“Well, I am sorry,” replied Miss Pearson. “To think of me being postmistress all these years, and making such a mistake! I’ll put it in an official envelope and readdress it. She’ll get it to-morrow. Is it important? I suppose you were able to understand it?” with a suggestive glance at the letter, as if she hoped Raymonde would reveal its contents.
Raymonde, however, did not answer her question.
“I think you had better seal it up at once,” she parried, “and drop it into the box, and then you’ll feel you’ve finished with it.”
“Oh, it will be all right! I hope I know my duties. If people addressed their envelopes properly in a plain hand, there’d be no mistakes,” snapped Miss Pearson, highly offended, putting 143 back the bone of contention among her papers, and locking the desk. She knew she had been caught tripping, and wished to preserve her official dignity as far as possible. “I’ve opened Martha Verney’s letters for the last fifteen years, and had no complaints,” she added.
“Ave,” said Raymonde, as the two girls left the shop and turned up the lane towards the camp, “that was a most important letter. I didn’t tell that old curiosity-box so, but it was written in German. I’d Fräulein as my governess for four years before I came to school, so I can read German pretty easily, as you know. Well, I couldn’t quite understand everything, but the general drift seems to be that Mrs. Vernon has a husband or a brother or a cousin named Carl, who is interned not so far away from here, and is trying to escape. This evening’s the time fixed, and he’s coming into the neighbourhood of our camp, and she’s to meet him, and give him clothes and money.”
“Good gracious! What are we to do? Go back and ’phone to the police—or tell Mr. Rivers?”
“Neither,” said Raymonde decidedly. “After that idiotic business on Wednesday night, trying to guard the larder with everybody tumbling over everyone else, it’s worse than useless to tell. It would be all over the camp in five minutes, and Mrs. Vernon would hear about it, and go and warn ‘Carl’ somehow. As for the police, they’d spend a week in preliminaries. They’d have to send a constable to look at the letter, and ask questions of us, and Miss Pearson, and Mr. Rivers, and no end of red-tape nonsense; and by that time Carl would be safely out of the country, and on to a neutral 144 vessel. No, my idea is to ‘set a thief to catch a thief’. I’m going to ask the gipsies to help us. If anybody can deal with the business, they can!”
“Topping!” exclaimed Aveline. “I’d back the gipsies against the best detectives in England.”
“I’ll go to the field and talk to that woman who caught Dandy for us yesterday. Mr. Rivers sent a horse last night, and brought their caravan to the farm, so they’ll all be at work picking this morning. Don’t tell a single soul in the camp. You and I will watch Mrs. Vernon, and follow her if she goes out, and the gipsies shall keep guard in the wood where she’s evidently arranged to meet him. They’ll get a reward if they catch him.”
“That’ll spur them on, as well as the sport of the thing!” laughed Aveline.