I fell to wondering whether my innocence would stand me in good stead, providing it vindicated me and secured my release from the lock-up? The lock-up was surely proving a sanctuary—and my uncle’s threats had been horrible ones.
Then the crowd which had been hanging around the place with a sort of hope, I suppose, that my uncle would be able to get at me, went away, for the hour was late. Mr. Detective went, too. So did Constable Nute, who was the village night-watch and had his rounds to make. They considered the cage a secure one, I suppose, for there were big bolts on the door and iron bars on the windows.
I sat on a stool and mourned my lot as a prisoner, when I was not dreading my release to be a victim of my incensed uncle. A good many times I had watched Bart Flanders bring a trapped rat up from his cellar and set it free in the village square for the entertainment of his terrier. I was in a position to sympathize with trapped rats.
In the silence of the night something clicked on the glass of a window and a voice outside hailed me cautiously. My first thought was that the Skokums had come to rescue me, and I was not especially pleased, for I felt that they would be impelled more by the spirit of vandalism than by any love for me. I did not answer.
Then the window-frame grunted and squeaked and I saw that somebody was prying with a chisel. I rose from the stool and saw the face of Dodovah Vose.
“I take it that it’s another job they have put up on you, young Sidney.”
“Yes, it is, Mr. Vose,” I cried, and I began to whimper. I couldn’t help it. He spoke as if he understood, as if he were a friend. “I was trying to stop their devilishness, and they—”
“You needn’t bother about going into details—not with me, young Sidney. I have been watching you lately. You have been a good boy. I know you haven’t been rampaging round town nights. No matter about telling me anything. There’s no time to listen. Nute may be drifting back here any minute.”
He was working with his chisel while he was talking.
He pried a couple of bars out of the rotten wood. He pushed the window up.