Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/134

Rh Jane, in a few simple words, explained where their key was.

"And of course you can get over the wall and get the key and give it to us through the gate, and then we can go and get the garden padlock-key. It's quite easy to climb up one of the buttresses inside and drop down outside, but then you can't get back again. I should have gone myself but I didn't like leaving my friend alone in the garden, because, you see, it might really have been burglars."

"But," said he, "I have a key on my bunch that opens that padlock—that's how I got in. Padlocks are all alike. And then I thought it wasn't safe to leave it unlocked, so I went back and locked it." And he struck another match.

"How simple everything is when you understand it," said Jane; "and do stop striking matches. It only makes it darker afterwards. Go along and get that key, please. It's lying on the path outside the gate. We'll meet you at the garden-house door. It's quite near the gate."

"I must strike another match," he said apologetically, "or I shall go barging into you as I go out."

He struck one, sidled past them, and was gone.

"What shall we do?" Lucilla whispered.

"Go home, of course. He can stay in the summer-house if he likes. I daresay it'll seem luxury after his prison life."

"No," said Lucilla, "don't let's. I can't bear not to know why he came at night instead of to tea, and whether he's really a gentleman burglar and came down just to burgle us, or whether . . ."

"All right," said Jane recklessly. "Come on. There's only one thing certain. We asked him to tea and he hasn't had that tea. Let's light up in the garden room and have tea again—again and again, until we extort his full confession. I'm very wet and very cold. We'll have a fire. Thank goodness we collected those sticks and fir-cones! If he is a burglar the fire will camouflage the tea-pot and things."

When the candles were lighted in the garden room the three looked at each other—wet, draggled, streaked with green and brown from the caresses of the old shrubs, blinking with