He pulled her roughly off the ladder and walked up himself. His footsteps creaked on the boarded floor above, then all was silence. Pamela crept softly up the ladder, peeped into the room above, and descended as quietly as she came; then, crossing to the stall where Avelyn was hidden, put her finger on her lips for silence and beckoned her friend towards the door. She led her hurriedly along the garden. Neither spoke a word till they reached the palings. "I'm awfully sorry I came, Pam!" apologized Avelyn. "Never mind, you couldn't help it. How should you know Uncle Fritz would be here?" "I certainly shouldn't have come if I had known." "Who would? Ave, have you ever seen a little wild linnet get into a bird-catcher's net?" "No." "I have. It runs and struggles and beats its wings, and the more it tries to escape the worse it gets caught in the meshes. Ave, at present I feel like that linnet." "Can't I help you, Pam?" "Not yet. I want to think. When I really feel you can help me, I shall come and ask you. You wouldn't fail me?" "I'd help you for all I'm worth, if it's against your uncle." Pamela's eyes filled with tears. "I'm so utterly alone," she faltered. "Mother doesn't understand. Since Father died she has never cared for anything. She's content to live here on Uncle's bounty. She's so absolutely trusting and unsuspicious, just like a child. I never can get her to see things as I do. Although I'm hardly fourteen, I often feel that I know more of the world than she does. Just at present Mother is going about with her eyes closed." "And you?" "I'm keeping my eyes particularly wide open, and my mouth tight shut," replied Pamela, as she kissed her friend good-bye and helped her to climb the palings. Avelyn went home very thoughtfully. She found the boys digging in the kitchen garden, and confided to them her morning's experience. They decided that something mysterious must be going on at Moss Cottage. "It looks fishy!" said David, slowly scraping the earth off his boots with the edge of his spade. "What has that old Hun got up his sleeve?" enquired Anthony, shaking his head. "I don't know. After what we saw in the wood I'd believe anything of him." "Shall we tell the Vicar, or somebody?" suggested Avelyn. "No! no!" protested David emphatically. "Whatever you do, Ave, for goodness' sake don't blab! We've no proper evidence yet, and if stories begin to get about the village he'll know he's suspected, and he'll be careful. Just you leave this to me. It's my first 'case', and I want to worry it out. Remember, I'm going to be a barrister some day, when the war is over, if I don't go out to France first and get killed. Old Hockheimer's deep, but he doesn't know we're watching him. Two British boys ought to be a match for a German!" "I'd shoot him first and watch him afterwards if I had my way," declared Tony bloodthirstily.