It is very tiring to stand on tiptoe, especially when one foot has no shoe on, and bang at something above you. Joey's arms ached and her toes ached, and her back; the height at which Calgarloch had stood amazed was hardly enough for her purpose; she had to stretch to her utmost capacity. "Lucky it wasn't Gabrielle who got shut up," she thought to herself, and then, through all her anxiety and struggling, came the thought of her two friends, Noreen and Gabrielle, and the plans they had made together for the afternoon. What were they doing now? Joey wondered. Were they remembering to look out for her? Yes, she felt sure they would do that; they were the kind of friends who stood by you. If only she had them to stand by her now!
Her attack on the roof did not appear to have any effect but that of bringing down unwanted showers of plaster that made her choke and sneeze and, more than once, gave her a nasty knock. But she kept on doggedly at her task—she had to do it somehow. English people couldn't wait to ask whether the job was do-able when your country wanted it done. And all the time she was imprisoned here the Professor was free to do what harm he liked, because nobody knew about him but herself.
Joey redoubled her efforts, and a tile went at last. She could hear it fall on to the ground below. One gone—perhaps the next would be easier. She dropped her tired arms for a moment to rest them, and in that moment the big clock struck two. Only half an hour to the time the match would start—that gave her a fresh sense of urgent need of haste. She smashed furiously at the roof, and her shoe went through it and stuck so fast that she nearly came off the narrow shelf in her effort to dislodge it. In spite of her anxiety and her aching arms, she had to giggle at the thought of how absurd a shoe must look from below, sticking up through a hole in the roof.
It came away at last, and something happened at the same moment: there were steps outside and the key turned in the lock—somebody was coming in.
Joey shouted at the full pitch of her lungs, as she tumbled down recklessly from the shelf and hopped across the broken glass to the door.
"Oh, let me out! I'm shut in."
There was an exclamation, and the voice of Frances, the superior parlour-maid who had opened the door to Joey on her arrival, called, "There, Miss Tiddles! You were right—she was here."
A key slipped about in the lock of the closet door. "Miss Jocelyn, what have you done with the key?" Frances demanded.
Hope died in Joey's heart. "The Professor took it."
"I think he's just gone," Frances said. "I'll try this key again; the locks are nearly the same."