"Yes, he said she might have broken the glass in one of the frames; but I don't suppose that was the real reason. She may have gone near him just when he was putting something back."
"I heard Miss Russell asking him when the cucumbers would be ready, and he answered in a great hurry: 'Not for ever so long yet'. And then he said it was 'best not to be lifting the frames, and disturbing them more than needful'."
"He was evidently afraid she was going to ask to see them."
The idea that silver cups, jewels, or spade-guineas might be lying hidden under the glossy leaves of the cucumber plants began to obtain possession of the girls' minds.
"If we could only manage to look while he's out of the way," suggested Cicely eagerly.
Scott's close attention to his duties was most annoying. There really appeared to be something in Cicely's theory of criminals haunting a particular spot. He seemed never absent from the kitchen-garden, at any rate when they were in its vicinity. They could hear him mowing the lawn during lesson hours, but when recreation arrived, and they ran out hopefully to reconnoitre, he would be weeding the strawberries, or gathering peas within a few feet of his cherished hotbeds.
"There's only one way for it," said Lindsay. "We shall have to make a plot. You must hide near the kitchen-garden, and I'll do something to take him off; then, while he's gone, you must rush to the frames and open them."
"That would be grand! What will you do?
"I shall have to think it over. I know! We'll wait till this evening, when he's watering the cucumbers. I'll stand on the pipe of the hose; that will stop the water, and he'll go to see what's the matter."
"Capital!" agreed Cicely.