Bob did not dare creep any closer. They might look out of the window. Some payment had been made, by Griff’s claim. By the denial of the other man it had not been made. By his threat it must be made.
Bob hesitated—and while he stood, undecided, the roar of a car, coming at full speed, came to his ears.
He glanced down the road. Hardly had he located the direction when he recognized the car. It contained—Mr. Parsons!
A man’s head leaned out of the open window. To Bob, as he crouched back into some ornamental shrubbery, the face was unfamiliar; but he saw it was brutish, fierce, angry—and he impressed it on his memory.
“Here’s your pop, now,” the man called—and then he gave an exclamation that Bob could not comprehend. Presently the light went out—and, almost at the same time, while Parsons alighted in the parking place, Bob, near the rear corner of the building, saw a form emerge from the kitchens and race away down the yard toward the grove beyond.
“Griff!” muttered Bob to himself. “Griff—running tight as he can go—running away from his father—to hide.”
Watching, more interested in the new arrival than in the son, Bob remained in concealment. But his mind was puzzled.
“Why?” he wondered. “Why—and what next?”
CHAPTER XVII
“THE CASE IS ‘SEWED UP’”
Sitting on the Wright porch, early the next morning, Curt and Al listened eagerly to Bob’s recital of the past night’s events.