DOOMED
They had neither heart nor voice to talk. Not for hours. They seemed to
have lived through some terrible nightmare. From the moment when they
saw Devlin's footprints the panorama had moved before them, swiftly,
relentlessly. And now they were back again in the house of gloom and
terror.
Skippy sat in a daze as he watched Devlin talk. "You can't complain
about me as a host," he was saying, "after you deliberately desert my
generous hospitality what do I do, eh? I bring you safely back and now
I'm inviting you to help yourself to some supper. There's plenty of
bacon and beans!"
"Aw, pipe down, Devlin!" Nickie shouted, stung into action. "What you
gonna do with us, hah? That's all we wanta know!"
Devlin was calm, unruffled as ever. "I've got something to attend to,"
he said icily. "It can't wait. In fact, you interrupted the task by
showing up when you did. But now that I have you where I know you'll be
safe, I'll leave you for an hour or two. You're welcome to wash the mud
from yourselves and go to bed. I can assure you that you'll be quite
safe _tonight_!" He coughed significantly. "I'm leaving you boys with
an easy mind--there's no Frost now to double-cross me! Goodnight!"
Skippy shivered until he was certain the man was gone. Then he got up
wearily and reached for the coffee-pot. Nickie watched with some
surprise.
"You got the heart to eat, hah?"
"Not the heart, Nick--just the stomach."
"Ugh! I'm sick, Skip--say, kid, ain't it great the way I just natural
like call you Skippy, hah? Just like I always knew it's your name. I
s'pose he's gonna put poor Frost where nobuddy'll ever find him, the
same's Timmy. Ugh, I'm sick all through!"
Skippy went on with the making of the coffee, mechanically. "I can't
understand 'bout the note, Nickie," he said for the hundredth time. "If
Mr. Conne got it they oughta been here--gee whiz, last week. Even
before."
And for the hundredth time Nickie said consolingly, "The old lady
mighta lost her pocketbook in the river or sump'n, hah?" Then, after a
pause: "What a break for Frost just when he was doin' us a good turn!
Ain't that Fate, hah? Things just ain't right in this world."
"Listen, Nick, it's a shame about Frost an' I'm plenty thankful what he
did for us--or what he tried to do. But gee whiz, he hadn't no
lily-white soul to team up with Devlin, did he? He was used to rough
stuff--a hold-up man, that's what he was. Well, he had a gun when he
met Devlin an' he coulda made him go to the cops right that night. Gee,
Frost might not been's heartless as Devlin, but he stood for Devlin's
stuff. And that's as bad."
Nickie agreed. He had seemed to brighten up during Skippy's moral talk
and was sniffing the air. "Holy Smoke!" he exclaimed suddenly. "Even
his rotten coffee smells like food now."
Skippy smiled wanly. "Thought you wasn't hungry. Thought you was sick?"
"Guess I ain't, hah? Since I smelled that I wanta eat."
"Eat--that's right. While we live we gotta eat--gee whiz, what a life!"
"Don't talk like that, Skip. Just talk about eatin' while we can. I'll
open some beans an' I'll fry some ba...."
"Oh, _not bacon_!"
"Meat'll give us strength."
"Aw, all right. But believe _me_, this is the last time in my life I'm
gonna eat bacon!"
Nickie looked at him, frightened. Skippy knew what he was thinking
of--he thought it himself the moment he had spoken those words. They
seemed full of dreadful portent now that they had been uttered. Was it
written that this was to be the last time in his life when he would eat
food of any kind?
Did it mean that they were doomed?
[Illustration: THEY WERE FREE OF THE HOUSE SLIDING HAND OVER HAND ALONG
THE ROPE.]