“You must be hungry,” suggested Ned, as they neared Shopton. For Koku had been taken away the previous midnight and evening was now coming on again.
“Me eat ten loaves of bread!” cried the giant, opening wide his enormous mouth.
“We’ll give you something else, too!” chuckled Tom. “But I know poor Mrs. Baggert will almost faint when she sees you begin to eat.”
The giant’s appetite was always a source of wonder to the housekeeper, and now, starved as he was by his enforced fast, it might reasonably be expected that he would clean out the pantry. Tom had the foresight to stop and telephone word to Mrs. Baggert of the situation, so she sent out and got in plenty of food before the wayfarers returned. Thus was Koku provided for.
“Well, Ned, let’s get together and talk this thing over,” suggested Tom to his manager, leaving the giant still eating, long after the others had finished. Eradicate, true to his promise to be friends with the big man, remained to help serve him.
“Yes,” agreed Ned, “we had better make some plan to work on. But this discovery that Renwick Fawn is in the plot rather surprises me.”
“I must see if Mr. Damon knows anything about him in this connection. He may have heard Blythe speak of him.”
Mr. Damon was communicated with over the telephone, and after several queer “blessings” announced that, as far as he knew, Fawn was a stranger to Mr. Blythe.
“He doesn’t know anything of Blodgett either,” Tom told Ned, recalling the conversation Mary had overheard in the restaurant.
“Then we’ll have to tackle Fawn on our own account,” said Ned. “I know where he lives. Shall we go to his house and ask for him?”