Edgar Jepson

“ We haven't got far from London," said Peter in a tone of satisfaction.
They started to run down the lane, but they had not gone fifty yards when he stopped short.
"Here, this won't do," he said in a tone of decision. "We shall run straight into that car coming back."
Memories of the foolishness of the heroes of his favorite books were guiding him. They always ran into the villain's arms.
He looked up the lane and down it and across the fields. Jenny looked at him anxiously awaiting his decision. He had definitely taken the lead. ”

“ She raised no objection when Peter suggested that they should work their way down through the wood to Hendon. They went along the edge of it till they came to a broad, turfed and mossy drive, running north and south, and went down it, conversing cheerfully. The moon kept breaking through and lighting up the drive.
But when they came to the end of it they suffered a check. Along its edge ran a broad high road, and on the other side of that road meadows, in which were very little cover, stretched away to the lights of Hendon. ”

“ Since Peter had seen Police Constable Robinson kiss Martha in that very passage he was not deceived. But he did not tell her so. He went lightly up to his bedroom on the second floor, took the packet out of his pocket, and examined it. He could easily have untied the knot and opened it. But he supposed that since it had been entrusted to him he ought not to do so. He did not. But he felt it carefully. He found that there was a softer wrapping under the brown paper and under that small lumps. His detective instinct at work, he perceived at once that it must contain diamonds. ”

“ At cricket so very little happened in such a long time. This was not so in football, lawn tennis, golf, boxing and running. In these sports something was always doing; and though but twelve summers had passed over his fair young head, he promised to become expert in them. He had the eye and the head. He had indeed already collected cups for the school under-fourteen quarter-mile and half-mile handicaps, and though he was not yet of a size to collect the cup for the under-fourteen boxing, he could easily out-point any boy of his age in the school. There was a mercenary streak in Peter. ”

“ At once he found a box of forty in the drawer from which Jake had taken the string. Greatly relieved, he thrust it into his pocket, took Jenny's vanity bag, which still held the necklace, from the dressing-table, let himself out of the room, locked the door, put the key in his pocket, crossed the landing, and unlocked the door of Jenny's prison.
It would not open. It jammed against a chair fixed under the handle.
"You stay where you are, Jake," said Jenny in a cool, determined voice. "Try to come in here, and I'll brain you."
"It's all right," said Peter in a reassuring voice. ”

“ His first act was to take the packet from the drawer to feast his eyes on it. It occurred to him that probably he ought to consult the police about it. He did not let the thought trouble him. The police were always there—often when they were not wanted. Crooks were much rarer. He was not going to sever a pleasing connection with crooks by any foolish step of that kind.
The day passed slowly. Peter's form master found him even more distrait than usual. Even his thick-witted young companions perceived that he was not quite himself. ”

“ Money in quantity could never come a boy's way without his parents getting wind of it and putting it in the Savings Bank till he was grown up when, of course, it would be practically useless. He decided to content himself with getting enough money out of it to make a really good wireless set—always supposing that he did not find the girl.
He did not find the girl. Police Constable Robinson could throw no light on her. He had rushed, as Peter had seen, to her rescue; he had caught one of the men who had been molesting her, the shorter one. ”

“ It stopped at the house and three men got out of it. The house was not more than sixty yards from the edge of the wood, so that Peter and Jenny could see their earnest efforts to get into it, for the lamps of the car illumined them. They watched with great pleasure. At last the men broke into one of the lower rooms through a window. The gravel in the door-lock had done its bit, for it must have been a good half-hour after the arrival of the car before the three of them and Long Jake came through the window. They got into the car and drove off. ”

“ Between the bouts Peter observed that his Uncle George and Jenny Helston grew more and more friendly. They established an identity of taste in many matters of the greatest importance. Mr. Helston appeared to be of a phlegmatic temperament. He must have had views on these important matters. But he did not divulge them. Peter studied him with extraordinary interest. He might never again in his life come across a master criminal. ”

“ The curious angle at which the big man's cigar stuck, with apparent precariousness, in the corner of his mouth—the obvious cynical distrust with which he watched the battling policemen—his lapses into profound thought about nefarious enterprises with his eyes half-closed—nothing was lost on him. ”

“ It's so easy to dodge people in a wood."
"That wood! On a dark night like this?" said Jenny with a little shiver. "I should be frightened out of my life."
"Whatever of?" asked Peter.
"A11 kinds of things," said Jenny.
Peter was surprised and rather disappointed in her. That a girl who had been so ready to brain Long Jake should be frightened of an ordinary wood seemed to him truly astonishing. He saw that she really was terrified. But the thing for them to do was to get into the wood; and into the wood they were going to get. ”

“ His leisureliness of movement gave him an appearance of slowness that accorded ill with his catlike quickness when such quickness was plainly demanded by circumstances he had frequently brought about, but over which he had no control. ”

“ They went a few steps and then he said in a tone of surprise, "Aren't we going to see after his wound?"
"See after Long Jake?" said Jenny in a tone of equal surprise. "You can't kill Long Jake! Besides I only got him in the shoulder and Zimmy will come back and look after him."
Peter could see nothing to be said against the arrangement and they went briskly over the fields to Hendon. There was no longer any need to run. At the corner of Bell Lane they found a motor bus on the point of starting and clambered aboard it thankfully. ”