“He did, did he?” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Well, let it pass, it don’t matter now—this is my last month in this house, anyway, and no dick will hear that I’m Devlin through....” He stopped, as if bewildered, but only for a moment. Then he asked: “Which one of the Greeks did he take?”
“Both,” Skippy said quietly.
“Both!” Devlin was plainly beside himself and he made no further attempt to conceal it. He stepped back into the hall, waving his long arms from side to side. “He did, did he! So he took ’em both, eh? Well, I’ll show ... where’s the note?”
“How’d we know?” Skippy retorted. “We looked for a ladder, that’s all, n’ it wouldn’t be where there was a note, would it?”
If Devlin heard that, he gave no sign. He stalked into his room and was even then in possession of the note. While he read it, he ran his long, hairy fingers back and forth through his hair.
“His hair’s wet, kid—awful wet!” Nickie whispered.
Skippy nodded grimly. “An’ his feet, Nick—look at ’em—they’re covered with mud! Looks like he’s been walkin’ through plenty.”
Nickie shivered, but they said no more for Devlin had already read the note and was tearing it into a hundred pieces. Also, he was looking at the boys and a hard, cold glitter was in his eyes.
“You boys still haven’t told me what you had the bed up against the door for?” he asked, with a hint of cunning in his suddenly modulated tones.
Skippy was quick to sense this and he gathered his wits to match Devlin’s. Naïvely, he answered: “Maybe it’s sissy-like for guys to get scared, mister, but we was never so scared as we was tonight when we was up in that attic. We was lookin’ through one of those old trunks and all of a sudden we heard somebody runnin’.”