Then followed a sharp grilling by the keen, astute Hemingway.  Dick and his chums told what they had heard Tip say before they pounced upon him.  Tip, who was a round-headed, short, square-shouldered fellow of twenty-four, possessed more of the cunning of the prize ring than the cleverness of the keen thief.

“I’ve been caught with the packages on me,” he admitted, bluntly, and with some show of bravado.  “I guess I can’t get outer delivering ’em.”

“Then you stole that pin and the gold watch from the locker at the High School?” demanded Hemingway, swiftly.

“Yep.”

“How did you get into the locker room?” shot out Hemingway.

“Guess!” leered Tip, exhibiting some cheap bravado.

“Maybe I can find the answer in your clothes,” retorted the plain clothes man.  “Stand still.”

The search resulted in the finding of about ten dollars, a knife, and three queer-looking implements that Hemingway instantly declared to be pick-locks.

“You used these tools, and slipped the lock, did you?” asked Hemingway.

“Didn’t have to,” grinned Tip.

“Took an impression of the lock, then, and made a key, did you?”

“Right-o,” drawled Tip.

“I’ll look into your lodgings,” muttered Hemingway.  “Probably I’ll find you’ve got a good outfit for that kind of work.  I remember you used to work for a locksmith.”

Tip, however, was not scared.  He knew that there was nothing at his lodgings to betray him.

“Then you used these picklocks to open Prescott’s locked trunk with?” was Hemingway’s next question.

“’Fraid I did,” leered Tip.

“What time of the day did you get into the Prescott flat?”

“’Bout ten o’clock, morning of the same day ye went through Prescott’s trunk an’ found the goods there.”

“The same goods that you placed in the trunk, Tip, after breaking into the Prescott flat while Mr. and Mrs. Prescott were down in their store and young Prescott was at the High School?”

“That’s right,” Tip grinned.

“You picked the lock of young Prescott’s trunk, stowed the watch and pin away in there, and then sprung the lock again?”

“Why, say, ye muster seen me,” declared Scammon, admiringly.

“The week before that day you must have been at the High School, helping your father, especially in the basement during session hours.”

“I sure was,” Tip admitted.  “I had ter, didn’t I, to have a chance ter get inter the locker room?”

“What did you say the name of the fellow was who hired you to do the trick?” swiftly demanded Hemingway, changing the tack.

“I b’lieve I didn’t say,” responded Tip, giving a wink that included all present.

“Tell me now, then.”

“Not if ye was to hang me for refusing,” declared Scammon, with sudden obstinacy.

“Yet you’ve told us everything else,” argued the plain clothes man.