“There is really nothing to do,” I began, trying, now that it was too late, to wet-blanket the boy’s curiosity.
“There’s lots to find out,” he interrupted. “You have been thinking and wondering ever so much about it yourself. You know you have. And if I keep my promise, as of course I shall, you mustn’t fight off poking about a bit, to see what we can see. We needn’t get into mischief or bother anybody. Isabel and her father need never know we go near the place. I should never do anything half as risky as you and she did the other day.”
“What is it you want to do?” I asked, with a curious mixture of feelings. I was afraid, though I scarcely knew what I was afraid of, and yet in a sense pleased to be, as it were, forced into prosecuting some investigation into the mystery which had so fascinated my imagination.
Moore did not at once reply. At some risk to his equilibrium, he managed to raise himself to a standing position on one of the higher bars of the gate, and gazed before him intently. Of course I did not need to be told in what direction he was gazing.
“It seems to me,” he said at last, “so far as I can understand from your description the spot where the door is—it seems to me that if we got in by it, we could creep round to the front of the house—I mean to a part from where we could have a good view of the front, and see the windows and anything there is to be seen—behind the bushes, without coming out into the open at all. That would be grand, wouldn’t it, Reggie?”
My first impulse was to exclaim delightedly in agreement, but there came misgivings again. I had not, so far, contemplated anything so audacious. Still, Moore, as he turned towards me interrogatively, must have seen the gleam in my eyes. He was as sharp as a needle.
“Oh,” I replied, “that would really be trespass. We must not do as much as that—just supposing we were seen? What could we say for ourselves?”
“Just supposing we are not seen,” he said with boyish pertness. “Nonsense, Reggie—trust me for that.”
“Or if there are dogs about,” I went on.
“You’d have seen them, or they would have scented you that other day to a certainty. Besides, if there were, dogs always like me. I can always smooth them down,” which was true enough. I had seen it tested more than once. Moore was one of those persons naturally gifted with a curious power over animals. “I don’t say,” he continued, evidently anxious to impress me with his caution and sobriety of judgment, “that I’d care to tackle a bloodhound or even a mastiff. But it’s most unlikely that they have any fellows of the kind about the place. It would be known.”