"I will," said the sergeant with feeling. "Do you mean to tell me that Albert Collins is going to do in the young lady?"
"No, I do not," replied Amberley. "No one is going to do her in if I can help it." He held his wrist in the beam of torchlight and looked at his watch. "To be on the safe side you'd better go up now. Don't make any mistake, will you? Unless he attempts to murder you keep quiet, but try to get a look at him."
The sergeant prepared to go upstairs. "Well, I don't know," he said. "Seems funny to me. I'm trusting you Mr. Amberley, but I don't half like it, and that's the truth."
He went heavily up, and in a few moments a prodigious creaking announced that he had got into bed.
Amberley, left alone in the kitchen, set the door ajar and sat down on one of the wooden chairs and switched off his torch. Only the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece broke the stillness.
The minutes crawled by. Upstairs in Shirley's narrow bed the sergeant strained his ears to catch any sound and wondered why he had not suggested that Mr. Amberley should be the dummy. He did not think he was a nervous man, but waiting in the dark for someone to come and murder one was a bit thick. He made up his mind to speak about it to Mr. Amberley. As ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed he grew impatient. A doubt shook him. Could this be a practical joke, and had that young devil gone off home? He wouldn't put it above him; he had good mind to go downstairs and see whether Amberley was still there. On second thoughts he abandoned the idea. Even Amberley wouldn't do this for a joke.
The wardrobe creaked and gave him a bad fright. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine and hoped that Mr. Amberley was keeping a sharp lookout. He had barely succeeded in convincing himself that the creak really had come from the wardrobe when a long, eerie cry made him start up, clutching at his revolver. The cry was repeated and the sergeant drew a shuddering sigh of relief: He remembered that when he was a lad he had once shot and stuffed an owl. He was very glad he had; he wished he'd shot a few more while he was about it.
He lay down again cautiously. Mr. Amberley was keeping very quiet downstairs. Cool as a cucumber, he wouldn't wonder. Perhaps he wouldn't be quite so cool if he was lying up here waiting for someone to come and try to murder him.
A mouse gnawing at the wainscoting gave the sergeant a moment's uneasiness. He hissed at it, and it stopped.
Then a different sound broke the silence; the sergeant could have sworn he heard the garden gate open. The hinge was rusty and it gave a faint squeak. He took a firm hold of the coverlet and listened.