“Take them off and carry them,” whispered Billie. “We don’t want to make a sound. By the way, what time is it?”
She slipped her hand under her pillow for her watch. It was gone with their brooches and a locket of Nancy’s which they had tied in the handkerchief.
“I might have known that woman was a thief,” she whispered, “with those fishy, shifting little eyes. Come on quickly. The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
Carrying their shoes in their hands, they tripped cautiously into the hallway. In all the house there was not a sound, and the creaking of their door as they closed it seemed to their excited nerves as loud as the report of a pistol. But they safely cleared one flight of stairs and paused, startled by a long ray of light streaming into the dark hallway through the keyhole of a door leading to a front bedroom. They had just time to crouch in the shadow of the landing when the door was opened quickly and the figure of a man stood silhouetted on the sill.
“Tweedledum is the next, is he?” said a voice within.
“Yes,” answered the man in the doorway.
“Who’s the man?”
“O’Connor, of course. He’ll not be sorry.”
“But he’s a little young. Has he been told?”
“He will be, soon.”