“Sure—it was nothin’ much. A lotta boloney! Barker makes the dame think he’s one grand old man—all for his wild son—all that bunk. Anyways, the last day we’re there he drags me out right after dark. Takes me to a doctor. When I ast him what for, he says that’s his business; that I should act like a sulky son. Well, I do it. The doc gimme the up an’ down an’ says O. K. So we go back to the house an’ the landlady hands Barker a telegram that I found out afterward was from Frost. It says somethin’ about grandma bein’ sick; that he should come home to New York. It was signed Joe.”
“Then you packed up an’ come here, I bet,” Skippy said.
“Sure,” Timmy murmured. “He leaves the telegram on the bureau an’ down in the hall he gives the landlady a coupla weeks’ rent. Tells her if we ain’t back by then, he’ll send the dough every week till we do get back. He give her a song and dance bout wantin’ a farm when he come back an’ that he wanted the room to come back to so’s he’d have a place while he was lookin’. When we come away he tells me it’s a lotta boloney he give her; that he only wanted the room till this little business broke O. K. He says he ain’t got no idea of goin’ back there.”
“Mm,” said Nickie, “sounds like he was buildin’ an alibi for hisself, hah?”
“That’s what I gets thinkin’,” Timmy admitted. “Anyways, we ride all night an’ plenty next mornin’ till we hit a woods in the mountains where Barker parked his car way in the trees. We slep’ there all afternoon, then start ridin’ again when the sun was goin’ down. Bout nine or so we come here. Frost’s here. So’s two kids bout our age—Willie Meehan, an’ Sammie Brown. Next day we get comparin’ things—Willie comes from Boston an’ Sammie from Syracuse. They crashed jugs like me, with Barker’s help. What’s more they all stayed in a city room a coupla days like me an’ just before they leave a telegram comes tellin’ Barker he’s gotta hustle to New York on business or that old stuff bout his dying grandmother. Anyways it’s Frost that always sends ’em.”
“An’ those kids,” Skippy asked eagerly, “did they say they were Barker’s sons an’ go to a doctor like you?”
“Sure. It’s the same old line—he’ll do the same with you guys too. Blamed if I know his racket, but when I’m here about a week, Willie says Barker’s sendin’ him west that night. Willie’s here a little over a month then. Seems he don’t keep kids much longer’n that—I’m overdue now!” He laughed grimly. “Anyways, he beats it with Willie an’ we was glad he was gettin’ a break an’ on his way. So two days after Barker comes back—it’s at night like he always comes an’ goes an’ Sammy an’ me’s sleepin’ in this room. Frost and Barker think we’re dead’s doornails so when they come upstairs they get arguin’ an’ forget how loud they talk. Well, I’m awake and how! I hear the whole works.”
“Gee!” Skippy breathed, happy in the thought that now perhaps he would learn something of value to Mr. Conne, when he should be so fortunate as to see the detective again.
“Yeah, I said a lotta things like that when I was listening,” Timmy confided. “I heard Barker say somethin’ about that Willie wouldn’t go through. So Frost asks him what he did then. Barker says he had to do the job hisself. Frost laughs when he hears that. He tells Devlin he better plan his jobs better if he don’t wanta take the hot squat.”
“Devlin?” Skippy asked breathlessly.