There were voices, many voices, Charlotte’s voice high above the others. Rupert hoped the leopard was too far away to hear, but how could he know where the leopard was? It might have crept quite close to him on its padded noiseless feet, and he would never have known. It might be within a yard of him now.
Rupert understood in that hour what sort of practical joke it was that he had prepared for the policeman.
‘Because, of course,’ said Rupert, ‘I should have been just as dreadful for Poad as that is for me. He’d have thought I was It.’
The voices and footsteps came nearer. They were talking outside.
‘Best shoot it, when it rushes out at us. I’ve got a revolver,’ said Poad. And a cold shiver ran down Rupert’s back. Suppose he had met Poad alone in that dark passage as he had planned?
‘Let me get at him with the garden fork,’ said another voice—the gardener’s.
Then another, a strange voice this time:
‘Don’t hurt the beast. It’s valuable. An’ it’s tame, don’t I tell you? You leave be. Stand back. I’ll tackle him.’
Rupert wretchedly wondered how he was to be trapped; also, how near the real leopard really was. He decided that a little noise more or less couldn’t matter now. He tapped at the door and cried, ‘Let me out. It’s Rupert.’