Honest, that man hardly knew what to say, he was so flabbergasted. I guess he must have felt like Alice in Wonderland, hey? With men being thrown out and disappearing and nice little boy scouts instead of burglars, and papers that he couldn’t make out the meaning of at all. He just looked around kind of puzzled, and all the while Harry sat there with his arms folded on the wheel—oh, boy, I could hardly keep a straight face.
Pretty soon the man said, “Well, young feller, you got to give an explanation of your whereabouts. You were seen in Utica with this car and you had some valuables in it. A porter in the hotel seen them under the seat. You went away and later passed through Utica with this same car. And what did you do with that stuff? And where’d you get your plate changed? Just let’s see your card.”
Harry showed him his driver’s card. Gee whiz, I wanted Harry to tell him that scouts don’t get mixed up with burglaries and things like that, but he didn’t bother to tell him anything. I guess he thought that anybody ought to know that much. Cracky, I wouldn’t be a burglar.
Then he walked all around the car, sizing it up; I guess he was hunting for some kind of clews or other. Then he whispered with the other men. And all the while, Harry just sat there smiling.
I said, “Why, don’t you tell them how it was?”
“They wouldn’t believe us,” Harry said; “don’t you know you can’t tell a detective anything? You’ve got to let him crack his head against a stone wall.”
“Will we get put in jail?” Skinny asked.
“Guess not,” Harry said; “my one regret is, that Brent isn’t here. He’d enjoy this. Evidently these fellows belong in Utica and they’re a little behind on their information. I rather prefer our old friend, the constable.”
Pretty soon the big man left the other two poking around in the water, and came over and said, “I’ll ride into Lurin with you. You’ll have to go before a justice you fellers. You got to explain your movements. Was that man you threw out of the car, dead?”
Harry said, “Oh, very dead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody so dead before.”