“I don’t know,” answered Dick gloomily. “Sh! Keep quiet.”
But they had already been seen. In a very short time the men in the yard below had found their way up, and Freda and her companion found themselves flanked on either side by a stalwart policeman.
“Hallo!” cried a voice from the court-yard, which Freda recognised as Thurley’s, “have you got him?”
Dick said nothing, but Freda, moved by a sudden, overpowering impulse, threw her arms round his neck and cried aloud:
“No, no!”
Thurley spoke again, in a hard, altered voice.
“Bring them both down here,” he said sharply.
But Dick would not suffer a strange man’s hand to touch the girl.
“I will take her down,” he said quietly.
And, escorted by a policeman in front and another behind, they made their way down into the court-yard, and were conducted to John Thurley, who, with a police-officer in plain clothes, evidently took the lead in this expedition.