“Yeah, and with that funeral face Devlin gets away with it. When the whole business is over he collects the insurance.”
“Gee whiz!” Skippy murmured. “It’s awful!”
“Yeah, don’t think I liked it when he told me!” Frost said, on the defensive. “But he told me I wouldn’t have to do no part of that. He said all I had to do was the details like he called it. So what could I do when he had told me all that and asked me to come in on it with him? He’d have put me on the spot for what I knew about him if I didn’t. Besides, he said it was goin’ to be safe and that he’d worked it out so’s we couldn’t get caught.”
“Why didn’t you stay in Pittsburgh?” Skippy asked suddenly. “You wanted to, I betcha.”
“Sure, I did. But he’da found me—if it was years he’d find me so I thought I’d better come back.”
“You can go back to Pittsburgh tonight if you help us get away. You can start back now—the coupe’s out in the barn, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, but he might...” Frost began.
“Tell him you took us out for the air an’ we beat it.”
Nickie was aroused, jubilant at the new turn of events. “Yeah, an’ say, Frost, tell him you chased us down in the woods where the bog gets tough, but that we give you the slip there, hah?”
“That’s the stunt, Mister Frost. And tell him you’ll hunt us on one side while he hunts on the other. Then, when he’s gone, you beat it fast, ’cause we’ll have the cops in here after him by that time. He can’t chase you to Pittsburgh when he’s in jail, can he?”