DON!
"We'd better get the ladder," Janet suggested.
They went down into the cellar and found it close by the door. It was only a matter of minutes before they had it waiting in readiness in the yard. Luckily Annie and Lucy were too busy preparing supper to notice them.
They were back in the house just in time to meet Chuck.
"He's gone," he announced, "and there was another man with him, and I heard him say he was due down town by five o'clock."
"Are you sure he was the caretaker?" Phyllis inquired, and Chuck gave a satisfactory description.
"Then I'm off," she said as she hurried into her coat. "Give me time to get there before you start."
She hurried to the house on the next street and rang the bell violently, and waited; then she rang it again, three short rings.
"Perhaps I can make her think it's a telegram," she thought, and her scheme was rewarded, for after a little wait she heard some one scuffling downstairs. The door creaked as the bolt was drawn back, and then it opened a crack.
"What do you want?" Miss Pringle's voice quavered as she asked. Phyllis put her foot in the crack as she had seen villains do in the movies.