Barker stood a moment as if listening. Then he turned his grave face to Frost and said, “No sound from upstairs. Timmy must be asleep. Go up and get him. We’ll make some coffee and have something to eat. When you come down put some oil in that lantern.”
Skippy wondered who Timmy was, but soon dismissed the thought in his joy at hearing that they would get something to eat. Nickie, too, brightened up at this announcement and Shorty and Biff made no secret of their delight, but gave vent to several nasal grunts.
Frost hurried back and ascended the narrow, rickety stairway two steps at a time. Barker motioned the boys into a room at his right where he already had a lantern lighted.
“Sit down,” he said abruptly. “I’m going out to the kitchen to make coffee.” Then, without having really looked at them, he stepped into the hall. There was the sound of a key turning in the door outside and suddenly he was back again, passing through the room and toward another door as if he didn’t know the boys were there. When that door had closed behind him, his footsteps could be heard echoing over bare boards, until, after other doors slammed, there ensued a few moments of silence.
Skippy had taken a chair like the rest and now he glanced around the big room. Besides the chairs they were occupying there were two other chairs standing, battered and forlorn, against the shuttered and heavily barred windows. The room boasted no other furniture and no rugs; the floor was thick with dust.
“Well, it’s good there ain’t no more furniture to catch the dust, hah?” Fallon commented humorously as he took note of their surroundings. “Say, I wonder what’s the big idea, barrin’ windows—I ain’t keen on bars. Makes me think we’re in Delafield almost.”
Shorty got up softly and moved his chair close to the others. When his pudgy body was seated, he leaned over confidentially and said, “Mebbe we better in Delafield, eh Neecky?” He shook his round head at his friend Biff, then nodded back at Fallon. “Eet look what ya call phoney the way thees Barker don’ look at us an’ how he bring us here to thees spooky, dirty place, eh?”
“Just what I teenck!” Biff agreed in an undertone. “I get dem creeps—you know? Ever’ting eet should be fun eef Barker an’ Frost fool dem bulls an’ take us keeds from de school—eet should be fun eef they do it because they no want us to do the stretch and feel dis seempathy, eh? But no—they act like we was goin’ to funeral, yes Neecky?”
“Aw, forget it!” Nicky answered. “I’ll admit I ain’t got no yen for this joint myself. But we ain’t where we can say we’d like a nice up-to-date apartment. We gotta be glad we ain’t startin’ no long stretch at Delafield. I got a hunch Frost’s kinda slippery an’ Barker’s a queer bird all right, but what’s that when they’re keepin’ us outa the hoosegow!”
“An’ for thees, Neecky—what we do, eh?” Biff asked, squinting his small, brown eyes.