Roger read it over.
"We'd better write Bill's letter," he said, "and get it off. We—it wouldn't do to have Bill worried, you know."
So we went into the house and wrote Bill's letter. We explained everything—how stupid they'd all found our party and that this was only a form of revenge.
"Suppose," Roger said as I sealed it, "suppose they get excited and send for the police?"
That stumped us. It was one thing to give them a bad night, and telephone them in the morning that it was a joke and that I'd gone direct from Carrie's to mother's, which was the arrangement. But Carrie was a great one for getting in detectives. You remember, the time her sister was married, that Carrie had a detective in the house for a week before the wedding watching the presents, and how at the last minute the sister wanted to marry the detective, who was a good-looking boy, and they had a dreadful time getting her to the church.
We both thought intently for quite a time.
"We must cut the telephone wire, Roger," I said at length.
Roger was not eager about cutting the telephone. He said he would probably be shocked to death, although if he could find a pair of rubber overshoes he'd take the risk.
"It ought to be done the very last thing," he said. "No use rousing their suspicions early."
We played up hard all afternoon. Roger kissed the lump of sugar he put in my tea, and went and sulked on the parapet when Peter Arundel came and sat beside me. Carrie joined him there, and I could see her talking earnestly to him while Roger looked out over the landscape with eyes that were positively sombre.