“She can do that after you’ve done this work and are working regularly in this office. Just now, while you’re temporary, I’ll pay you your expenses and give your aunt your salary. How’s that?”
“Sure, whatever you say, Mr. Conne,” Skippy answered happily. “You pay me more when it’s sorta extra work, huh?”
“That’s the basis on which all our men work here, kid,” the detective grinned. “When your time is on the company, naturally your expenses are too. But leave that to me—I’ll see that you have enough to eat in the way of chocolate even if you do leave half of it on your chin.”
Skippy grinned and reached for his handkerchief. When he had rubbed off the smear, he looked up. “Will you tell me some more about this job?”
Carlton Conne nodded and smoothed out the letter on his desk. “This is a report from one of my men who was on a case in Chicago,” he was saying. “To let you know more fully about this job I’ll read part of this report: ‘Ran across O’Reilly here in Chi,’ he says, ‘and he tells me that Dean Devlin is suspected of helping to spring a kid by the name of Tucker from the South End Reform School here. They picked the kid up in Wheaton and when brought back to Chi he told, under pressure, that a reverend-looking gentleman whose description fits the Dean to a “T” visited the South End Reform a little more than a month ago and propositioned him. The kid was bent to beat it and the Dean gave him some dough for a getaway.
“‘Anyway, out of this money, Tucker was told to bribe a guard and the Dean arranged the night of the escape, etc. Tucker said it was soft—the Dean was on the job in a closed car and took him to a house in what looked to be a nice part of the city. It was a pretty swell flat and the kid got everything he wanted in the way of eats, but he was kept a prisoner along with two other kids his own age who, it seemed, were also under the Dean’s protection. They too had crashed out of different reform schools under the reverend-looking gentleman’s expert supervision.
“‘Now it seems that Devlin’s idea was this: each kid was kept on at the flat till he found a job for them in some distant city. Then he saw to it that the kid got there. And so within a month, Tucker saw the other kids go. Then Devlin told Tucker that he had a job for him out in Montana, and that very night he was going to drive him as far as Alton where he could board a train absolutely safe from suspicion.
“‘They started after dark and Tucker said it wasn’t long before he got drowsy. He thinks he must have fallen asleep for the next thing he knew he felt himself falling against something and then he seemed to fall right out of the car and whirl through the air. Next thing he knew he was in the water. The car had gone down and he knew that he’d go down too, not being able to swim. He paddled furiously with his hands and looking up on the bank he saw the Dean standing there looking down. Tucker was just about to call to him when a car drove up and Devlin got in it and was driven away.
“‘Evidently, the Dean was afraid that Tucker hadn’t survived the accident and being himself confessedly nervous of the police (that being the reason for his generous interest in reform school boys) he thought it best to get away as quickly as possible by hailing the first car that came along.’”
“Gee, an’ what did poor Tucker do then, huh?” Skippy asked excitedly.