“You,” his voice rose, “are professional gamblers, and that rates you pretty low, too.”
He turned to Johnny. “You see, what happened was this. These fellows, with Tony’s brother, Angelo, have been operating a gambling den beneath Angelo’s flower shop for a long time. Race track stuff, baseball pools and all that. Somehow we didn’t get next to them until you found that jimmy bar that lifted the Red Rover’s window, and the shoe that made the invisible footprint was brought in by the Rat. Then we began to suspect something.
“When you brought in that batch of shavings from Angelo’s favorite pocket knife and we found they matched those made near the scene of the kidnaping; when you told us about being thrown from that room beneath the flower shop, we knew we were on the way.”
The pair of culprits sat listening in stolid silence. Johnny heaved a sigh. So he had been useful in this search. He was glad.
“We found out in no time at all,” Drew went on, “that these birds had organized a football pool. They were betting on a grand scale on to-day’s game, giving all manner of odds. And why not? You cowards!” He shot a look at the corner of the room. “You knew all the time that you meant to kidnap the Red Rover and hide him on Isle Royale until the game was over.
“The game.” His voice dropped. “The game has not yet started. The kick-off is at two o’clock. And such a game as it will be!
“You see,” he turned again to Johnny, “when we knew what you had discovered, the rest was easy. Tony, here, is a licensed pilot and owns that big amphibian. Owns it! Strange what some men will do to get more money when they are already rich! But crooked money calls for more and more, always more and more. That’s why a crooked dollar is such a terrible thing to possess.
“Since Tony had that plane and he had been at Isle Royale last summer, as young Angelo told you, as soon as we saw that clipping about the mysterious plane over Isle Royale, we knew just where to go.
“You know the rest.” He smiled at Johnny. “How we found them and got them, how we flew here in the red racer just in time to prevent the broadcasting of our great discovery.
“What you don’t know, and what these fellows don’t exactly know,” his eyes snapped, “is what is about to happen down there in the city.