See me! Of course he did. His eyes as well as his ears were as sharp as a Red Indian’s—I can’t find a better comparison—and a smile, half-triumphant, half-impish, broke over his face as he looked at me. He nodded reassuringly, and I think he was just going to speak, when suddenly, in the flash of a lightning gleam, it seemed to me, his whole expression changed. The smile vanished, a look almost of terror came over his face; he made a frantic gesture to me, which I interpreted rightly enough to mean, “get out of the way; hide yourself,” and disappeared as completely as if he had not been there at all.
For half a second I stood, dazed and completely bewildered—rubbing my eyes to make sure that I had seen him, that the whole thing had not been an extraordinary optical delusion, born of my nervous anxiety, or—worse still—could it have been not Moore himself, but his ghost that I had seen? After all, what might not have happened to him in that mysterious secret house? There was something abnormal about it, or rather about the lives of its inhabitants. Why, oh why had I told the boy anything about it, I thought with momentary anguish. But another instant reassured me as to this last foolish terror. It was Moore himself—he had smiled in the mischievous way he sometimes did. How grateful I felt for that smile!
All these thoughts, as will readily be understood by those who have gone through similar crises, had flashed across my mind in far less time than it takes to write them.
The reason for Moore’s alarm and sudden gesture of warning to me was still a mystery, when, as I stood motionless, awaiting I knew not what, there reached my ears a sound which, from where he was, he had become aware of some moments before—it was that of measured footsteps, slowly advancing from the inner end of the long conservatory. And then I realised my situation, and the necessity for effacing myself. I glanced around me. Moore had evidently taken refuge behind some of the plants inside, but I dared not follow him. Probably enough, there would only have been room to conceal one of us in the corner he had descried; for all I knew, he might be stretched on the ground at full length; a boy of his size is at great advantage in such a quandary, and Moore was not one to stick at much, at a pinch. No, less than an instant’s reflection satisfied me that I must remain out of doors, and I pressed my way behind the greenery, at the part which appeared to me the thickest.
“There is not much fear of him or them”—for it seemed to me that the footsteps were those of more than one person, though accompanied by the tap of the crutch that I had heard on a previous occasion—“coming out,” I thought. “It is getting chilly, and the cripple Mr Grey is very delicate.” And I breathed a little more freely once I felt myself screened among the bushes; fortunately, too, my dress was dark.
Still my heart beat very much faster than usual as I heard the steps coming nearer and nearer. By peeping out cautiously I could see two figures at last, as they reached the open glass door and stood there. They were those of the brothers. How I prayed that they might remain where they were; but such was not to be the case. They halted for a moment or two on the threshold, as if undecided whether to turn or walk on, then, to my unspeakable consternation, they passed out along the tonnelle past the very spot which I had only just quitted a moment or two before! Instinctively I drew myself together as if to grow as small as possible, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of being heard.
But they were talking, as I soon perceived, and to my further satisfaction, in absorbed though low tones—so absorbed that I question if any little unusual sound would have caught their attention, and after all, some slight rustling among the dripping leaves would have explained any disturbance I might involuntarily have caused.
My ears, however, were terribly on the alert, whatever theirs were not. I was in an agony lest Moore should betray his whereabouts. My fears for him and myself had completely swamped my curiosity. So it will be believed that I had no wish to overhear what the newcomers were saying. I would have stopped my ears if I had dared to do so, though, ashamed as I was of our position, I do not think it struck me in any very acute way at the time that I was forced into playing the part of an eavesdropper. And I really do not believe that in my intense engrossment I would have noticed the words that fell from the brothers, but for a peculiar circumstance—that of the mention of our own name!
One’s own name, it is said, always catches one’s attention more readily than any other word.
“Fitzmaurice,” I heard the younger brother say, as if repeating it thoughtfully, though not in any tone of surprise. “Oh yes, I agree with you, but—”