I looked at him and Miss Watts out of the corner of my eye as I spoke, and I distinctly saw them give each other a significant glance. Miss Watts shrugged her shoulders as if she didn't care what I did; but the real reporter looked worried.
"Oh, well, all right," he said, at last. "I suppose it isn't fair not to let you in on your own assignment. There's one good thing—you can't get any wetter and muddier than you are." That thought seemed to comfort him.
We had a hard time going back, but it was easier because there were more of us to suffer. Besides, the real reporter helped Miss Watts and me a little when we stumbled or when the wind blew us against a tree or a fence. When we got near the house everybody moved very quietly, keeping close to the high hedge. We all went around to the back entrance. There the chief constable began to give his men orders, and the real reporter led Miss Watts and me into a grape-arbor, about fifty feet from the house.
"This is where we've got to stay," he whispered, pulling us inside and closing the door. "We can see them come out, and get the other details from Conroy, who's in charge."
The police were creeping closer to the house. Three of them took places outside while the rest went forward. First there was a long silence; then a sudden rush and crash—shouts and words that we didn't catch. Gleams of light flashed up for a minute—then disappeared. The men stationed outside the house ran toward the cellar. There was the flashing of more light, and at last the police came out with their prisoners—and the whole thing was over. There had not been a pistol-shot.
I was as warm as toast in my wet clothes, but my teeth were chattering with excitement, and I knew Miss Watts was excited, too, by the grip of her hand on my shoulder. The men came toward us through the rain on their way to the gate, and Mr. Conroy's voice sounded as if he had been running a race. But he hadn't. He had been right there.
"Well, Miss Watts, we've got 'em," he crowed. "A nice little gang of amachur counterfeiters. They've been visitin' you for 'most a year, snug and cozy; but I guess this is the end of your troubles."
Miss Watts walked out into the rain and, taking a policeman's electric bull's-eye, looked at the prisoners one by one. I followed her and looked, too, while the real reporter talked to Mr. Conroy. There were three counterfeiters, and they were all handcuffed and looked young. It could not have been very hard for six policemen to take them. One of them had blood on his face, and another was covered with mud, as if he had been rolled in it. Miss Watts asked the bloody one, who was also the biggest one, if his gang had really worked in a secret cellar at Ferncliff for a year. He said it had been there about ten months.
"Then you were there all winter?" Miss Watts asked him. "And you were so safe and comfortable that when the tenants moved in and you found they were all women, except a stupid butler, you decided to scare them away and stay right along?"
The man muttered something that seemed to mean that she was right. The real reporter interrupted, looking busy and worried again. "Miss Watts," he said, quickly, "can't we go right into your house and send this story to the Searchlight over your telephone? It's a quarter to one, and there isn't a minute to lose. The Searchlight goes to press in an hour. I've got all the facts," he added, in a peaceful tone.