The children went off to bed, grumbling. The girls had a bedroom at the back, and the boys at the front. Jack opened the window and looked out. It was a dark night. No car was to be heard, nor any footsteps.
“I shall listen for Bill,” he told Philip. “I shall sit here by the window till he comes. You get into bed. I’ll wake you if I hear him.”
“We’ll take it in turns,” said Philip, getting into bed. “You watch for an hour, then wake up, and I’ll watch.”
In the back bedroom the girls were already in bed. Lucy-Ann wished she could see Bill. She loved him very much — he was so safe and strong and wise. Lucy-Ann had no father or mother, and she often wished that Bill was her father. Aunt Allie was a lovely mother, and it was nice to share her with Philip and Dinah. She couldn’t share their father because he was dead.
“I hope I shall keep awake and hear Bill when he comes,” she thought. But soon she was fast asleep, and so was Dinah. The clock struck half-past ten, and then eleven.
Jack awoke Philip. “Nobody has come yet,” he said. “Your turn to watch, Tufty. Funny that he’s so late, isn’t it?”
Philip sat down at the window. He yawned. He listened but he could hear nothing. And then he suddenly saw a streak of bright light as his mother, downstairs, pulled back a curtain, and the light flooded into the garden.
Philip knew what it was, of course — but he suddenly stiffened as the light struck on something pale, hidden in a bush by the front gate. The something was moved quickly back into the shadows, but Philip had guessed what it was.
“That was someone’s face I saw! Somebody is hiding in the bushes by the gate. Why? It can’t be Bill. He’d come right in. Then it must be somebody waiting in ambush for him. Golly!”
He slipped across to the bed and awoke Jack. He whispered to him what he had seen. Jack was out of bed and by the window at once. But he could see nothing, of course. Mrs. Mannering had drawn the curtain back over the window, and no light shone out now. The garden was in darkness.
“We must do something quickly,” said Jack. “If Bill comes, he’ll be knocked out, if that’s what that man down there is waiting for. Can we warn Bill? Its plain he knows there’s danger for himself, or he wouldn’t have been so mysterious on the telephone — and insisted he couldn’t come if anyone else was here. I wish Aunt Allie would go to bed. What’s the time? The clock struck eleven some time ago, I know.”
There came the sound of somebody clicking off lights and a door closing. “It’s Mother,” said Philip. “She’s not going to wait up any longer. She’s coming up to bed. Good! Now the house will be in darkness, and maybe that fellow will go.”
“We’ll have to see that he does,” said Jack. “Do you suppose Bill will come now, Philip? — it’s getting very late.”
“If he says he will, he will,” said Philip. “Sh — here’s Mother.”
Both boys hopped into bed and pretended to be asleep. Mrs. Mannering switched the light on, and then, seeing that both boys were apparently sound asleep, she switched it off again quickly. She did the same in the girls’ room, and then went to her own room.
Philip was soon sitting by the window again, eyes and ears open for any sign of the hidden man in the bushes below. He thought he heard a faint cough.
“He’s still there,” he said to Jack. “He must have got wind of Bill coming here tonight.”
“Or more likely still, he knows that Bill is a great friend of ours, and whatever gang he belongs to has sent a man to watch in that bush every night,” said Jack. “He’s hoping that Bill will turn up sooner or later. Bill must have a lot of enemies. He’s always tracking down crooks and criminals.”
“Listen,” said Philip, “I’m going to creep out of the back door, and get through the hedge of the next-door garden, and out of their back gate, so as not to let that hidden man hear me. And I’m going to watch for old Bill and warn him. He’ll come up the road, not down, because that’s the way he always comes.”
“Good idea!” said Jack. “I’ll come too.”
“No. One of us must watch to see what that man down there does,” said Philip. “We’ll have to know if he’s there or not. I’ll go. You stay at the window. If I find Bill coming along I’ll warn him and turn him back.”
“All right,” said Jack, wishing he had the exciting job of creeping about in dark gardens to go and meet Bill. “Give him our love — and tell him to phone us if he can, we’ll meet him somewhere safe.”
Philip slipped quietly out of the room. There was still a light in his mother’s room, so he went very cautiously downstairs, anxious not to disturb her. She would be very scared if she knew about the hidden man.
He opened the back door quietly, shut it softly behind him, and went out into the dark garden. He had no torch, for he did not want to show any sign of himself at all.
He squeezed through a gap in the hedge, and came into the next-door garden. He knew it very well. He found the path, and then made his way quietly along the grass at the edge of it, afraid of making the gravel crunch a little, if he walked on it.
Then he thought he heard a sound. He stopped dead and listened. Surely there wasn’t another man hiding somewhere? Could they be burglars, not men waiting for Bill, after all? Ought he to creep back and telephone to the police?
He listened again, straining his ears, and had a queer feeling that there was someone nearby, also listening. Listening for him, Philip, perhaps. It was not a nice thought, there in the darkness.
He took a step forward — and then suddenly someone fell on him savagely, pinned his arms behind him, and forced him on his face to the ground. Philip bit deep into the soft earth of a flower-bed, and choked. He could not even shout for help.
Chapter 4
A VISIT FROM BILL — AND A GREAT IDEA
PHILIP’S captor was remarkably quiet in his movements. He had captured Philip with hardly a sound, and as the boy had not had time to utter a single cry, nobody had heard anything at all. Philip struggled frantically, for he was half choked with the soft earth that his face was buried in.
He was twisted over quickly, and a gag of some sort was put right across his mouth. His wrists, he found, were already tied together. Whatever could be happening? Did this fellow think he was Bill? But surely he knew that Bill was big and burly?
Trying to spit out the earth in his mouth behind the gag, Philip wriggled and struggled. But it was of no use, for his captor was strong and merciless.
He was picked up and carried to a summer-house, quite silently. “And now,” hissed a voice, close to his ear, “how many more of you are there here? Tell me that, or you’ll be sorry. Grunt twice if there are more of you.”
Philip made no answer. He didn’t know what to do, grunt or not grunt. Instead he groaned, for his mouth was still full of earth, and it did not taste at all nice.
His captor ran his hands over him. Then he got out a small pocket-torch, and flashed it once, very quickly, on Philip’s gagged face. He saw the tuft of hair standing straight up on Philip’s forehead, and gave a gasp.
“Philip! You little ass! What are you doing out here, creeping about in the dark?”
With a shock of amazement and delight, Philip recognised Bill’s voice. Gosh, so it was Bill! Well, he didn’t mind his mouth being full of earth then. He pulled at the gag, making gurgling sounds.
“Shut up!” whispered Bill urgently, and he took off the gag. “There may be others about. Don’t make a sound. If you’ve anything to say whisper it right into my ear, like this.”
“Bill,” whispered Philip, his mouth finding Bill’s ear, “there’s a man hidden in the bushes at our front gate. We spotted him there, and I slipped out to warn you if I could. Be careful.”
Bill undid Philip’s wrists. The boy rubbed them tenderly. Bill knew how to tie people up, no doubt about that! Good thing he hadn’t knocked him out.
“The back door’s open,” he whispered into Bill’s ear. “As far as I know there’s nobody waiting about at the back. Let’s try and get into the house. We can talk there.”