"Capital! Then we can get out through it, of course, without going through the scullery."
I had not thought of that. I opened the window, and she was through it in two cautious strides.
"Now," she said, looking back at me, "I'm comparatively safe for the moment, and so is the matting. But before we do anything more, get a duster—a person like you is sure to have a duster in a drawer. Just so, there it is. Now wipe up the marks of my muddy feet in the room we first came into as well as this, and then see to the paint of the window. I have probably smirched it. Then roll up the Times tight, and put it in the waste-paper basket."
She watched me obey her.
"Having obliterated all traces of crime," she said when I had finished, "suppose we go on to the stable. Let me help you through the window. I will wipe my hands on the grass first. And would not you be wise to put on that little shawl I see on the sofa? It is getting cold."
The window was only a yard from the ground, and I got out somehow, encumbered in my shawl, which a grateful reader had crocheted for me. She had, however, to help me in again directly I was out, for, between us, we had forgotten the stable key, which was underneath the cushion of my armchair.
The rest was plain sailing. We stole down the garden path to the stable, and I unlocked the door and let her in.
"Kindly lock me in and take away the key," she said, vanishing past me into the darkness, and I thought I detected a tone of relief in her brisk, matter-of-fact voice.
"I will bring some food as soon as I can," I whispered. "If I knock three times, you will know it's only me."
"Don't knock at all," she said; "it might be noticed. Why should you knock to go into your own stable?"