"I warn you, Netta, that I shall be furious if you do that. I am my own mistress now, for Mr. Pettigrew will let me do as I like now I am nineteen, and am quite determined that our old plan shall be carried out, and that you shall start an inst.i.tution like that of Professor Menzel somewhere near London. You have been twelve months away, your pupils have already taken to other teachers, and there cannot be the least occasion for your a.s.sistance in an inst.i.tution that is now well stocked with teachers, while here you could do enormous good. Anyhow, whether you stay or not, I shall, as soon as all this is settled, take a large house standing in its own grounds, in some healthy place near London, and obtain teachers."

"Well, we need not talk of that just yet," Netta said quietly; "it will be time enough when I have failed in carrying out my plans."

"But what are your plans?"

"I have not quite settled myself; and when I do I mean to work entirely in my own way, and shall say nothing about it until I come to you and say I have succeeded, or I have failed."

Hilda opened her eyes in surprise.

"But why should I be kept in the dark?"

"Because, dear, you might not approve of my plans," Netta replied coolly.

"You are not thinking of doing anything foolish, I hope?" Hilda exclaimed.

"If it were foolish it would be excusable where the counsels of wisdom have failed," Netta laughed; and then more seriously, "Nothing would be foolish if it could possibly lead to the discovery of Walter's hiding place."

That afternoon, when Hilda drove out with Miss Purcell to make some calls, Netta rang the bell, and when Tom Roberts came in she said:

"I want to have a long talk with you, Roberts. But mind, what I say is to be kept a perfect secret between ourselves."

"Yes, miss," he said in surprise.

"Now, sit down," she went on; "we can talk more comfortably so. Now, Roberts, there is no doubt that we are not making much headway with our search."

"That we are not, Miss Netta," he agreed. "I did think that we had gained something when we traced him to that house on Pentonville Hill, but it does not seem that anything has come of it, after all."

"Then it is quite time that we took some other steps," she said decisively.

"I am ready, miss," he replied eagerly. "You tell me what to do, and I am game to do it."

"Well, there are two or three things I have in my mind. First of all, I want to be able to watch John Simcoe and this Pentonville man when they are talking together."

"Yes, I understand," he said; "but how is it to be done?"

"That is what I want to find out. Now, in the first place, about this house. Which way did the window look of the room where there was a light?"

"That window was at the side of the house, miss; a little way round the corner. We noticed the light there, but there was another window looking out on the front. We did not see any light there, as the shutters were closed."

"And you say that the curtains of the other window were pulled very close?"

"Yes, they crossed each other most of the way down."

"Now, the question in my mind, Roberts, is which would be easier--to cut a slit in the curtain, or to bore a hole in the shutter, or to take a brick out carefully from the side wall and then to deepen the hole until we got to the wall-paper, and then make a slight hole there?"

Roberts looked at her with astonishment. "Do you really mean it, miss?"

"Certainly I mean it; it seems to me that our only chance of ever finding Walter is to overhear those men's talk."

"Then, miss, I should say that the simplest way would be to cut a window pane out."

"Yes; but, you see, it is pretty certain that that curtain will not be drawn until they come in, and they would notice it at once. If we took out a pane in the front window the shutter would prevent our seeing or hearing, and the man would be sure to notice the pane was missing as he walked up from the gate to the house."

"I should say, miss, that the best plan would be for me to manage to get into the house some time during the day and to hide in that room, under the table or sofa or somewhere, and listen to them."

She shook her head.

"In the first place, Roberts, you would certainly be murdered if they found you there."

"I would take my chance of that, miss; and you may be sure that I would take a brace of the General's pistols with me, and they would not find it such easy work to get rid of me."

"That may be so," Netta said, "but if in the struggle you shot them both, our last chance of ever hearing of Walter would be gone. You yourself might be tried for murder, and it would be a.s.sumed, of course, that you were a burglar; for the explanation that you had broken into the house only to hear a conversation would scarcely be believed.

Moreover, you must remember that we don't know how often these men meet. Simcoe has not been there since you tracked him there six months ago, and the only thing we have since found out is that the man I saw him with in the park is the man who lives in that house. It would never do for you to make an entrance into the house night after night and week after week, to run the risk of being detected there, or seized as you entered, or caught by the police as a burglar. No, as far as I can see, the only safe plan is to get out a brick very carefully in the side wall and to make a hole behind it through the paper. It might be necessary to make an entry into the house before this was done, so as to decide which was the best spot for an opening. A great deal would depend upon the paper in the room. If it is a light paper, with only a small amount of pattern upon it, any hole large enough to see through might be noticed.

If it is a dark paper, well covered, a hole might be made without any fear of its catching the eye. You see, it must be a rather large hole, for, supposing the wall is only nine inches thick, a person standing outside could not see what was pa.s.sing inside unless the hole were a good size."

"But I doubt much if you would be able to hear them, Miss Netta."

"No, I don't think that I should; especially as people talking of things of that sort, even if they had no great fear of being overheard, would speak in a low voice. But that would not matter if I could see their faces. I should know what they were saying."

Roberts did not think it right to offer any remark on what appeared to him to be impossible, and he confined himself to saying in a respectful voice, "Indeed, Miss Netta."

"I am stone-deaf," she said, "but have learned to read what people are saying from the movement of their lips."

Although the "Indeed, miss," was as respectful as before, Netta saw that he did not in the slightest degree believe her.

"Just go to the other end of the room, Roberts, and make some remark to yourself. Move your lips in the same way as if you were talking, but do not make any sound."

Roberts, with military obedience, marched to the other end of the room, placed himself in a corner, and turned round, facing her. His lips moved, and, confident that she could not know what he was saying, he expressed his natural sentiments.

The girl at once repeated the words: "Well, I'm jiggered! This is a rum start; Miss Netta has gone clean off her head."

Roberts' jaw dropped, and he flushed up to the hair.

"I am sure," he began; but he was stopped by the girl's merry laugh.

"Do not apologize, Roberts; it was natural enough that you should be surprised. Well, you see I can do as I say. We will now go on with our talk."

Greatly abashed, Tom Roberts returned to the chair, murmuring to himself as he sat down, "Well, I'm blowed!" when he was roughly recalled to the necessity of keeping his mouth shut by her quiet remark, "Never mind about being blowed at present, Roberts; let us talk over another plan.

Who are the keepers of the house in Jermyn Street?"

"It is kept by a man and his wife, miss. He has been a butler, I believe, and his wife was a cook. He waits upon the gentlemen who lodge there, and she cooks. They have a girl who sweeps and does the bedrooms and the scrubbing and that sort of thing."

"What sort of a girl is she, Roberts?"

"She seems a nice sort of young woman, miss. Andrew has spoken to her more than I have, because, you see, my get-up aint likely to take much with a young girl."

"I suppose she is not very much attached to her place?"

"Lor', no, miss; she told Andrew that she was only six months up from the country, and they don't pay her but eight pounds a year, and pretty hard work she has to do for it."