“Perhaps I can find out,” said Bessie. “You stay here, and I’ll slip along toward the house. If Dolly’s awake, I can find out where she is.”
“All right. But if you see anyone else, or if anyone interferes with you, call me right away.”
Bessie promised that she would, and then she slipped away, and a moment later found herself in front of the house.
“I’ll try this side last,” she said to herself. “I don’t believe they’d put them in front–more likely they’d put them on the east side, because that only looks out over the garden, and there’d be less chance of their seeing anyone who was coming.”
So, moving stealthily and as silently as a cat, she went around to that side of the house, and a moment later the strange, mournful call of a whip-poor-will sounded in the still night air. It was repeated two or three times, but there was no answer. Then Bessie changed her calling slightly.
At first she had imitated the bird perfectly. But this time there was a false note in the call–just the slightest degree off the true pitch of the bird’s note. Most people would not have known the difference, but to a trained ear that slight imperfection would be enough to reveal the fact that it was a human throat that was responsible, and not a bird’s. And the trick served its turn, for there was an instant answer. A window was opened above Bessie, very gently, and she saw Dolly’s head peering down over the ivy that grew up the wall.
“Wait there!” she whispered. “Get dressed, all three of you! Mr. Jamieson is here–not far away. I’m going to tell him where you are.”
She marked the location of the window carefully, and then, sure that she would remember it when she returned, went back to Jamieson.
“Did you locate them? Good work!” he said. “All right. Go back now and tell them to make a rope of their sheets–good and strong. I saw where you were standing, and, if they lower that, I don’t think we will have any trouble getting up to their window. I want to be inside that house–and I don’t want Holmes to know I’m there until I’m ready.” He chuckled. “He thinks I’m back in the city. I want him to have a real surprise when he finally does see me.”
Bessie slipped back then and told Dolly what to do, and in a few minutes the rope of sheets came down, rustling against the ivy. Bessie made the signal she had agreed on with Jamieson at once–a repetition of the bird’s call, and he joined her. Then he picked her up and started her climbing up the wall, with the aid of tie rope and the ivy.