Even the quiet Emerson could not fail to be captivated by the situation, and all of Pee-wee’s frantic preparations for his epoch-making coup had the true ring of adventure. It was not like sitting home talking about catching bandits. Here they were in a little, deserted, rough board shack on the outskirts of town, bordering the likeliest exit from the metropolitan area. And this within ten or fifteen minutes of the sensational appeal broadcasted from station O.U.J., New York.
Surely, Emerson felt bound to acknowledge, it was not at all unlikely that the gypsies in the stolen car might pass here, and if he and Pee-wee could but stop them a great triumph would be theirs. A great triumph was Pee-wee’s already, for his enthusiasm and concentrated efforts proved contagious. Picking up an old rusty knife, Emerson proceeded to dig a hole in the top of the can of red paint while Pee-wee hauled forth an old board which was part of the detachable architecture of the shack.
“Now while I paint Danger on the board,” said Pee-wee excitedly, “you take that old chair and stand it in the middle of the road and then we’ll stand the board against the back of the chair.”
Within five minutes Lanky Betts’ rickety old kitchen chair in which he was wont to sit tilted back against the shack waiting for trade was cast in the heroic role of easel for a board on which the arresting word Danger was painted in huge red letters. So liberally had the paint been used in Pee-wee’s frantic haste that the letters had pendants of dripping red below them, imparting an artistic effect to Pee-wee’s handiwork.
But the whole thing looked like business and the general effect of something impending was heightened by the appearance of Pee-wee himself lurking in the doorway of the shack clutching in one hand the rusty knife, dripping red, with which Emerson had opened the paint can, and in his other hand another weapon equally dangerous, which he had rescued from a grocery box under the counter. This was an ice-pick used in the good old summer-time to reduce the ice to fragments in the genial freezers containing chocolate, vanilla and raspberry cream. But now it was to be used for a purpose less kindly.
“Now I’ll tell you the way we’ll do,” said Pee-wee. “We’ll sit inside here all quiet like and every car that stops we’ll see if it’s a Hunkajunk six, and if it is and it’s got gypsies in it, I’m going to sneak around in back of it and jab this ice-pick into one of the rear tires and then run. While I’m doing that—do you see that house up off the road? There’s no light in it but you can see it.”
“I see it,” said Emerson.
“As soon as I sneak around in back of the car you run up to that house for all you’re worth and ring the bell and bang on the door and everything and wake them up no matter what and tell them to ’phone down to Chief Shay that we stopped some bandits stealing a car. I’ll come running up to the house by a roundabout way and I’ll meet you there. See? They won’t be able to drive the car, not very fast anyway, and before they could change a tire or drive half a mile the Bridgeboro police will be here.”
This plan seemed sound and scientific. Nobody whose armament was limited to an ice-pick could have planned better. There was at least an even chance that the auto thieves would come this way and unless they were very near-sighted or very reckless they would certainly pause before Pee-wee’s flaunted warning. If Emerson had been skeptical at first he was now convinced that the chances were at least fair and that the plan of campaign was masterly.
In short there was not the slightest reason why the moon should have smiled down upon these brave preparations. But the moon did smile. Pee-wee did not smile, however. He scowled. He scowled the scowl of a hero as he laid aside the knife dripping with gore, and felt tenderly the point of the deadly ice-pick.