He ran down to the end of the terrace and stood under a lamp that he might brace himself for the final effort.
Meanwhile, Peter, swollen with importance at the thought of the mighty sensation he would make in a minute or two, stood squeezed against the hinge of the door waiting for the fateful ring.
Then came a patter of light feet down the area steps and someone gave the bell a modest pull. Peter drew open the door with great suddenness upon himself, exclaiming in a deep and tragic voice, the result of long practice in solitary attics:
“You had better go for the police; I have killed your master!”
The visitor gave a piercing shriek and rushed up the steps again, calling breathlessly upon Heaven and the police. Peter, behind the door, wagged his head, exclaiming admiratively:
“How well that kid does act; I could almost declare I heard skirts rustling.”
Peter waited awhile for his brother to return and be congratulated, but Tod didn’t appear, so he concluded that he had gone round to the front door and come in that way; besides, the servants were just due from church, and cook would be cross if she found him in her domain. He ran upstairs and waited for his twin in the drawing-room. His mother looked up from her letters and smiled at the little figure tip-toeing on the hearth-rug to admire himself in the glass. Then scratch, scratch went her pen again.
Now, Ada, the housemaid, has a dear friend in service at the other end of the terrace, and she attends a church where the sermons are shorter than those at the one frequented by Peter’s household. On this particular Sunday she got out of church quite early and thought she would see whether Ada happened to be in. Thus, while Tod with lagging feet crept slowly down the terrace from one end, she was already fleeing affrightedly to the other in search of the nearest policeman.
She found him at the pillar-box, and fell into his stalwart arms, crying hysterically:
“Oh, come quick! There’s bin murder done at Number 9. Someone’s bin an’ killed the marster!”