And now, this afternoon, she looked at the rosewood chiffonnier with longing eyes—she even gave that pretty little piece of furniture a slight shake. If only the doors would fly open, as the locked doors of old cupboards sometimes do, even after they have been securely fastened, how pleased she would be, how much more comfortable somehow she would feel!
But the chiffonnier refused to give up its secret.
About eight o’clock on that same evening Joe Chandler came in, just for a few minutes’ chat. He had recovered from his agitation of the morning, but he was full of eager excitement, and Mrs. Bunting listened in silence, intensely interested in spite of herself, while he and Bunting talked.
“Yes,” he said, “I’m as right as a trivet now! I’ve had a good rest—laid down all this afternoon. You see, the Yard thinks there’s going to be something on to-night. He’s always done them in pairs.”
“So he has,” exclaimed Bunting wonderingly. “So he has! Now, I never thought o’ that. Then you think, Joe, that the monster’ll be on the job again to-night?”
Chandler nodded. “Yes. And I think there’s a very good chance of his being caught too—”
“I suppose there’ll be a lot on the watch to-night, eh?”
“I should think there will be! How many of our men d’you think there’ll be on night duty to-night, Mr. Bunting?”
Bunting shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said helplessly.
“I mean extra,” suggested Chandler, in an encouraging voice.