第52章

And then he looked about, just as Cyril had known he would, for something to throw down, so as to attract the attention of the wayfarers far below in the street.He could not find anything.

Curiously enough, there were no stones on the leads, not even a loose tile.The roof was of slate, and every single slate knew its place and kept it.But, as so often happens, in looking for one thing he found another.There was a trap-door leading down into the house.

And that trap-door was not fastened.

'Stop snivelling and come here, Jane,' he cried, encouragingly.

'Lend a hand to heave this up.If we can get into the house, we might sneak down without meeting any one, with luck.Come on.'

They heaved up the door till it stood straight up, and, as they bent to look into the hole below, the door fell back with a hollow clang on the leads behind, and with its noise was mingled a blood-curdling scream from underneath.

'Discovered!' hissed Robert.'Oh, my cats alive!'

They were indeed discovered.

They found themselves looking down into an attic, which was also a lumber-room.It had boxes and broken chairs, old fenders and picture-frames, and rag-bags hanging from nails.

In the middle of the floor was a box, open, half full of clothes.

Other clothes lay on the floor in neat piles.In the middle of the piles of clothes sat a lady, very fat indeed, with her feet sticking out straight in front of her.And it was she who had screamed, and who, in fact, was still screaming.

'Don't!' cried Jane, 'please don't! We won't hurt you.'

'Where are the rest of your gang?' asked the lady, stopping short in the middle of a scream.

'The others have gone on, on the wishing carpet,' said Jane truthfully.

'The wishing carpet?' said the lady.

'Yes,' said Jane, before Robert could say 'You shut up!' 'You must have read about it.The Phoenix is with them.'

Then the lady got up, and picking her way carefully between the piles of clothes she got to the door and through it.She shut it behind her, and the two children could hear her calling 'Septimus!

Septimus!' in a loud yet frightened way.

'Now,' said Robert quickly; 'I'll drop first.'

He hung by his hands and dropped through the trap-door.

'Now you.Hang by your hands.I'll catch you.Oh, there's no time for jaw.Drop, I say.'

Jane dropped.

Robert tried to catch her, and even before they had finished the breathless roll among the piles of clothes, which was what his catching ended in, he whispered--'We'll hide--behind those fenders and things; they'll think we've gone along the roofs.Then, when all is calm, we'll creep down the stairs and take our chance.'

They hastily hid.A corner of an iron bedstead stuck into Robert's side, and Jane had only standing room for one foot--but they bore it--and when the lady came back, not with Septimus, but with another lady, they held their breath and their hearts beat thickly.

'Gone!' said the first lady; 'poor little things--quite mad, my dear--and at large! We must lock this room and send for the police.'

'Let me look out,' said the second lady, who was, if possible, older and thinner and primmer than the first.So the two ladies dragged a box under the trap-door and put another box on the top of it, and then they both climbed up very carefully and put their two trim, tidy heads out of the trap-door to look for the 'mad children'.

'Now,' whispered Robert, getting the bedstead leg out of his side.

They managed to creep out from their hiding-place and out through the door before the two ladies had done looking out of the trap-door on to the empty leads.

Robert and Jane tiptoed down the stairs--one flight, two flights.

Then they looked over the banisters.Horror! a servant was coming up with a loaded scuttle.

The children with one consent crept swiftly through the first open door.

The room was a study, calm and gentlemanly, with rows of books, a writing table, and a pair of embroidered slippers warming themselves in the fender.The children hid behind the window-curtains.As they passed the table they saw on it a missionary-box with its bottom label torn off, open and empty.

'Oh, how awful!' whispered Jane.'We shall never get away alive.'

'Hush!' said Robert, not a moment too soon, for there were steps on the stairs, and next instant the two ladies came into the room.

They did not see the children, but they saw the empty missionary box.

'I knew it,' said one.'Selina, it WAS a gang.I was certain of it from the first.The children were not mad.They were sent to distract our attention while their confederates robbed the house.'

'I am afraid you are right,' said Selina; 'and WHERE ARE THEY NOW?'

'Downstairs, no doubt, collecting the silver milk-jug and sugar-basin and the punch-ladle that was Uncle Joe's, and Aunt Jerusha's teaspoons.I shall go down.'

'Oh, don't be so rash and heroic,' said Selina.'Amelia, we must call the police from the window.Lock the door.I WILL--I will--'

The words ended in a yell as Selina, rushing to the window, came face to face with the hidden children.

'Oh, don't!' said Jane; 'how can you be so unkind? We AREN'Tburglars, and we haven't any gang, and we didn't open your missionary-box.We opened our own once, but we didn't have to use the money, so our consciences made us put it back and--DON'T! Oh, I wish you wouldn't--'

Miss Selina had seized Jane and Miss Amelia captured Robert.The children found themselves held fast by strong, slim hands, pink at the wrists and white at the knuckles.

'We've got YOU, at any rate,' said Miss Amelia.'Selina, your captive is smaller than mine.You open the window at once and call "Murder!" as loud as you can.

Selina obeyed; but when she had opened the window, instead of calling 'Murder!' she called 'Septimus!' because at that very moment she saw her nephew coming in at the gate.

In another minute he had let himself in with his latch-key and had mounted the stairs.As he came into the room Jane and Robert each uttered a shriek of joy so loud and so sudden that the ladies leaped with surprise, and nearly let them go.

'It's our own clergyman,' cried Jane.