” of the real kidnapper and it had been his special job to look after the ransom money. He’d decided that the best way in the world to hide it where nobody would ever think of finding it would be to catch some big fish, cut them open, clean out the entrails, fold the money in packets of oil paper, stuff it inside the fish, and sew it up, like my mother sews up a chicken she’s stuffed with dressing just before she slides it into the oven for our dinner. Then he would dig down deep in the sawdust of the icehouse till he came to some ice, lay the fish on it, and cover it up. Nobody would ever think to look inside a fish for money. Even if they accidentally dug up a fish, it’d be covered with wettish sticky sawdust, and they wouldn’t see the stitches in its stomach.
Say, while I was thinking that and also watching the shadow of John Till through the door of the icehouse, all of a sudden there was a quick gasp beside me, and I said to Circus, “What on earth?” thinking maybe he’d found something terribly special, but he hadn’t. He dropped his knife, leaped to his feet, and said, “You guys stay here! I’ll be right back.”
“Stop!” I said. “Where you going?” I remembered I was supposed to be the leader, but say, Circus had his own ideas about that. He squirmed out of my grasp, almost tearing his shirt, on account of I had hold of it and didn’t want to let go.
The next second there were only four of us left—barrel-shaped Poetry, kind-faced, swell Little Jim, pop-eyed Dragonfly, and red-haired, fiery-tempered, freckle-faced Bill Collins, which is me. Circus, our acrobat, was streaking out through the bushes as fast as he could go toward the lake and the icehouse, but not getting out in the open where John could see him.
“What on earth?” I thought. I didn’t dare yell, or try to stop him by whistling or something, or John Till would have heard me, and who knows what might have happened? I didn’t have the slightest idea what Circus was up to until a moment later, when I saw him dart like a scared chipmunk out from some bushes not far from the icehouse and make a dive for the open door.
“Why the crazy goof!” I thought. “He’s going to try to—What was he going to try to do?”
And the next thing I knew, I quick found out. It happened so fast, I didn’t even have time to think. But the very minute I saw Circus start to do what he was starting to do, I knew he was going to do it.
SWISH! Wham! A half-dozen fast flying movements, and it was all over. Circus grabbed that icehouse door, swung it shut, lifted the big heavy bar and threw it into place, and Old hook-nosed John Till was locked inside!