This too was a reasonable presumption. Still I shook my head.
“All the same, we shall be doing a thing we have no right to be doing,” I persisted.
Moore shrugged his shoulders.
“If you go at it like that, there are a good many things we’d better not do,” he said. “We’ve no right to pick mushrooms in old Porson’s fields at home, but no one has ever found fault with us for it.”
“Oh, that’s quite different,” I replied. “However,” for I was anxious to drop the subject as far as possible, knowing by experience that once Moore got into an argument it was not easy to dislodge him without giving in entirely, “the first thing to be done is to look for the door in the wall, for if it is locked, there’s an end to everything,” though as I said the words, Jocelyn’s ominous prediction, “he’d be scaling the walls and goodness only knows what,” returned to my memory. “That was a stupid speech of mine,” I said to myself. “Just the thing to start him on some wild scheme.”
And I now began to hope fervently, from the side of expediency as well as of curiosity, that the door should not be locked.
Moore took no apparent notice of my last remark, but after events proved that he had not only heard, but thoroughly digested it.
We had no opportunity of prosecuting our researches that day or the next. For “to-morrow” turned out an appallingly wet day—so drivingly rainy and wretched, that even Moore’s ardour was damped, and he stayed indoors contentedly enough. I did not know how he was amusing himself, but he told me afterwards that he had been making a “plan” of Grimsthorpe House, or rather of its position and grounds so far as he had been able to get them into his head from his own observations and my descriptions. He had also made preparations for the adventure he was determined not to be balked of, in other ways. He stuffed his pockets with strong cord, an old geological hammer and chisel of Mr Wynyard’s, which he had found in a drawer and taken possession of with Isabel’s leave, a feather and small bottle of oil, and all the unused keys he could lay hands on, and, last not least, in spite of his contempt for my suggestion, a large piece of dog-biscuit, to be on the safe side in case of canine opposition to our visit.
And the next afternoon I found myself “in” for it. There was no evasion of my promise even had I heartily wished to get out of it.
It was not very early when we set off, as I had in the first place been for a drive with Isabel, the doctor having given leave for this as soon as the weather grew milder, and to-day had turned out peculiarly fine after the storms of yesterday.