William—the good

WILLIAM and Ginger walked slowly down the village street. They were discussing with much animation some burglaries that had lately taken place in the village.

“Robert says,” said William, “that he b’lieves that it’s not ordin’ry robbers at all an’ that he b’lieves that it’s people livin’ in the place, people what seem all right an’ go about doin’ shoppin’ an’ goin’ to church an’ going out to tea same as orn’ery people. He’s been readin’ a book where that happened—someone what was churchwarden in the daytime an’ went out stealin’ at night. Robert says that he’s goin’ to try to find out who it is.”

“I bet I know why he wants to find out who it is,” said Ginger with a note of bitterness in his voice.

“Why?” challenged William.

“’Cause of that Miss Bellairs,” said Ginger.

Miss Bellairs was Robert’s latest inamorata. Robert’s love affairs were of such a kaleidoscopic nature that William had long ago ceased to trouble to keep up with them but not even William had been able quite to ignore the affair with Miss Bellairs. Miss Bellairs was an (in William’s eye) elderly woman of about twenty who had come to stay in the village with her aunt. Her aunt had a son who was the object of Robert’s deadly jealousy. So much William knew, and he knew it only because it was impossible to live in the same house as Robert and not know it. He took no interest in it. He did not know or care where the girl’s aunt lived or what she was called or anything else about the matter whatsoever. He was annoyed at Ginger’s remark, suspecting a hidden insult in it.

“What d’you know about that?” he said aggressively.

“I know ’cause Hector’s potty on her too,” said Ginger dejectedly.

Hector was Ginger’s elder brother. He was (in the Outlaw’s eyes) as lacking in sanity and consideration for his youngers as are all elder brothers.

William’s aggressiveness vanished. He felt drawn to Ginger by a common bond of misfortune and shame.

“Can’t make out what makes ’em act like that about her,” he said with fierce exasperation in his voice. “I’ve seen her an’ she looks perfectly orn’ery to me.”

“Me, too,” agreed Ginger with heartfelt emphasis, and added scornfully. “Girls! I’m jolly well not goin’ to speak to a girl ’cept what you have to all my life.”

“Same here,” agreed William.

This agreement seemed to form a yet closer bond between them and, each feeling cheered and invigorated by the knowledge that the world held at least one person of intelligence besides himself, they returned to the subject of the burglaries. They discussed burglaries in general and the present village burglaries in particular. They discussed burglary as a career and finally decided that it was less exciting than that of piracy though more exciting than that of engine driver—careers to which they had always inclined.

They had been walking aimlessly along the road without noticing particularly where they were going, and they discovered suddenly that they were passing Ginger’s aunt’s house.

“Let’s see if we can see her parrot,” said Ginger. “It’ll probably be in the front room.”

They crept cautiously up to the window. Ginger’s aunt was what is known as “house proud” and Ginger—leaver of muddy boot marks and sticky finger marks, breaker of nearly everything he touched—knew that he was not a welcome visitor to her house. He was not at all sensitive to shades of manner, but she had left him in no doubt at all on that subject.

Therefore he crept furtively up to her front window in order to enjoy the intriguing spectacle of his aunt’s parrot hopping up and down upon its perch and uttering malicious chuckles.

“I bet she’s out,” said Ginger. “She always goes out shopping in the mornings. Let’s open the window an’ listen to it.”

They opened the window cautiously and put their heads inside. The parrot began to jump up and down on his perch still more excitedly when he saw them.

“Hello, Polly!” said William encouragingly.

“Oh, shut up,” said the parrot.

This delighted his visitors.

“Go on, Polly,” encouraged Ginger. “Go on! Say something else.”

“Get out, you old fool,” said the parrot with a snigger.

“Jolly good, isn’t it?” said Ginger proudly. “And it’s quite tame. It comes out an’ sits on your finger. My aunt lets me take it out and hold it. At least,” he corrected himself, “she used to before that last vase got broke. How could I know,” he added bitterly, “that a vase would fall off the hall table on to the floor an’ get broke simply with me comin’ downstairs?”

William made a vague sound suggestive of sympathy but he was not really interested in the disastrous reverberations of Ginger’s footfall. He was interested in the parrot.

“I bet it doesn’t jus’ sit quietly on your finger,” he said. “It knows her finger, of course, but I bet if you took it out it wouldn’t sit quiet on yours.”

“It would,” affirmed Ginger aggressively.

“Easy to say that,” said William, “when you know that you can’t try.”

“I can try,” said Ginger. “She’s out shoppin’, anyway. She always is in the morning. I bet you anythin’ it’ll sit quiet on my finger. It won’t take a second. Let’s jus’ get in an’ see.”

He raised the window and with a cautious glance around the room entered. William followed. The parrot gave its most vulgar snigger and said: “Oh, shut up.” It was certainly an attractive bird....

With another hasty glance round Ginger opened the catch of the cage and put out his finger ready for the bird to alight upon.

The bird said: “Get out, you old fool,” and hopped obligingly on to Ginger’s finger.

“There!” said Ginger proudly standing with his arm outstretched. “There! What did I tell you?”

For a second he stood like that with an indescribable swagger in his pose, holding out the bird at arm’s length. For a second only. At the end of a second the bird suddenly spread its wings and without any warning at all flew straight out of the window. The swagger dropped incontinently from Ginger’s pose. He gazed at the open window, his freckled face pale, his mouth open.

“Crumbs!” he gasped.

“Crumbs!” echoed William.

Then both of them dived simultaneously through the window into the garden.

There they gazed around them. The parrot was sitting quite calmly on a low bush in the next-door neighbour’s garden.

The two Outlaws crept up to the fence and climbing over it, approached the parrot. The parrot awaited their approach, chuckling his most malicious chuckle. He let them come up quite close to him. He waited till Ginger had put out a hand to grab him, and then with a combination of his malicious chuckle and his vulgar snigger he flew off from under Ginger’s very hand through the open window into the next-door house.

“Crumbs!” said Ginger again in a tone of helpless horror.

William crept cautiously up to the window.

“I can see him,” he whispered, “he’s sittin’ on the piano.”

“Is there anyone in the room?” whispered Ginger from behind the laurel bush where he had taken cover.

“No. No one. Just a lot of chairs. I’ll go in an’ fetch him. I’ll jus’ get in at this window an’ fetch him. I’ll——”

He was cautiously pushing up the window.

“I’ll come too,” volunteered Ginger somewhat dispiritedly. Mental visions of his aunt when she discovered that her pet was missing were beginning to haunt him.

“No. Best let only one go alone,” said William, “then if anything happens to me you’ll be safe to go on lookin’ for it.”

William’s spirits were rising at the prospects of an adventure.

He swung himself over the sill and found himself in a small drawing-room. It was full of chairs arranged in rows as if for a meeting and there was a table at one end.

“Oh, shut up,” said the parrot excitedly from the piano.

William began to stalk his prey in his best Red Indian fashion. It waited till his hand was nearly on him then, chuckling, flew to the mantelpiece.

“Polly, Polly,” whispered William in fierce, hoarse coaxing as he approached the mantelpiece.

“Get out, you old fool,” said the parrot who seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself. He let William think that he was really going to get him this time, then with another chuckle spread his wings and flew off again. This time he circled round and round the room and finally disappeared behind a cabinet that stood across a corner of the room, having a fair-sized recess between it and the wall.

William was just pursuing it to this retreat when the door opened and a tall, stern-looking woman wearing pince-nez and a high collar entered the room. She looked at William in surprise and disapproval.

“You mustn’t come into a house like this without knocking at the door,” she said. “If you’ve come to the meeting you should have knocked at the door properly and, anyway, the meeting doesn’t begin till half-past. Have you come to the meeting?”

William hesitated. If he told her that he had come to catch Ginger’s aunt’s escaped parrot then there was no doubt at all that Ginger’s aunt would hear of the escapade from her neighbour and it was of vital importance to Ginger’s peace of mind and body that the parrot should be caught and returned to its cage without Ginger’s aunt having known of its escape. It seemed better therefore on the whole to have come to the meeting.

“Yes,” he said, assuming his blankest expression.

Then another lady very like the first one came in and stared at William.

“Who is this boy and what’s he doing here?” she said to the first lady.

“He says he’s come to the meeting,” said the first lady helplessly.

“But, my dear!” said the second lady, “we don’t want people like that at the meeting. A rough-looking boy like that!”

The first lady grew yet more helpless.

“But we’ve advertised it as a public meeting,” she said. “We can’t turn people away, I mean—well, we can’t. I don’t think it would be legal,” she ended vaguely.

“But what does he want to come to the meeting for?” said the second lady. “And a quarter of an hour too early, too.”

“I suppose he’s interested in Total Abstinence,” said the first lady doubtfully. “I suppose there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be.” She turned to William. “Are you interested in Total Abstinence?”

“Yes,” said William without a second’s hesitation and looking blanker than ever.

Both ladies stared at him and looked very much perplexed.

Then a man with crossed eyes behind huge horn-rimmed spectacles and carrying a sheaf of papers entered and said briskly:

“Is everything ready?”

The first lady pointed to William.

“This boy says he’s interested in Total Abstinence and wants to come to the meeting,” she said.

William turned a sphinx-like face to the man.

The man subjected William to a lengthy inspection. William met it unblinkingly. The lengthy inspection did not seem to reassure the young man at all. He said reluctantly:

“Well, I suppose we can’t turn him out if he wants to come. I mean we’ve advertised it as a public meeting——”

“Just what I said,” said the first lady.

“But any monkey tricks from you, my boy——” said the man threateningly.

“Me!” said William, his sphinx-like look changing to one of righteous indignation. “Me!” He seemed hardly able to believe his ears.

“All right,” said the man irritably. “Go and sit down somewhere at the back. People will be coming in in a minute.”

William chose a seat just in front of the cabinet behind which the parrot had taken refuge. The parrot was preserving a strange silence. William made violent efforts to see it from his chair till the second lady said:

“Do sit still there, boy! You make me feel quite giddy fidgeting about like that.”

So William sat (comparatively) still, wondering how he could entice the parrot from behind the cabinet and make his departure with it unobserved. The parrot’s silence puzzled him. Was it merely resting after the excitement of its flight or was it planning some outrageous piece of devilry? People were beginning to arrive now. They all threw glances at William, curious and in most cases disapproving. William’s whole energy was now taken up in meeting their glances with his blankest stare.

Evidently one lady (who presumably knew him) was objecting to his presence because he heard the first lady saying helplessly:

“Well, I don’t see how we can turn him out. He said that he wanted to come to the meeting because he was interested in Total Abstinence ... and he isn’t doing anything we can turn him out for.”

Fortunately the chair William occupied stood by itself next to the cabinet. Just in front of him was the last row of chairs. The chairs were all full now and the meeting was beginning. He was craning his neck round to see what had happened to the parrot. There was still no sound from behind the cabinet.... He began to think that it must have gone to sleep....

The cross-eyed man was speaking. “It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you our speaker, Miss Rubina Thomasina Fawshaw. Her name is well known, of course, to all of us——”

It was at this point that the parrot behind the cabinet suddenly ejaculated:

“Oh, shut up!”

The meeting wheeled round to gaze at William open-mouthed with horror and indignation. William with a great effort maintained his sphinx-like expression and stared fixedly in front of him, trying to look as if he were in a brown study and had not heard the interruption.

The man was fortunately rather deaf. After looking about him vaguely for some minutes he continued. With a last stern and threatening glance at William the audience turned round again to listen.

“She is a splendid and well-known worker in this noble cause. She has for the last six weeks been travelling in America, and she has there studied the question of Prohibition in all its aspects——”

“Get out, you old fool!”

They all swung round again. It couldn’t have come from anyone but William. William was making a supreme and quite unconvincing attempt to look innocent. He was staring in front of him with a set, fixed stare and a purple face. The man with the squint had heard now. Fixing one furious eye on William and the other out of the window he said:

“One more such interruption from you, my boy, and out you go.”

The unhappy William made a vague sound in his throat suggestive of innocence and surprise and apology and continued to stare fixedly in front of him. After another short silence the cross-eyed man continued his speech. The audience, pausing only to throw final vitriolic glances at William, turned round again to listen.

“I personally,” went on the cross-eyed man, “have known Miss Fawshaw for a good many years——”

There was no mistaking it. It was a vulgar snigger coming from the back of the room where William sat.

Without a word the cross-eyed man arose and came down the room, one baleful eye fixed on William. He seized his victim by the neck and propelled him before him out of the room down the hall to the front door, where he ignominiously ejected him.

Ginger was anxiously awaiting his return.

“Hello,” he greeted him, “you’ve not got it after all! Whatever’s been happenin’ in there?”

“All sorts of things,” groaned William, rubbing his neck where the cross-eyed man had held it. “Crumbs! It was awful. They’re having a meetin’ an’ it kept sayin’ things an’ they thought it was me. It was awful! An’ he’s nearly broke my neck.”

“Where is it?” asked Ginger anxiously. He meant the parrot, not William’s neck. He wasn’t interested in William’s neck.

“It went behind a sort of cupboard place,” said William, still tenderly caressing his neck, “an’ it was quite quiet till they started havin’ a meetin’ an’ then it started sayin’ its things an’ they thought it was me. Crumbs! It was awful!... It’s right behind the cupboard thing now. I kept tryin’ to see it but I couldn’t.”

“Let’s see if we can see it from the window,” suggested Ginger.

They crept very, very cautiously up to the window. They could see the parrot quite plainly. It was on the floor behind the cupboard gazing about it with a sort of cynical enjoyment. It evidently had not spoken since it had secured William’s ignominious ejection. It suddenly saw the Outlaws watching it through the window and began to walk towards them across the floor. So intent was the audience upon Miss Rubina Thomasina Fawshaw’s discourse (she was giving a lucid account of the effect of alcohol upon the liver) that no one noticed the parrot walking sedately across the floor from the cabinet to the window. Having reached the window it stood for a few minutes gazing wickedly up at the Outlaws’ faces. Then silently, suddenly it hopped up on to the open window sill. William put out his hand.

“Got it!” he breathed.

But he spoke too soon. He hadn’t got it. With a chuckle it flew off over the fence into the next garden, leaving William and Ginger gazing after it despairingly.

“Well!” said William after an eloquent silence. “We seem sort of doomed with that bird!”

“Yes, an’ if we’ve not got it put back by the time my aunt comes back we’ll be still more doomed,” said Ginger dejectedly.

“Come on then,” said William, “let’s catch it. It’s only just sitting on a tree.”

“Oh, shut up!” called the parrot, challengingly, from a small almond tree on which he was perching.

The two Outlaws scaled the fence and very, very cautiously approached the truant.

“Got him this time,” said William again joyfully as his outstretched hand descended.

But again he spoke too soon. The parrot squawked “Get out, you fool,” and slipping nimbly away from William’s grimy hand flew on to the window sill where it hopped up and down excitedly as if executing a war dance.

“Go on, Ginger,” said William. “Get him! You can get him there all right!”

Ginger pounced desperately, but the parrot merely hopped through the open window into the front room of the house.

“There!” said William, hoarse with horror and despair, “it’s gone into another house. Well, I’ve jolly well done enough goin’ into houses after it an’ getting pushed out with someone’s fingers nearly meetin’ through my neck. You can jolly well go after it, this time.”

“A’ right,” said Ginger meekly, surveying the room with some anxiety.

“Go on—it’s all right. It’s empty ’cept for it,” said William.

The parrot had perched upon an electric light that hung down from the centre of the ceiling and was swinging briskly to and fro. Ginger slowly pushed up the window and slung one leg over the ledge.

Then he looked back at William.

“’S goin’ to be an awful job catchin’ him alone,” he said pleadingly.

William had been regretting his decision not to join the expedition. William hated not being in the thick of an adventure.

“All right,” he said, “I bet it will take both of us to catch him.”

And despite his recent ignominious ejection he slung his leg over the sill after Ginger with quite pleasurable feelings of zest and excitement.

The parrot had stopped swinging on the electric light bulb now and was hopping to and fro upon a polished table. He suggested someone slightly inebriated trying to perform a very complicated dance. He probably was slightly inebriated with freedom and excitement.... The two Outlaws approached him. With one beady eye fixed on them, but still merrily performing his dance, he waited again till Ginger’s outstretched hand was a fraction of an inch from his back, and then with a diabolical chuckle he flew straight out of the window again.

“Crumbs!” said William. “Quick! Let’s go after him or we shan’t know which way he’s gone.”

But just at that minute there came the sound of the opening of a door and voices approached the room. Someone was coming.... There wasn’t time to get out of the window. Already someone was holding the handle and the voices were just outside the door. Quick as lightning William and Ginger plunged beneath the nearest piece of furniture which happened to be a sofa with—mercifully—a frilled loose cover that hid them from view. There wasn’t room to move or breathe but they felt grateful for the temporary shelter it afforded.

They were in fact so much exercised with the problem of existence in a space that did not allow for movement or breathing that at first they did not listen to what the voices were saying. But having partially solved the problem of existence in the cramped space and becoming gradually accustomed to the taste of the carpet their attention fixed itself upon the conversation that was going on in the room. Neither Ginger nor William could see the speakers, but the voices were those of a girl and a man. The girl was saying:

“Then we’ll do Latham House on Wednesday?”

“I think so,” said the man’s voice.

“What time?”

“I suggest three o’clock. Will that do for you?”

“Yes. Quite well. You’re sure they’re away?”

“Oh, yes.... We can get the things ready in the coach-house. All the servants are away too.”

“Good! I hope it will be a success. Frenshams’ was a great success, wasn’t it?”

They may have said more, but the Outlaws heard no more. They were dazed and astounded by the one stupendous fact. They had found the burglars. They swallowed several mouthfuls of carpet dust in sheer ecstasy.... They had found the burglars. Soon the closing of the door and the silence that followed it told them that the room was empty, and they crept out of their hiding-place, tiptoed across the room and clambered out of the still open window.

“Gosh!” said William as soon as they were outside. “The burglars!”

Ginger was no less thrilled than William, but the parrot still lay upon his conscience.

“The parrot!” he murmured, looking around at the parrotless expanse of sky and road and garden that met his gaze.

William looked about too. There was certainly no sign of the parrot.

“Oh, never mind the parrot!” he said contemptuously. “What’s a parrot?”

Ginger murmured, truly enough, that a parrot is a parrot, but William stoutly denied it and even Ginger felt that a parrot paled into complete insignificance besides a burglar.

“She won’t know it was us,” said William (though without conviction), “and, anyway, it’s lunch time. I’m sick of tryin’ to catch parrots. Burglars are more fun and I bet they’re a jolly sight easier to catch.”

“What d’you think we’d better do?” said Ginger. “Go round to Latham House at three o’clock an’ catch ’em?”

But even William’s glorious optimism could not quite visualise this capture. He frowned for a minute perplexedly. Then he said:

“Tell you what! We’ll get Robert to come an’ help. He’s mad keen on catchin’ ’em.”

“And Hector,” said Ginger.

“All right,” agreed William. “Robert an’ Hector. We’ll tell ’em after dinner—on condition that they let us help with the catchin’.”

“Of course,” said Ginger.

William found that there was no need to lead up to the question of the burglaries. Robert at lunch could talk of nothing else. He had decided quite definitely to capture the burglars. William knew that this decision was inspired solely by a desire to attain a heroic standard in the eyes of Miss Julia Bellairs. Robert wanted to catch the burglar not for the sake of the adventure but so that Miss Julia Bellairs might hear that he had caught the burglar. While despising the motive William appreciated the decision.

“My theory is,” said Robert importantly, “that they’ll do our house this afternoon. You see, they’ve probably discovered that we’re all going to be out this afternoon. They know that the maids are going to the fair at Balton and that I’m going out to the tennis club, and that you and Ethel are going to the Barlows’ and William’s going to tea to Ginger’s. They always find out exactly which house is going to be empty during the afternoon. Now I’ve decided to pretend to go out to tennis, but I’m going to come back by the back way and wait in the house for them. They won’t be expecting me, you see, and I’ll overpower them before they’ve time to resist and——”

“How will you overpower them?” said Ethel, quite unimpressed.

“Well,” said Robert still more importantly, “I know a very good way to do that. I was reading in the paper about a man who did it. He knew that a burglar was coming, so he arranged a pail of water over the back door, where he knew he’d come in because it was the only door not fastened and it fell down on him and drenched him and took away his breath, so that the man got him tied up before he recovered his breath.”

“You mustn’t do any such thing, Robert,” said Mrs. Brown indignantly, “ruining the carpets!”

William took no part in the discussion. William believed in doing one thing at a time and he was giving his whole attention to the Irish stew. Moreover, he realised that Robert must be approached privately, man to man, on the subject. Women had such queer ideas. Both his mother and his sister would, he knew, want to mess up the whole thing by bringing in the police.

So he followed Robert into the garden after lunch to impart his information.

“I say, Robert,” he began carelessly. “I know all about those burglars. They aren’t comin’ here to-day. They’re goin’ to Latham House. At three o’clock. I heard ’em say so.”

“Rubbish!” said Robert with elder brother contempt and severity.

“Honest, Robert!” persisted William. “I’m not makin’ it up. Honest, I’m not. Ask Ginger. We heard ’em talkin’ when we was out this morning.”

“Where did you hear them talking?” said Robert.

William hesitated. To answer that question accurately would be to reveal the whole parrot episode—an episode far better left unrevealed. Robert would have no compunction at all about informing Ginger’s aunt that it had been Ginger and William who had let her parrot out. After a slight hesitation William replied unblushingly:

“Up on the common. On one of the seats.”

He assuaged his conscience (that very amenable organ) firstly by the consideration that the story in the main was true and the details were unessential and secondly that probably all land was common land before they built houses on it, so really he wasn’t telling a story at all.

“What were they saying?” said Robert with slightly less contempt and severity.

“Well, one of them was a woman and she said, ‘Let’s go an’ burgle Latham House to-morrow,’ an’ they arranged to do that, an’ they said that they knew that it would be empty an’ they said they’d get their jemmies and things ready in the coach-house an’ one of them said what a lot of fine things they got out of Frenshams’.”

“Yes, they jolly well did,” commented Robert. “They got all the silver and a lot of jewellery.”

“Yes, they said that,” said William vaguely, “at least, I think they said that. They said somethin’ like it, anyway. About all the fine things they stole out of it.”

“What were they like to look at?” said Robert.

William realised that if he’d heard them talking on a bench he must have seen them.

“Oh, they looked—they jus’ looked like thieves,” said William vaguely. “He’d got a beard an’ she’d got black hair.”

So plainly did William visualise the couple he described—a Russian communist and a vamp once seen on the pictures—that he could hardly believe he hadn’t really seen them.

“She’d got a lot of jewellery on—things she’d stole, I suppose—an’ he’d got a muffler half-way up his face an’ a cap pulled down low over his eyes.”

“How did you know he’d got a beard then?” said Robert.

William was taken aback just for a second, but quickly recovered himself.

“It was one of those sorts of beards that stretch right up to the top of the person’s face and then it went down underneath his muffler too. It was a big sort of beard.”

“Did you say Ginger was with you?”

“Yes. We thought you an’ Hector would like to catch ’em without troublin’ the police.”

“Oh, the police!” said Robert with a scornful laugh (Robert had been reading a good many detective stories lately). “The police aren’t much good at anything like this. They muddle every case they touch. But,” rather coldly, “I don’t see why it was necessary to bring Hector into it. I could have managed it perfectly well without Hector.”

“Well, nacherally,” retorted William. “Ginger wanted to have Hector in it same as I wanted to have you in it. If we thought we could have done it ourselves we wouldn’t have had either of you in it, but we thought that probably bein’ bigger than what we are they’d overpower us before we’d time to catch ’em properly. But, anyway, Ginger heard it same as I did, an’ he’s as much right to have Hector in it as I have to have you.”

“All right,” said Robert stiffly, “I suppose it cannot be helped now, in any case. I suppose he’ll have told him.”

A month ago Robert would have delighted in having Hector to catch the thieves with him. A month ago Hector had been his bosom friend. But since a month ago they had both met Miss Julia Bellairs, and now Hector was no longer his bosom friend but his rival. They gave each other now only the barest sign of recognition when meeting in the street, and when they were both in the presence of the beloved they affected to be unaware of each other’s existence.... The one drawback in Robert’s eyes to the present situation was that the glory of catching the thieves red-handed would have to be shared with Hector. Still, probably the beloved would understand that Hector had been merely Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. If she did not so understand Robert decided it should not be for lack of hints.... “A useful fellow, Hector,” he would say, “of course, I couldn’t have brought it off without him. I planned the whole thing, of course, but I couldn’t have pulled it off without someone to help me.”

“How’re you goin’ to catch ’em?” said William with interest.

Robert tore himself with an effort from a pleasant day dream in which Miss Julia Bellairs was saying, “But how splendid! How wonderful! How brave!... Weren’t you afraid of being killed?”

And he was replying with a modest laugh: “Well, you know, I never thought of it. I never do when there’s any danger.”

“Er—you said three o’clock, didn’t you?” he said coldly to William.

He wished he’d discovered the thing himself. It spoilt it somehow to have William and Ginger and Hector in it....

“Yes,” said William, “an’ they were goin’ to get their tools ready in the coach-house.”

“Well,” said Robert assuming a stern and superior air, as befitted a master detective, addressing one of his underlings, “I’ll see Hector and tell him what to do.”

They were all in the coach-house of Latham House. It was five minutes to three. Robert had fixed up a very complicated erection—consisting of a lot of ropes and a pail of water—over the door of the coach-house in such a way that anyone opening the door would receive the contents of the pail in full force upon their head. At least Robert hoped he would. His band of underlings had proved disappointingly unaccommodating about that. He had urged them—or one of them—to go out by the window and enter by the door in order to see whether the contrivance worked and all of them had refused. Robert rather hoped that Hector would offer. His pride as he gazed up at the elaborate erection was clouded only by the thought that no official of Scotland Yard would see it. He felt that if any official in Scotland Yard were to see it, they would at once offer him a high salaried post on the staff. Robert had often thought that he would make a good detective....

Hector was bitterly resenting the airs that Robert was putting on over this. He was afraid that Miss Julia Bellairs would think that Robert’s share in the capture was more important than it really was. He was indulging in a day dream in which the beloved was saying to him: “How wonderful! How brave! But weren’t you afraid?”

And he was saying nonchalantly:

“Oh, no. Not a bit. I never am, you know. I’d really as soon have done it without Robert, but the poor boy was very anxious to help and I didn’t like to refuse him.”

“It’s nearly three,” said William hopefully.

William was feeling that if he could just live to see that pail of water overturning on to somebody he didn’t mind how soon he died after it.

“Quick,” said Robert. “We’d better hide! They mustn’t see us through the window.”

“Hide quickly,” said Hector in order to prove to himself that he was giving orders, not taking them from Robert.

They retired to the shadowy corner of the room—only just in time. Almost at once two figures were seen to pass the window walking furtively in single file. The windows were smeared and dusty, but it was clear that the figures were those of a man and a woman. They stopped at the door. Very cautiously they opened it and entered.

Robert’s contrivance acted. It acted even more effectively than he had intended it to act. Not only did the bucket discharge its contents upon the couple as they entered. It discharged itself as well, completely enveloping both of them. The four amateur Sherlock Holmes’ came out of their hiding-places to behold the amazing spectacle of two drenched forms—one a man and the other a woman—sitting back to back, the upper portion of both their forms completely enveloped by a tin bucket which had very neatly caught them both. Muffled screams and shouts came from beneath the bucket. With admirable presence of mind Robert darted forward and firmly held down the extinguisher.

“Get the rope quick, Hector,” he said.

Even as he said it he was mentally composing an account of the affair for Miss Julia Bellairs.

“At once I held down the bucket quite firmly despite their struggling and called to Hector to get the rope for me to tie them up.”

How he wished she were here to see him....

The two were firmly bound together and then Robert with a flourish removed the extinguisher.

It revealed the bedraggled upper portions of Miss Julia Bellairs and her cousin.

There followed a scene that baffles description.

William and Ginger crept unostentatiously away before it had even reached its climax, but before they departed they had gathered that Miss Julia Bellairs and her cousin were not burglars, but that they were engaged in the production of a little souvenir booklet of the village to be presented to every guest at a garden party they were giving the next month. The booklet was to contain a photograph of the house of every guest but this was to be a surprise—hence the mystery surrounding the taking of the photographs.

As William said: “With a cracked idea like that they couldn’t expect anythin’ but trouble.”

It was that evening.

William and Ginger walked slowly and sadly down the road.

“Then there’s that parrot,” said Ginger gloomily.

“Yes. I’d been quite forgetting the parrot,” said William.

“It started it all,” said Ginger yet more gloomily.

“I s’pose so,” said William, “but she doesn’t know you let it out. She’s not been to see your father about it yet, has she?”

“No, but she might any time—an’ on the top of the other——”

“Let’s go’n’ see what she’s doin’ about it,” said William, who never could resist the temptation to revisit the scene of a crime.

They approached Ginger’s aunt’s house and once more crept cautiously up to the drawing-room window.

The first sight that met their eyes was the reassuring one of Ginger’s aunt’s parrot hanging as usual in the cage and swinging to and fro on his perch.

Further investigation revealed the figure of Ginger’s aunt and a friend sitting over a tea table.

Their conversation reached the watchers through the open window.

“Oh, yes, he’s a very clever bird,” Ginger’s aunt was saying proudly. “Why, do you know what he did this morning? Someone must have left the window open and he opened his cage door himself and got out. Right out of the window. I was distracted when I came home and found him gone. And then just when I was in the middle of ringing up the police about it he came back. Simply came in again through the window and went back into his cage.”

The two Outlaws crept back to the road.

“Well, that’s all right!” said William.

“Yes,” admitted Ginger, “that’s cert’nly one thing all right.... What’re you goin’ to do now?”

“I’m not quite sure,” said William. “Only,” very firmly, “I’m not goin’ home jus’ yet. Robert’s goin’ out at six o’clock an’ I’m not goin’ home till after that.”

“I’m not either,” said Ginger. “Hector’s goin’ out about then an’ I’m not goin’ home till after that ... you’d think they’d be grateful to us, wouldn’t you? It made them friends again.”

“Yes, but they aren’t grateful to us,” said William, “and, of course, it made Robert madder still to find that the burglars had been to our house while he’d been out tryin’ to catch ’em at Latham House.”

“Yes, and the way they make it all out our fault——” said Ginger bitterly.

“They always do that,” said William.

“She said she’d never speak to ’em again,” said Ginger meditatively, “but she said some jolly fine things to ’em first. Before she said that.”

“So did he,” said William.

With reminiscent appreciative smiles on their countenances they walked on slowly down the road.

THE END