THE CHEATED JULIET.
BY Q.
Extracted from the Memoirs of a Retired Burglar.
The house in question was what Peter the Scholar (who corrects my proof-sheets) calls one of the rusinurby sort—the front facing a street and the back looking over a turfed garden with a lime tree or two, a laburnum, and a lawn-tennis court marked out, its white lines plain to see in the starlight. At the end of the garden a door, painted dark green, led into a narrow lane between high walls, where, if two persons met, one had to turn sideways to let the other pass. The entrance to this lane was cut in two by a wooden post about the height of your hip, and just beyond this, in the high road, George was waiting for us with the dog-cart.
We had picked the usual time—the dinner-hour. It had just turned dark, and the church-clock, two streets away, was chiming the quarter after eight, when Peter and I let ourselves in by the green door I spoke of and felt along the wall for the gardener's ladder that we knew was hanging there. A simpler job there never was. The bedroom window we had marked on the first-floor stood right open to the night air; and inside there was the light of a candle or two flickering, just as a careless maid will leave them after her mistress has gone down to dinner. To be sure there was a chance of her coming back to put them out; but we could hear her voice going in the servants' hall as we lifted the ladder and rested it against the sill.
"She's good for half a hour yet," Peter whispered, holding the ladder while I began to climb; "but if I hear her voice stop, I'll give the signal to be cautious."
I went up softly, pushed my head gently above the level of the sill, and looked in.
It was a roomy place with a great half-tester bed, hung with curtains, standing out from the wall on my right. The curtains were of chintz, a dark background with flaming red poppies sprawling over it; and the further curtain hid the dressing-table, and the candles upon it and the jewel-case that I confidently hoped to stand upon it also. A bright Brussels carpet covered the floor, and the wall-paper, I remember—though for the life of me I can't tell why—was a pale grey ground, worked up to imitate watered silk, with sprigs of gilt honeysuckle upon it.
I looked round and listened for half a minute. The house was still as death up here—not a sound in the room or in the passages beyond. With a nod to Peter to hold the ladder firm I lifted one leg over the sill, then the other, dropped my feet carefully upon the thick carpet and went quickly round the bed to the dressing-table.
But at the corner, and as soon as ever I saw round the chintz curtain, my knees gave way, and I put out a hand towards the bed-post.