Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/109

Rh some soft and heavy body had come in sudden contact with the ground. A momentary silence. Then what was unmistakably an official voice, a beautiful and a blessed voice it sounded to me just then.

“All right, my lads! A little tricky, aren’t you? I daresay you think you did that very neat. You wait a bit. Next time it’ll be my turn, then perhaps I’ll show you a dodge or two.”

“Pollie,” I exclaimed, “it’s that nice policeman!”

“Hush! What if it is?”

What if it is? Everything—to me. It meant the flight of mystery, and an opportunity to breathe again. If I could have had my way I would have rushed out into the back yard and hugged him. But Pollie was so cold, and—when she liked and her precious Tom wasn’t concerned—so self-contained. She froze me. I could hear his dear big feet stamping across the yard. He thumped against the door—and I perhaps within an inch of him and not allowed to say a word.

“Inside there! Is there anyone in there?” There was; there was me. I longed to tell him so, only Pollie’s grasp closed so tightly on my arm—I knew it would be black and blue in the morning—that I did not dare. “Isn’t there a bell or a knocker? This seems to be a queer sort of a house. There’s something fishy about the place, or I’m mistaken.”

I could have assured him that he was not mistaken, and would if it had not been for Pollie. I could picture him in my mind’s eyes flashing the rays of his bull’s-eye lantern in search of something by means of which he could acquaint the inhabitants within of his presence there without—in his innocence! As if we did not know that he was there. For some minutes—it seemed hours to me—he prowled about, patiently looking for what he could not find. Then, giving up the quest in despair, he strode across the yard, climbed heavily over the wall, stamped along the passage; we could hear his footsteps even in the street beyond.