"
"Yes, sir, it's been the toughest darned case in my whole experience as
an inside man."
He waited for this to move us.
"What have you found out?" asked Solon; "and say, can't you take off
those whiskers, now that we are alone and unobserved? You know they kind
of scramble your voice."
With cautious looks all about him, Billy bared his tender young face to
the night. A weak wind fretted in the cedars back of us, and an owl
hooted. It was not an occasion that he would permit to glide by him too
swiftly.
"Well, first I had to git my skeleton keys made."
"I thought you said his door was never locked," interrupted Solon.
"That might be only a ruse," suggested our hero. "Well, I got my keys
made, and then I begun to search his room. That's always a delicate job.
You got to know just how. First I looked under the aidges of the carpet,
clear around. Nothing rewarded my masterly search. Then I examines the
bed and mattress inch by inch, with the same discouragin' results."
Billy had now drifted fairly into the exciting manner of his favorite
authors.
"Baffled, but not beaten, I nex' turns my attention to the pictures,
examinin' with a trained eye the backs of same, where might be cunningly
concealed the old will--uh--I mean the incriminatin' dockaments that
would bring the craven wretch to bay and land him safely behind the bars
of jestice.
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