“I shan’t be in too much of a hurry,” he said, smiling. “It might be as well to see what their new clue amounts to. Possibly there is something suspicious about that Shepherd’s Island camper, after all.”
My heart gave a sudden sick leap. What if there were?—if it had indeed been Ronald Hull who had hidden the jewels under the bank, trusting to luck some day to come back and retrieve them! What if his willingness to go to Adelaide were only a blind?—if he meant not to leave Australia at all, but only to get out of immediate danger here? I thought of poor Mrs. McNab’s face that morning, ten years younger in her utter relief and thankfulness, and I shivered to think that her misery might not be over yet.
“We’ll keep the matter to ourselves for a day or two, at any rate,” Dr. Firth was saying. “You won’t say a word, children?”
“Cross-our-hearts!” said Judy and Jack in chorus.
“That’s all right. I’ll see what the detectives have to say; and meanwhile I’ll put a man of my own to watch this place, in case the man who planted those jewels comes back. Keep out of this part of the bush, you two, until I see you again.”
They promised, wide-eyed. Life was indeed full of glory this week for little Judy and Jack McNab.
“But you won’t wave them at the detectives without us?”
“Cross-my-heart!” said he solemnly. “I’ll bring you and Miss Earle over, and you shall do the waving yourself, and see the sleuth-hounds collapse before you! And now, if you are ready, I think we’d better get home. I shall feel easier in my mind when these three tobacco-tins are locked away in my safe.”
CHAPTER XVII
I USE A POKER
TO anyone who watched unseen, our progress homeward would undoubtedly have presented itself as peculiar. Dr. Firth’s suggestion that the jewels would be more secure in his safe filled Judy and Jack with a vision of the thief coming to find his hidden booty. They scented danger in every clump of scrub, and earnestly demanded of Dr. Firth whether he had a revolver.