“While you're whistling it,” answered the man eagerly.
“And I'm as quick at a tune as him,” assured the other anxiously. “I can sing——”
“You cannot,” interrupted Ford. “I'm going to do the singing myself. Where is there a public-house near here where we can hire a back room, and rehearse?”
Half an hour later, Ford and the piano-player entered Sowell Street dragging the piano behind them. The amateur detective still wore his rain-coat, but his hat he had exchanged for a cap, and, instead of a collar, he had knotted around his bare neck a dirty kerchief. At the end of the street they halted, and in some embarrassment Ford raised his voice in the chorus of a song well known in the music-halls. It was a very good voice, much too good for “open-air work,” as his companion had already assured him, but, what was of chief importance to Ford, it carried as far as he wished it to go. Already in Wimpole Street four coins of the realm, flung to him from the highest windows, had testified to its power. From the end of Sowell Street Ford moved slowly from house to house until he was directly opposite the three in one of which he believed the girl to be. “We will try the NEW songs here,” he said.
Night had fallen, and, except for the gas-lamps, the street was empty, and in such darkness that even without his disguise Ford ran no risk of recognition. His plan was not new. It dated from the days of Richard the Lion-hearted. But if the prisoner were alert and intelligent, even though she could make no answer, Ford believed through his effort she would gain courage, would grasp that from the outside a friend was working toward her. All he knew of the prisoner was that she came from Kentucky. Ford fixed his eyes on the houses opposite, and cleared his throat. The man struck the opening chords, and in a high barytone, and in a cockney accent that made even the accompanist grin, Ford lifted his voice.
“The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home,” he sang; “'tis summer, and the darkies are gay.”
He finished the song, but there was no sign. For all the impression he had made upon Sowell Street, he might have been singing in his chambers. “And now the other,” commanded Ford.
The house-fronts echoed back the cheering notes of “Dixie.” Again Ford was silent, and again The silence answered him. The accompanist glared disgustedly at the darkened windows.
“They don't know them songs,” he explained professionally. “Give 'em, 'Mollie Married the Marquis.'”
“I'll sing the first one again,” said Ford. Once more he broke into the pathetic cadences of the “Old Kentucky Home.” But there was no response. He was beginning to feel angry, absurd. He believed he had wasted precious moments, and, even as he sang, his mind was already working upon a new plan. The song ceased, unfinished.