HE SEEMED TO BE crouching there.
I could see only his legs, in darkish trousers, and he had no idea that I could see him at all.
He was apparently listening, listening and calculating. Should he make a dash to get out, or retreat?
The door from the dining room to the hall was wide open. I would surely see him; was it worth the trying?
Evidently he decided that it was not, for without turning he backed soundlessly up the stairs.
“Judy,” I said quietly. “Don’t move or raise your voice.
There’s a burglar upstairs.
I’ve just seen him.”
“What shall I do?
I can close the library door and call the police.”
“Do that, then, and I’ll tell Joseph.
He can’t get out by the back stairs without going through the kitchen, and the servants would see him.”
I rang for Joseph, feeling calm and rather pleased at my calmness.
Such few jewels as I keep out of the bank were on me, and if he wanted my gold toilet set he was welcome. It was insured.
But while I waited for Joseph I took off my rings and dropped them into the flower vase on the table.
Joseph took the news quietly.
He said that Robert was still in the garage, and that he would station him at the foot of the back stairs, but that to wait for the police was nonsense.
“He’d jump out a window, madam.
But if I go up, as though I didn’t know he was about, I might surprise him.”
“You’re not armed.”
“I have a revolver in the pantry, madam.”
That did not surprise me.
There had been some burglaries in the neighborhood recently—I believe the bootlegger had had the tables turned on him, a matter which I considered a sort of poetic justice—and I stood in the doorway watching the stairs until Joseph reappeared.
“If he gets past me,” he said, “stand out of his way, madam.
These cat burglars are dangerous.”
He went up the front staircase, leaving me in the lower hall.
I could hear Judy at the telephone, patiently explaining in a low voice, and I could hear Joseph overhead, moving about systematically: the second floor, the third, opening room doors and closet doors, moving with his dignified unhurried tread, but doing the thing thoroughly.
He was still moving majestically along the third floor hall when I heard a slight noise near at hand. I could neither describe it nor locate it.
Something fairly near me had made a sound, a small sharp report.
It appeared to have come from the back hallway, where there is a small lavatory.
When Judy emerged I told her, and against my protests she marched back and threw open the door.
It was quite empty and soon after Joseph came down to say that he had found nobody, but that some one might be hiding on the roof, and as by that time a policeman had arrived on a motorcycle, I sent him out to look.
The officer inside and Joseph out, it seemed scarcely credible that we found nobody.
But our burglar had gone; without booty too, as it turned out, for my toilet things were undisturbed.
I think the officer was rather amused than otherwise.
Judy saw him out.
“If you’re ever in trouble again, Miss, just send for me,” he said gallantly.
“I’m always in trouble,” said Judy.
“Now is that so?
What sort of trouble?”
“Policemen,” said Judy pleasantly, and closed the door on him.
Looking back, it seems strange how light-hearted we were that night.
That loneliness which is my usual lot had gone with Judy’s arrival, and when Wallie arrived at eight-thirty he found Judy insisting on my smoking a cigarette.
“You’re shaken, Elizabeth Jane,” she was saying. “You know darn well you’re shaken.”
“Shaken? About what?” said Wallie from the hall.
“She’s had a burglar, poor dear,” Judy explained.
“A burglar in dark trousers, crouched on the staircase.”
“On the stairs?
Do you mean you saw him?”
“She saw his legs.”