“Don’t you think we might go now?”
I agreed, and we were on the point of stealing away, when another little incident revived our curiosity, and made us stop short. We heard a whistle; in response to it the cripple raised himself from bending over a flower-bed and listened. The whistle was repeated, and then Mr Grey called out—
“Here I am—waiting for you.”
“Your brother wants you for a moment,” was the reply, in a man’s voice undoubtedly, though assuredly not that of a servant. “He won’t keep us long, and then we can—” But the rest of the sentence was inaudible.
The cripple moved in the direction of the voice, and as he turned the corner of the house, the tap of his crutches growing fainter, we heard a cheery voice greeting him and the sound of laughter, to our amazement, reached our ears.
“There now!” I exclaimed. “Perhaps you’ll be convinced at last, Isabel! There is a fifth person living in that house.”
“Wait till we are outside to talk about it, for goodness’ sake,” said Isabel. “I never knew any one so impulsive as you are, Regina.”
But I was too elated by what I considered our successful investigations, even though to some extent they had but deepened the mystery, to take offence.
We closed the door in the wall cautiously, for I was rather afraid of its shutting with a spring, and thus debarring us from ever making use of it again. And as soon as we were safely outside I took up the thread of my discourse.
“You see, Isabel,” I went on, “the person who whistled and called was a man evidently, and a gentleman, and assuredly not the elder brother, as he spoke of him. I believe in my heart that it was the very man I met the other day—possibly the one you met some time ago.”