“And I’m not going to do such a thing this time,” he continued. “Besides, it would be a mean sort of trick to start anything on my own account, and keep you out of the fun.”
“It is not fun I am thinking of,” I replied, with some indignation.
“Oh well, you know what I mean. You’d like awfully to find out what is at the bottom of it all, and so would I. We needn’t say more than that. I don’t suppose we shall find out anything, but the mere idea of it is so interesting. I wonder what the house is like inside. Are the windows barred, do you know?”
“Not that I have seen,” I replied. “Certainly not on the side where Isabel and I were. And you can see for yourself that there’s nothing of the kind on this side,” for, as I said, we were standing on the hilly ground from which two sides of the Grim House were fairly well within view. “No, Moore, I don’t believe in your theory of some one being shut up there. It would have come out to a certainty through the servants. I told you they have no old servants of their own; they just get them in the neighbourhood like other people.”
Moore whistled softly and swung his legs about. When I said we were “standing,” I should rather have said “sitting,” he on the top of a high gate, the entrance to a sloping field, I on the lower step of a stile at one side. I detected a note of incredulity in his manner.
“No,” I repeated, “I am certain there is no one shut up there—not even a—”
“What?”
“Oh I don’t know—a tiger, or a pet boa constrictor, as there was in a story I read the other day,” I said carelessly. “Anything you like. No, there is nothing in that idea, Moore.”
“Well,” he replied, “we shall see, or very likely we shall not see. But at worst I’m determined to have a go at finding out something before I leave Millflowers, and of course you will help me, Reggie. You see I can’t do anything on my own account because of my promise to you.”
I trusted him, yet I felt uneasy, and almost began to regret my confidences. He would certainly not mean to break his word, but still—he might be sorely tempted, and he was only a boy. If, for instance, he was passing the door in the wall and found it ajar, what boy nature could resist, like Bluebeard’s wife, peeping in; and once within the enchanted precincts! No, I had myself to thank for it; I had laid the train, and I must see to the consequences.