“ELFRIDA WAS OBLIGED TO SHAKE HIM.”
“I—they—he put them in the corner cupboard in the secret room,” said Elfrida.
“If you’d taken me and not been in such a hurry—no, I’m not quarrelling, I’m only reasoning with you like Aunt Edith—if I’d been there I should have buried those jewels somewhere and then come back for me, and we’d have dug them up, and been rich beyond the dreams of—what do they call it?”
“But I never told Betty where they were. Perhaps they’re there now. Let’s go and look.”
“If they are,” said he, “I’ll believe everything you’ve been telling me without trying at all.”
“You’ll have to do that—if there’s a secret room, won’t you?”
“P’r’aps,” said Edred; “let’s go and see. I expect I shall have got a headache presently. You didn’t ought to have shaken me. Mrs. Honeysett says it’s very bad for people to be shaken—it mixes up their brains inside their heads so that they ache, and you’re stupid. I expect that’s what made you say I was stupid.”
“Oh, dear,” said Elfrida despairingly. “You know that was before I shook you, and I did say I was sorry.”
“I know it was, but it comes to the same thing. Come on—let’s have a squint at your old secret room.”