“Only to get the gardener’s ladder to
help us over the wall. Go on.”
“The first signal is a private bell—that
means, Listen at the pipe. The next is a call
down the pipe for ’Moses’—that
means, Danger! Lock the door. ‘Stilton
Cheese’ means, Put the Mare to; and ‘Old
Madeira’ Stand by the trap. The trap
works in that locked-up room you never got into; and
when our hands are on the machinery, we are awkward
enough to have a little accident with the luncheon
tray. ‘Quite Ready’ is the signal
to lower the trap, which we do in the regular theater-fashion.
We lowered the doctor smartly enough, as you saw,
and got out by the back staircase. Father went
in the gig, and I let them out and locked the gates
after them. Now you know as much as I’ve
got breath to tell you.”
We scaled the wall easily by the help of the ladder.
When we were down on the other side, Young File suggested
that the safest course for us was to separate, and
for each to take his own way. We shook hands and
parted. He went southward, toward London, and
I went westward, toward the sea-coast, with Doctor
Dulcifer’s precious writing-desk safe under
my arm.
* The “Bow Street
runners” of those days were the
predecessors of the
detective police of the present time.
FOR a couple of hours I walked on briskly, careless
in what direction I went, so long as I kept my back
turned on Barkingham.
By the time I had put seven miles of ground, according
to my calculations, between me and the red-brick house,
I began to look upon the doctor’s writing-desk
rather in the light of an incumbrance, and determined
to examine it without further delay. Accordingly
I picked up the first large stone I could find in
the road, crossed a common, burst through a hedge,
and came to a halt, on the other side, in a thick wood.
Here, finding myself well screened from public view,
I broke open the desk with the help of the stone,
and began to look over the contents.
To my unspeakable disappointment I found but few papers
of any kind to examine. The desk was beautifully
fitted with all the necessary materials for keeping
up a large correspondence; but there were not more
than half a dozen letters in it altogether. Four
were on business matters, and the other two were of
a friendly nature, referring to persons and things
in which I did not feel the smallest interest.
I found besides half a dozen bills receipted (the
doctor was a mirror of punctuality in the payment
of tradesmen), note and letter-paper of the finest
quality, clarified pens, a pretty little pin-cushion,
two small account-books filled with the neatest entries,
and some leaves of blotting-paper. Nothing else;
absolutely nothing else, in the treacherous writing-desk
on which I had implicitly relied to guide me to Alicia’s
hiding-place.
