CHAPTER XXII

DEVLIN'S RETURN

Nickie slept after a long time but Skippy was not so fortunate. Not until the storm settled down into a steady pattering rain with the early morning hours did he find himself dozing, yet always waking suddenly, trembling, and with his heart beating rapidly in his breast.

During one of these quiet intervals in which he was dozing, he thought he dreamed that he heard the sound of a car. He did not wake at once, but kept listening for it again in a more or less semi-conscious state. Suddenly, however, he was sure that he heard footsteps down in the kitchen.

For a moment he felt frozen with terror. Then he gathered himself together and shook Nickie firmly. "Don't speak, Nickie!" he whispered. "Just _lissen_!"

Nickie was wide awake and alert, but he did not move a muscle. "I hear it, kid," he murmured. "Somebuddy in the kitchen."

"Yep. I'm frozen like."

"Me too. What'll we do, hah?"

"Stay where we are when we ain't got a light."

"Right. I forgot. Who d'you think tis?"

"_Lissen!_"

They listened intently. A muffled cough, the sound of something metallic falling, nothing escaped them. The footsteps were measured and heavy and seemed to circle the kitchen interminably.

"Sounds like _him_, kid!" Nickie whispered fearfully. "I know them big feeta his'n. He's got the biggest dogs I ever seen. Ever notice?"

"Nope." Skippy thought how queer that Nickie should speak of such details at a fearful time like this. But people did that--he was beginning to realize that one was apt to say and do almost anything strange in moments of distress.

"Say, kid!"

"Yeah?"

"If it's _him_ ... what bout that lock I picked in his room ... what about the ladder?"

"I been thinkin'," Skippy answered breathlessly. "Lissen, Nick--you don't know nothin' bout that lock, neither do I! Frost said sump'n about how he lost his keys when he was beatin' it with Shorty and Biff--get me? He musta picked the lock himself. We found the door that way when we come upstairs after they blew. We were lookin' for a ladder to go up in the attic--we wanted to go up an' snoop round for sump'n to do. We seen the closet door standin' open an' there was the ladder."

"Oke, kid. But s'pose he's leary bout us wantin' to go up in the attic?"

"I gotta hunch he won't be--much. We didn't wedge the bar enough so's he'd notice it less he went up an' looked close. Even then he'd know it'd be too far to jump out the winder an' he won't get wise bout the tree less he sees the rope. Gee whiz, I'm glad I hid it, I am."

"I could cry, I'm so glad, kid. This racket's too spooky for me to think up an alibi quick. Holy smoke, you're a life-saver!"

At heart, Skippy felt no such assurance. He was shaking from head to foot and he dreaded Devlin as he dreaded Death. He shuddered at the unconscious simile and wondered if the very thought itself did not portend the evil which Timmy had come back to warn them of.

Nickie's cold, clammy hand stole over and grasped his trembling wrist. Unashamed, they interlaced their fingers and clasped them so firmly that it hurt. Nevertheless, they derived a sort of comfort from the contact and breathed more freely even after the heavy feet below tramped out of the kitchen and they heard the measured tread into the hall.

"He's comin', I bet!" Skippy whispered feverishly.

Nickie was mumbling a prayer that his aunt had taught him in babyhood, a prayer that he thought he had forgotten long ago. He dared not speak, nor think, for fear of screaming and acting like a weak, hysterical girl. The prayer and Skippy's warm fingers pressing against his own kept him from losing his head entirely.

Then they heard the footsteps on the stair!

Skippy listened, his head numb and his body trembling. The house seemed to shake with the vibration of each step. To the frightened boys it sounded like a dirge, for the stairs creaked and groaned and the flooring, rotting with age and disuse, emitted eerie thumpings throughout the dismal house.

The darkness added much to their terrible fear, for they could not see each other and it had the effect of seeming to make them the more helpless. Skippy felt during those terrible seconds that he would not be able to raise a hand in his own defense.

So they waited, counting each heavy step and listening with increasing dread as they came nearer. It seemed to take an interminable time for those feet to span the distance between the top of the stairway and the door of their room. They squeezed each other's fingers tensely.

At last the footsteps ceased--not at their door, but across the hall!

Skippy gulped hard. Whoever it was, he was discovering that the door had been opened, the lock picked ... now he knew that his memorandum book was gone ... now he had noticed that the ladder had been taken from the closet.

They heard him rush out of the room and to the rear of the hall where they had left the ladder standing propped against the attic opening. Skippy could see the feeble glimmer of the lantern as it cast a lonely ray under their door.

Time stood still after that; they seemed to be in a state of suspended animation. Skippy could not hear Nickie breathe; Nickie listened in vain for a heart beat from Skippy's breast. The only sound that reached their ears was that of the rushing footsteps coming back now along the hall and suddenly stopping before their door.

Then the doorknob rattled.

The door did not give, of course; the bed was too tightly jammed against it. The boys waited and presently they knew that there was a desperate effort being made to open the door, for the bed vibrated from the impact. Finally there came a furious pounding on the oaken panel.

"Fallon--Kid?" the familiar, deep voice called insistently. "You boys there?"

Skippy felt then that his time had come.