‘Gome on. Let’s go there,’ said George, impatiently. They went to the study-door, and Sooty turned the handle.
It was locked again! He pushed hard, but it wasn’t a bit of good. It was well and truly locked!
‘We might have thought of that,’ said George, in despair. ‘Blow, blow, blow! What are we to do now?’
Sooty thought for a few moments. Then he spoke in a low voice, in George’s ear.
‘There’s only one thing left to do, George. I must creep into your father’s room – my old bedroom – when he is asleep – and I must get into the cupboard there, open the entrance to the secret passage, and slip in that way. I’ll find Timmy and bring him back the same way, hoping that your father won’t wake!’
‘Oh! Would you really do that for me?’ said George, gratefully. ‘You are a good friend, Sooty! Would you rather I did it?’
‘No. I know the way up and down that passage better than you do,’ said Sooty. ‘It’s a bit frightening to be all alone there at midnight too. I’ll go.’
George went with Sooty up the stairs, across the wide landing, to the door at the end of the passage that led to Sooty’s old room, where George’s father was now sleeping. When they got there, George pulled his arm.
‘Sooty! The buzzer will go as soon as you open the door – and it will wake my father and warn him.’
‘Idiot! I disconnected it as soon as I knew my room was to be changed,’ said Sooty, scornfully. ‘As if I wouldn’t think of that!’
He opened the door that led into the passage. He crept up to his old room. The door was shut. He and George listened intently.
‘Your father sounds a bit restless,’ said Sooty. ‘I’ll wait my chance to creep in, George, and then, as soon as possible, slip into the cupboard and open the secret passage to find Tim. As soon as I’ve got Timmy I’ll bring him along to you. You could wait in Marybelle’s room if you liked. Anne’s there too.’
George crept into the room next door, where Anne and Marybelle lay fast asleep. She left the door open, so that she might hear when Sooty returned. How lovely it would be to have dear old Timmy again! He would lick her and lick her.
Sooty crept into the room where George’s father lay, half-asleep. He made no sound. He knew every creaking board and avoided them. He made his way quietly to a big chair, meaning to hide behind it till he was certain George’s father was sound asleep.
For some time the man in the bed tossed and turned. He was tired with his long journey, and his mind was excited with his talk with Mr. Lenoir. He muttered now and again, and Sooty began to feel he would never be sound asleep! He grew sleepy himself, and yawned silently.
At last George’s father grew quiet and peaceful. No more creaks came from the bed. Sooty cautiously moved out from behind the chair.
Then suddenly something startled him. He heard a
sound over by the window! But what could it be? It was a very small sound, like a tiny creak of a door.
The night was rather dark, but the window, its curtains pulled right back, could easily be seen as a square of grey. Sooty fixed his eyes on it. Was someone opening the window?
No. The window did not move. But something queer was happening under it, near the sill.
A big window-seat was built in under the window, wide and comfortable. Sooty knew it well! He had sat on it hundreds of times to look out of the window. Now, what was happening to it?
It looked as if the top, or lid of the seat was slowly moving upwards, bit by bit. Sooty was puzzled. He had never known it could be opened like that. It had always been screwed down, and he had thought it was just a seat and nothing else. But now it looked as if someone had unscrewed the top, and had hidden himself inside, lifting up the top like a lid when he thought it was safe.
Sooty stared at the upward-moving lid, quite fascinated. Who was in there? Why had he hidden? It was rather frightening, seeing the lid move slowly, bit by bit.
At last the lid was wide open and rested against the window-pane. A big figure cautiously and slowly got out, not making the slightest sound. Sooty felt his hair rising up on his head. He was afraid, terribly afraid. He could not utter a sound.
The figure tiptoed over to the bed. He made a quick and sudden movement, and there was a stifled sound from George’s father. Sooty guessed he had been gagged, so that he could not cry out. Still the boy could not move or speak. He had never been so scared in all his life.
The intruder lifted the limp body from the bed, and went to the window-seat. He put George’s father into the darkness there. What he had done to make him unable to struggle Sooty didn’t know. He only knew that poor George’s father was being put down in the window-seat, and couldn’t seem to move a hand to help himself!
The boy suddenly found his voice. ‘Hie!’ he yelled. ‘Hie! What are you doing? Who are you?’
He remembered his torch and switched it on. He saw a face he knew, and cried out in surprise. ‘Mr. Barling!’
Then someone hit him a hard blow on the head and he remembered nothing more at all. He did not know that he was lifted into the window-seat too. He did not know that the intruder followed after him. He knew nothing.
George, awake in the next room, suddenly heard Sooty’s voice crying out. ‘Hie!’ she heard. ‘Hie, what are you doing? Who are you?’ And then, as she slipped out of bed, she heard the next cry. ‘Mr. Barling!’
George was extremely startled. What was going on next door? She fumbled about for her torch. Anne and Marybelle were still asleep. George could not find her torch. She fell over a chair and banged her head.
When at last she had found her torch she tiptoed, trembling, to the door. She shone her torch and saw that the door next to hers was a little ajar, just as Sooty had left it, when he had crept inside. She listened. There was absolutely no sound at all now. She had heard a small bumping noise after Sooty’s last cry, but she didn’t know what it was.
She suddenly put her head round the door of her father’s room, and shone her torch again. She stared in surprise. The bed was empty. The room was empty. There was no one there at all! She flashed her torch all round.
She opened the cupboard door fearfully. She looked under the bed. She was, in fact, extremely brave.
At last she sank down on the window-seat, frightened and puzzled. Where was her father? Where was Sooty? Whatever had been happening here that night?
Chapter Sixteen
NEXT MORNING
As George sat by the window, on the very seat into which everyone had unaccountably disappeared, though she did not know it, she heard a faint sound from the passage.
Quick as lightning the girl slipped under the bed. Someone was creeping down the long passage! George lay silently on the floor, lifting the valance a little to try and see who it was. What queer things were going on tonight!
Someone came in at the door. Someone stopped there, as if to look and listen. Then the Someone crept over to the window-seat.
George watched and listened, straining her eyes in the darkness. She dimly saw the Someone outlined against the grey square of the window. He was bent over the window-seat.
He showed no light at all. But he made some curious little sounds. First came the sound of his fingers tapping about on the closed lid of the seat. Then came the clink of something metallic, and a very faint squeaking. George could not imagine what the man – if it was a man – was doing.
For about five minutes the Someone worked away at his task in the darkness. Then, as quietly as he had come, he went away. George couldn’t help thinking it was Block, though his outline against the dark-grey of the window was too dim to recognize. But he had once given a little cough exactly like Block so often gave. It must be Block! But whatever was he doing in her father’s room at night, on the window-seat?
George felt as if she was in a bad dream. The queerest things happened and kept on happening, and they didn’t seem to make sense at all. Where was her father? Had he left his room and gone wandering over the house? Where was Sooty, and why had he called out? He wouldn’t have shouted out like that, surely, if her father had been asleep in the room!