‘It’ll be the biggest thing you ever did in your life. I shall set Brooks to work directly I’m sure of my ground, and then you must be ready. We may have to start any night.’ The two worthies then conversed together in a lower tone, and presently the foreign gentleman said ‘Good-day’ and went out. Josh Heckett, left alone, looked about him. ‘I wonder where the deuce that gal’s got to?’ he said. He came and peered into his own room and went out again. ‘She must be out in the Dials,’ Gertie heard him say. ‘I hope she don’t leave the place like this often.’ Presently Gertie heard the clang of his heavy boots going down the rickety stairs. ‘He’s gone out to look for me,’ she thought. She slipped out from her hiding-place, rushed upstairs to her own little room, and knocked the fluff and dust off her dress. While she was there her grandfather came in again, and shouted up the stairs: ‘Gertie, are you there?’ ‘Yes, grandfather,’ she called out. ‘I had a headache, and laid down, and dropped off to sleep.’ ‘Well,’ growled the old man, ‘come down and look arter the place. If you go to sleep again I’ll wake yer up.’ Gertie came down trembling. The old man eyed her keenly for a moment, then bidding her keep her eyes open and not leave the place again, he lit his pipe and went out. Latterly Josh Heckett had been very little at home, leaving the business, such as it was, almost entirely to Gertie. The child noticed that he never bought any fresh animals now, and that anything sold was not replaced. She asked him once if the stock wasn’t getting low, and he nodded his head. ‘I’m going to give up business, my lass,’ he said, with the nearest approach to a smile, his stern, fierce face could manage. ‘We’re going to make our fortunes and retire.’ Gertie listened to her grandfather’s retreating footsteps, then she flung herself down by Lion, and, throwing her arms round the dog’s neck, cried out: ‘Oh, Lion, Lion, however shall we let Miss Adrian know?’ She sat by the dog as the hours went by, endeavouring to think how she could get to the address on the piece of paper without being discovered. She didn’t know if it was near or far. She thought she would wait till the night, when it was time to feed the animals, shut up the place, and go upstairs to her own little room. She always locked the door at night, and her grandfather had another key which he let himself in with, as he had to pass through the ‘shop,’ as he called it, to get to his bedroom. Perhaps she could get out and get home again before he came in. As the afternoon waned and the evening brought the longed-for darkness, Gertie’s plans began to assume a more definite shape.