“And I thought you did not want to be considered a burglar?” she said as she passed hastily in at the door.
“Oh, well, we’re in for it now,” Darry called after her. “Be as quick as you can.”
Jessie found a door open at the top of the flight. Henrietta was chattering at top speed somewhere ahead. The rooms were dark, but when found the room in which Henrietta was, she likewise found a girl bound to a chair in which she sat, with a towel tied across her mouth which muffled her speech.
“Here’s Bertha! Here’s Bertha!” cried Henrietta eagerly.
Jessie had the girl free and the towel off in half a minute. She saw then that the prisoner was the girl she and Amy had seen carried away by Martha Poole and Sadie Bothwell, out of Dogtown Lane.
“Oh, Miss! is this little Hennie? And have you come to take me away?” gasped Bertha.
“Surely. Are you Bertha Blair?”
“Yes, ma’am. Hennie calls me Bertha Haney. For I lived with her mom after my mother died. But my name’s Blair.”
“My father is Robert Norwood, the lawyer,” said Jessie swiftly. “He wants you to testify in court about what you heard when that old man made his will at Mrs. Poole’s house.”
“Oh! You mean Mr. Abel Ellison? A gentleman came and asked me about that once, and then Mrs. Poole said I’d got to keep my mouth shut about it or she’d put me away somewhere so that I’d never get away.”