Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/110

98 Then I ventured to use my tongue.

“Pollie, why wouldn’t you let me speak to him? Why wouldn’t you let me tell him we were here?”

“And a nice fuss there’d have been. No, thanks, my dear. Before I call in the assistance of the police I should like to turn the matter over in my mind. It begins to strike me that where my Uncle Benjamin had reasons for concealment, I may have reasons too, at any rate until I know just what there is to conceal.”

“In the meanwhile, how are we to get out of here? We’re trapped.”

“It’s the ingenuity with which Uncle Ben, or somebody, has guarded the approach to his, or, rather, my, premises which makes it clear to me that there may be something about the place on which it may be as well not to be in too great a hurry to turn the searchlight of a policeman’s eye. As to getting out of this—we’ll see.”

She struck another match, and saw. Either we had been the victims of an ocular delusion, or something curious had taken place since she had struck the first, for where, just now, there was a blank wall, in which was no sign of any opening, a door stood wide open. I could not credit the evidence of my own eyes.

“I declare,” I cried, “it wasn’t there just now.”

“It was not visible, at any rate. I tell you what, my dear, we mayn’t be the only occupants of this establishment, that’s about the truth of it. It’s possible that there’s someone behind the scenes who’s pulling the strings.”

I did not like the ideas which her words conjured up at all.

“But—who can it be?”

“That’s for us to discover.”

There was a grimness about her tone which suggested what was, to me, a new side of Pollie’s character. My impulse was to get away from the place as fast as ever I could and never return to it