Chapter XII: The Burglar

That Miss Meredith should turn in a moment from being freezingly uninterested in the Professor's wife, to being more friendly than any one else, seemed from one point of view very noble and distinguished, from another puzzling and peculiar.

"It's a little dis-disconcerting," said Elma at Miss Grace's. "We were so pleased at first when Miss Meredith pointed out our talents to us. Now she is pointing out Mrs. Clutterbuck's. And you know, last week, we didn't think Mrs. Clutterbuck had any talents at all."

"Ah--that is one of our little tragedies," said Miss Grace simply. "That we are obliged to outlive the extravagance of new friends."

"Do you think Miss Meredith won't keep it up where we are concerned?" asked Elma anxiously. "It would be a little sad if she didn't, wouldn't it? Like deceiving us to begin with; and now she may be deceiving Mrs. Clutterbuck."

"Oh, I don't know. She may work wonders with the Professor. It must be pure goodness that prompts her, dear."

"She must be used to being taken coldly," said Elma. "The Professor glares at her, and Elsie charges straight out to the back garden every time she calls."

"Is Mr. Symington there now?" asked Miss Grace.

"No, he left in two days. Papa was charmed with him. He and the Professor and papa had an evening together when we were all at the Gardiners, and Mrs. Clutterbuck came too. Papa says Mr. Symington will make a name for himself one day. He is coming back to Ridgetown for a summer, some time soon, he liked it so much."

If only for the sudden interest taken by the Merediths in the Clutterbucks, it seemed necessary that they should become very much a part of the Leightons' life just then. But nothing could thaw the demeanour of Elsie. Dr. Merryweather found her improved slightly, but there were signs that she fretted inordinately. Nothing she did was what other girls did, and she was quite beyond the abstracted influences of her parents.

Adelaide Maud met the Professor.

"I hear you have a perfect little duck of a daughter," said she airily.

"Ha, hm," exclaimed the Professor, quite irresponsible in the matter of English for the moment. He had no real words for such a situation.

"Aren't you awfully proud of her?" asked Adelaide Maud.

The Professor recovered. That word "awfully!" It made him forget this new version of his daughter.

"So you are also in this conspiracy," whispered Lance afterwards to Adelaide Maud. "It's no good. A bomb under that fanatic is all that will move him."

But in the meantime Elsie made some moves for herself.

The Leightons were interested in their own affairs. Cuthbert was away, and Mr. Leighton had to make a run to London. He took Mabel with him and that occurrence was exciting enough in itself. As though to show up the helplessness of a family left without a man in the house, however, one night the maids roused every one in alarm. A burglar, it seems, was trying to get in at the pantry window. The girls, who were getting ready for bed, went quaking to their mother's room. Very frightened and most carefully they made their way to the vicinity of the pantry. There was certainly to be heard a faint shuffling.

"See'd him as plain as day, Miss, leaning up against the window. He moved some flower pots, and stood on 'em."

"Lock the kitchen door, telephone for the police, and light the gas," said Jean in a strained whisper.

She immediately obeyed her own orders by telephoning herself in a quick deep undertone, "Man at the pantry window trying to get in."

Then she took the taper from the shaking hands of Betty.

"I've read in _Home Notes_ or somewhere that when burglars appear, if you light up they get frightened and go away."

They had roused Aunt Katharine who had come as company for a night or two and had gone to bed at half-past nine.

"What's the good of frightening them if you've sent for the police?" asked Aunt Katharine. "Better let them get caught red-handed." She invariably objected to being roused from her first sleep.

"Oh goodness," wailed Betty. "It sounds like murder." She felt quite thrilled.

The maids cowered shivering in the passage.

"I heard them flower pots again, Miss. 'E's either got in or--'e's----"

They distinctly heard the pantry window move.

"Well, the door between is locked," said the quiet voice of Mrs. Leighton, "and the police ought to be here very soon now."

Jean took the curlers out of her hair.

"I wish they would hurry up," said she.

Elma got under Aunt Katharine's eiderdown.

"I may as well die warm," she remarked with her teeth chattering.

There was not much inclination to jokes however, and Elma's speech was touched with a certain abandonment of fear. The situation was very trying. When the police did arrive and ran at a quick, stealthy run to the pantry window, they waited in terror for the expected shuffle and outcry.

"It's really awful," whispered Betty, clinging in despair to her mother.

"I can't think why they are so quiet," said Mrs. Leighton. "I think I must open the kitchen door."

"Oh, ma'am, please, ma'am." Cook at last became hysterical. "Don't move that door, ma'am; we've had scare enough. Let 'em catch 'em themselves."

Betty sat down on the stairs and leant her head on her hands.

"They must be arresting them," she said, "with handcuffs. And papa said they always have to read over the charge. They must be reading over the charge now, I think."

"In the dark!" said Aunt Katharine with a certain eloquent sniff.

"They have lanterns, dark lanterns. Isn't it beautiful?" said Betty.

She rose in her white dressing-gown.

"Listen," said she.

The door-bell suddenly clanged. Every one screamed except Mrs. Leighton.

"I do wish you would keep quiet," said she. "The police will think we are being murdered." She moved to the door. But again she was arrested by piercing directions.

"Talk to them at the window, mummy. They might be the burglars themselves. How are we to know? Do talk at the window."

"I'm extremely cold," said Mrs. Leighton, "and I'd rather ask them in whoever they are, than talk to them at an open window."

By the time she had finished, however, Jean, the valiant, had the window open and had discovered a policeman. They had "scoured the premises," he said, and no thief was to be found. Mrs. Leighton wrapped herself in an eiderdown quilt.

"Will you come in, please, and open my kitchen door? Cook thinks they may be there," she said.

With deep thankfulness they let in the policeman. A sergeant appeared. He was very sympathetic and reassuring. "Best not to proceed too quickly," he said in a fat, slow way. "I have a man still outside watching. So if 'e's 'ere, Miss, we'll catch 'im either way. A grand thing the telephone."

He unlocked the door, and thoroughly investigated the kitchen.

"No signs," said he, "no signs."

The Leightons recovered some of their lost dignity and crowded in. Only Jean however had the satisfaction of hair in order and curlers discarded. How brave of Jean to remember at that dreadful moment of burglars in the house!

The sergeant had gas lighted and looked extremely puzzled.

"'E 's been 'ere right enough," said he. "Window open right enough. Was it fastened?"

He turned about, but the chief evidence had departed. With the advent of the policeman, cook and retinue had suddenly remembered their costumes. Like rabbits they had scuttled, first into the larder for cover, then into their own rooms, where they donned costumes more suitable for such impressive visitors. Mrs. Leighton's eye twinkled when she found cook appear in hastily found dress.

"Did you leave the window unfastened, cook?" she asked.

Cook was sure. "It was a thing as 'ow I never forgot, ma'am, but this one night----"

Well, there seemed to be some uncertainty.

Elma's eyes during this were straying continually to a piece of notepaper lying on a table. First she thought, "It is some letter belonging to the maids." Then an impelling idea that the white paper had some other meaning forced her to pick it up. Every other person was engaged in watching the search of the sergeant and listening to his words.

"Some one has been right in this 'ere kitchen. It's the doors and windows unlatched that do it. Many a time since I've been here as sergeant, I've said to myself, 'We'll 'ave trouble yet over these unlatched windows.'"

"We have been so safe," complained Mrs. Leighton. "The poor people here too--so respectable and hard-working!"

"Drink, ma'am, drink," said the sergeant dismally, "you never know what it will do to a man."

He turned his lantern in his fat fingers.

"Oh," said Aunt Katharine with a sudden gasp, "I could stand a plain thief, hungry, may be, but master of himself. But a drunk man--it's dreadful."

She shivered and looked into corners as though one of the thieves might be asleep there. The sergeant and his companion made a thorough search of the house.

None of them noticed Elma who sat as though cast in an eternal shiver and who surreptitiously read the scrap of notepaper.

"The Trail." That was all that was written in words but nimbly drawn on a turned back corner was a snaky, sinuous serpent. It had the eyes and the accusing glare of the expression of Elsie.

Elma wondered how far she might be right in keeping that document while the fat sergeant followed up his cues, and described the burglar. He was six feet at least it seemed, to have got in at the window where he did. "Flower pots or no flower pots, no smaller man could have done it." "Fool," thought Elma. "Elsie, who can climb a drain pipe, drop from a balcony, skim walls. Elsie had a way of which he doesn't know."

One thought that ran through her mind was the wickedness of any one's having called Elsie by such a name as the Serpent, and the tragedy of her having found it out. There was some excuse for this latest wickedest prank of all. The daring of Elsie confused her. What girl would be so devoid of fear as to move out at eleven at night and act the burglar? None of their set had the pluck for it, to put it in the baldest way. The idea that she might have been caught by the fat sergeant appalled Elma. She saw the scornful, wilful eyes of the Serpent dancing. Would she care? Yet she was the girl who had moped for the death of her dog till "her hair came out in patches."

She was still staring at the trail of the Serpent when the sergeant had finished his "tour of safety." After all, it might not have been a prank of Elsie's. It might have been a six-foot burglar. This accusing serpent--well, one couldn't go on a thing of that sort. It would be so amusing too that they were had practically out of bed in such a panic. Aunt Katharine looked very worn and disturbed. She would never forgive a practical joke. Elma held the paper tight, and down in her sympathetic, plaintive little soul felt she could never accuse a fly, far less a sensitive wicked little mischief like Elsie Clutterbuck.

She could not help laughing at themselves. But after all, who was looking after that wild child now? She nearly asked the sergeant to make his way home by the side lane by which she now knew Elsie had come. Then the certainty that this self-satisfied person with his six-foot burglar would never make anything of this slippery fearless little elf burglar kept her silent.

The sergeant finished his tour with great impressiveness. They were informed they might safely go to bed. A man or two would be about to see that no one was hanging round at all. It was very ridiculous to Elma. "After all," remarked the sergeant, "you are very early people. It is only eleven o'clock now. Hardly the dead of night, ma'am!"

"We are generally less early of course," said Mrs. Leighton, "but we were alone to-night. Mr. Leighton and my son are away."

"Ah, bad," remarked the sergeant. "It looks as though our friend had an inkling to that effect."

Elma thought the interview would never be over.

It was best to say nothing, or Mrs. Leighton would have had the town searched for Elsie. It was best in every way to crumple tight that incriminating paper and wonder why in the wide world Elsie had done it.

She met the Serpent the following day. There was an impish, happy look of mischief on that usually savage little face. Miss Meredith had been retailing to her mamma the terrific alarm which the Leightons had experienced on the previous evening. She met Elma full face and the smile on her lips died.

"Why did you do it?" asked Elma bluntly as though she had known the Serpent all her life. The Serpent glared blandly at Elma, then fiercely resumed her ordinary pose.

"You came to my house, or your mother did, to take me out of myself--charity-child sort of visit, you know. I heard of that, never mind how. I came to you to take you out of yourselves. I rather fancy I did it--didn't I?"

The ice of reserve had been broken at last and the Serpent was stinging in earnest.

Elma could only gaze at her.

"You think I'm a kind of 'case,' I suppose. Some one to feel good and generous over. Just because my hair is coming out in patches. Well, it's stopped coming out in patches but I still have a few calls to pay."

"Weren't you afraid last night?" asked Elma in complete wonder.

They had moved into a shadow against the wall.

"Afraid," blazed the Serpent, and then she trembled as though she would fall.

"Don't," cried Elma sharply, "don't faint."

"I nearly did--last night. I nearly did. It was dreadful going home. Who knows that it was I who was there?"

"I do," said Elma, "that's all."

"Don't tell a soul," wailed the burglar. "You won't, will you? I know it was awful of me, but such fun up to the moment, when--when I heard them moving inside. Then my legs grew so weak and it was like a dream where you can't get away. You shouldn't have called me the Serpent."

"We didn't," said Elma. "Not in the way you mean. But because you seemed to know about animals in a queer way--like Elsie Venner. Lance said she was half a snake, but just because she knew about snakes. It's difficult to explain."

"Lance?" asked the Serpent.

"Yes, why don't you speak to Lance now and then?"

"I pay him a higher compliment," said the queer little Serpent. "I wore his clothes last night."

"Oh," said Elma. "Oh! yet you could faint to-day--or nearly so."

"Isn't it wicked," said the Serpent. "A boy wouldn't have given in. They do much worse, and don't give way at the knees, you know. I only opened the window and threw in the note. It was nothing. I meant you just to be puzzled. I was there early and couldn't find a suitable window or a door, so I waited till the maids went to bed. They left a little window half open."

"Mamma ought to dismiss cook," said Elma primly.

It was a streak of the sunlight of confidence which did not illuminate the Serpent again for many days to come. Elma, however, at the time, and until she once more met the scornful glare of reserve habitual to that person, felt as though she had found a friend. They said good-bye in fairly jocular spirits, and Elma rushed home to give at least her "all-to-be-depended-upon" mother the news.

When she entered the drawing-room, however, Jean was describing the burglary to a company of people. Little shrieks and "Ohs" and "Oh, however did you do it?" "I should have died, really I should," were to be heard.

Jean's burglar was six feet two by this time and he had an "accomplice."

Elma thought she would choose another occasion on which to give her news to Mrs. Leighton.