‘I have not had that pleasure,’ said little Felix, bowing again, and absently taking up a bottle which lay to his hand.
‘Well, you are fortunate,’ the imperturbable Nella resumed. ‘For quite three minutes I thought I should perish in that grating, Dad, with my shoulder inside and the rest of me outside. However, at last, by the most amazing and agonizing efforts, I pulled myself through and fell into this extraordinary cellar more dead than alive. Then I wondered what I should do next. Should I wait for the mysterious visitor to return, and stab him with my pocket scissors if he tried to enter, or should I raise an alarm? First of all I replaced the broken grating, then I struck a match, and I saw that I had got landed in a wilderness of bottles. The match went out, and I hadn’t another one. So I sat down in the corner to think. I had just decided to wait and see if the visitor returned, when I heard footsteps, and then voices; and then you came in. I must say I was rather taken aback, especially as I recognized the voice of Mr Babylon. You see, I didn’t want to frighten you.
If I had bobbed up from behind the bottles and said “Booh!” you would have had a serious shock. I wanted to think of a way of breaking my presence gently to you. But you saved me the trouble, Dad. Was I really breathing so loudly that you could hear me?’
The girl ended her strange recital, and there was a moment’s silence in the cellar. Racksole merely nodded an affirmative to her concluding question.
‘Well, Nell, my girl,’ said the millionaire at length, ‘we are much obliged for your gymnastic efforts--very much obliged. But now, I think you had better go off to bed. There is going to be some serious trouble here, I’ll lay my last dollar on that?’
‘But if there is to be a burglary I should so like to see it, Dad,’ Nella pleaded. ‘I’ve never seen a burglar caught red-handed.’
‘This isn’t a burglary, my dear. I calculate it’s something far worse than a burglary.’
‘What?’ she cried. ‘Murder? Arson? Dynamite plot? How perfectly splendid!’
‘Mr Babylon informs me that Jules is in London,’ said Racksole quietly.
‘Jules!’ she exclaimed under her breath, and her tone changed instantly to the utmost seriousness. ‘Switch off the light, quick!’ Springing to the switch, she put the cellar in darkness.