"Yes, sir," he answered, without looking at me. "I thought I'd come down and keep Parks company."
Parks smiled a little sheepishly.
"I asked him to, Mr. Lester," he said. "I got so lonesome and jumpy here by myself that I just had to have somebody to talk to. Especially, after the burglar-alarm rang."
"The burglar-alarm?" repeated Godfrey quickly. "What do you mean?"
"We've got a burglar-alarm on the windows, sir. It's usually turned off in the day-time, but I thought I'd better leave it on to-day, and it rang about the middle of the afternoon. I thought at first that one of the other servants had raised a window, but none of them had. Something went wrong with it, I guess."
"Did you take a look at the windows?" I asked.
"Yes, sir; a policeman came to see what was the matter and we went around and examined the windows, but they were all locked. It made me feel kind of scary for a while."
"Does the alarm work now?"
"No, sir; the policeman said there must be a short circuit somewhere, and that he'd notify the people who put it in; but nobody has come around yet to fix it."
"We'd better take a look at the windows, ourselves," said Godfrey. "You stay here, Parks. We can find them, all right; and I don't want you to leave that door unguarded for a single instant."