Pee-wee Harris, scout, did not know where he was or what was going on, but he felt that four walls surrounded him. The plot was growing thicker. And it was suffocating under that heavy robe, now that there was no free air blowing about it.
"Where's the stuff?" one of the men asked.
"On the back seat," said the other.
Pee-wee trembled.
"Oh, no, I guess it's on the floor," the man added. "I think I put the silver cup under the back seat--"
Pee-wee shuddered. So they had been stealing silver cups.
"Either there or--oh, here it is."
Pee-wee breathed again.
Then he heard no more voices. But he heard other sounds. He heard the creaking of a heavy rolling door. He heard a sound as if it were being bolted or fastened on the inside. Then he heard the slamming of another door and a muffled, metallic sound as of someone locking it on the outside. Then he heard footsteps, fainter, fainter.... Then he heard a sound which seemed to him familiar. He could not liken it to anything in particular, but it sounded familiar, a kind of clanking, metallic sound. Then he heard a voice say, "Let me handle her, give her a shove, hold her down, that's right."
Pee-wee's blood ran cold. They were killing someone out there; some poor captive maiden, perhaps....