The noise was worse than appalling. Little Pax, unable to express his conflicting emotions in any other way, yelled with agonising delight. Even the hardened spirit of Bones trembled with mingled feelings of alarm and surprise. He found and grasped the coveted box, and leaped out of the window with a bound. It is highly probable that he would have got clear off but for the involuntary action of Miss Lillycrop. As that lady’s marrow waxed warm she dashed the great bell against the window-sill with such fervour that it flew from her grasp and descended full on the burglar’s cranium, just as he leaped into the arms of the policeman, and both fell heavily to the ground. The guardian of the night immediately jumped up uninjured, but Bones lay prone on the green sward—stunned by the bell.
“That’s well done, anyhow, an’ saved me a world o’ trouble,” said the constable, looking up at the window as he held the burglar down, though there was little necessity for that. “You couldn’t shy me over a bit of rope, could you, ma’am?”
Miss Stivergill, to whom nothing seemed difficult, and who had by that time stopped her share in the noise, went into a cupboard and fetched thence a coil of rope.
“I meant it to be used in the event of fire,” she said quietly to her friend, who had thrown herself flat on her bed, “but it will serve other purposes as well.—There, policeman.”
She threw it down, and when Bones recovered consciousness he found himself securely tied and seated in a chair in the Rosebud kitchen—the policeman looking at him with interest, and the domestics with alarm. Miss Stivergill regarded him with calm severity.
“Now he’s quite safe, ma’am, but I can’t venture to take ’im to the station alone. If you’ll kindly consent to keep an eye on him, ma’am, till I run down for a comrade, I’ll be greatly obleeged. There’s no fear of his wrigglin’ out o’ that, ma’am; you may make your mind easy.”
“My mind is quite easy, policeman; you may go. I shall watch him.”
When the man had left, Miss Stivergill ordered the servants to leave the kitchen. Little Pax, who had discreetly kept out of range of the burglar’s eye, went with them, a good deal depressed in spirit, for his mission had failed. The burglary had not indeed, been accomplished, but—“father” was “took.”
When Miss Stivergill was left alone with the burglar she gazed at him for some time in silence.
“Man,” she said at length, “you are little Bones’s father.”