When he had taken two steps he stopped. "I said all his men," he said with a sly note creeping into his voice. "Watch and make sure."
Pen waited in the doorway. Riever stepping off the porch, spoke to Delehanty. Delehanty put a hand to his lips and blew a shrill whistle. Out of various shrubby corners of the grounds figures emerged and approached their chief. Like a scene in a melodrama Pen thought with curling lip. There were six of them. That was the number she had seen enter the grounds.
"Good-night," said Riever in a purring voice.
"Good-night, Miss," fawned Delehanty.
"Good-night, Miss," said Keesing, taking his tone from his betters.
"Good-night," said Pen clearly.
They all moved off in a body towards the gates.
Pen smiling scornfully, turned back up-stairs. "What sort of an imbecile do they take me for? ... Presently they'll come sneaking back... Expect me to lead them to him, do they?" Suddenly the quality of her smile changed. "Well why not do it? ... It's the best idea I've had yet..." She went into her room in a study.
The big house was laid out on the simplest of plans. As you entered the front door the two drawing-rooms were on the left of the central hall, and an immense dining-room on the right, with a pantry behind it as big as the living-room in many a cottage. In the rear extension were the kitchen and various offices. The second floor was divided into four great chambers of equal size and a smaller room over the entrance where Pen kept her sewing-machine. Her father slept in the room over the dining-room. It had a door into the room behind it, which was his study, work-shop and general receptacle. Pen had the other front room and it also communicated with the room behind it, which was called the guest chamber. The door between the two rooms was always supposed to be locked.
The second floor of the rear extension was on a lower level. That is to say you started down the big stairway and reached the rear rooms from the turn. The extension contained the famous bathroom long out of repair, various cupboards and store-rooms, and the two servants' rooms which looked to the rear. In the main block of the house there was a third story with four more big bedrooms, and above that again was the "cupalow."