“Pollie,” I exclaimed, “it’s that nice policeman!”
“Hush! What if it is?”
What if it is? Everything—to me. It meant the flight of mystery, and an opportunity to breathe again. If I could have had my way I would have rushed out into the back yard and hugged him. But Pollie was so cold, and—when she liked and her precious Tom wasn’t concerned—so self-contained. She froze me. I could hear his dear big feet stamping across the yard. He thumped against the door—and I perhaps within an inch of him and not allowed to say a word.
“Inside there! Is there anyone in there?” There was; there was me. I longed to tell him so, only Pollie’s grasp closed so tightly on my arm—I knew it would be black and blue in the morning—that I did not dare. “Isn’t there a bell or a knocker? This seems to be a queer sort of a house. There’s something fishy about the place, or I’m mistaken.”
I could have assured him that he was not mistaken, and would if it had not been for Pollie. I could picture him in my mind’s eyes flashing the rays of his bull’s-eye lantern in search of something by means of which he could acquaint the inhabitants within of his presence there without—in his innocence! As if we did not know that he was there. For some minutes—it seemed hours to me—he prowled about, patiently looking for what he could not find. Then, giving up the quest in despair, he strode across the yard, climbed heavily over the wall, stamped along the passage; we could hear his footsteps even in the street beyond.
Then I ventured to use my tongue.
“Pollie, why wouldn’t you let me speak to him? Why wouldn’t you let me tell him we were here?”
“And a nice fuss there’d have been. No, thanks, my dear. Before I call in the assistance of the police I should like to turn the matter over in my mind. It begins to strike me that where my Uncle Benjamin had reasons for concealment, I may have reasons too, at any rate until I know just what there is to conceal.”
“In the meanwhile, how are we to get out of here? We’re trapped.”
“It’s the ingenuity with which Uncle Ben, or somebody, has guarded the approach to his, or, rather, my, premises which makes it clear to me that there may be something about the place on which it may be as well not to be in too great a hurry to turn the searchlight of a policeman’s eye. As to getting out of this—we’ll see.”