If
anyone had seen me—”

The audience had been a little restive under this harangue, and Parkins
had, I fear, fallen somewhat into the tone of a lecturer; but at the
last sentence the Colonel stopped. “Whistling, were you?” he said. “And what sort of whistle did you use? Play this stroke first.” Interval. “About that whistle you were asking, Colonel. It’s rather a curious
one. I have it in my—No; I see I’ve left it in my room. As a matter of
fact, I found it yesterday.”

And then Parkins narrated the manner of his discovery of the whistle,
upon hearing which the Colonel grunted, and opined that, in Parkins’s
place, he should himself be careful about using a thing that had
belonged to a set of Papists, of whom, speaking generally, it might be
affirmed that you never knew what they might not have been up to. From
this topic he diverged to the enormities of the Vicar, who had given
notice on the previous Sunday that Friday would be the Feast of St
Thomas the Apostle, and that there would be service at eleven o’clock
in the church. This and other similar proceedings constituted in the
Colonel’s view a strong presumption that the Vicar was a concealed
Papist, if not a Jesuit; and Parkins, who could not very readily follow
the Colonel in this region, did not disagree with him. In fact, they
got on so well together in the morning that there was no talk on either
side of their separating after lunch. Both continued to play well during the afternoon, or, at least, well
enough to make them forget everything else until the light began to
fail them. Not until then did Parkins remember that he had meant to do
some more investigating at the preceptory; but it was of no great
importance, he reflected. One day was as good as another; he might as
well go home with the Colonel. As they turned the corner of the house, the Colonel was almost knocked
down by a boy who rushed into him at the very top of his speed, and
then, instead of running away, remained hanging on to him and panting. The first words of the warrior were naturally those of reproof and
objurgation, but he very quickly discerned that the boy was almost
speechless with fright. Inquiries were useless at first. When the boy
got his breath he began to howl, and still clung to the Colonel’s legs. He was at last detached, but continued to howl. “What in the world _is_ the matter with you? What have you been up to? What have you seen?” said the two men. “Ow, I seen it wive at me out of the winder,” wailed the boy, “and I
don’t like it.”

“What window?” said the irritated Colonel. “Come, pull yourself
together, my boy.”

“The front winder it was, at the ’otel,” said the boy. At this point Parkins was in favour of sending the boy home, but the
Colonel refused; he wanted to get to the bottom of it, he said; it was
most dangerous to give a boy such a fright as this one had had, and if
it turned out that people had been playing jokes, they should suffer
for it in some way. And by a series of questions he made out this
story: The boy had been playing about on the grass in front of the
Globe with some others; then they had gone home to their teas, and he
was just going, when he happened to look up at the front winder and see
it a-wiving at him. _It_ seemed to be a figure of some sort, in white
as far as he knew—couldn’t see its face; but it wived at him, and it
warn’t a right thing—not to say not a right person. Was there a light
in the room? No, he didn’t think to look if there was a light. Which
was the window? Was it the top one or the second one? The seckind one
it was—the big winder what got two little uns at the sides. “Very well, my boy,” said the Colonel, after a few more questions. “You
run away home now. I expect it was some person trying to give you a
start. Another time, like a brave English boy, you just throw a
stone—well, no, not that exactly, but you go and speak to the waiter,
or to Mr Simpson, the landlord, and—yes—and say that I advised you to
do so.”

The boy’s face expressed some of the doubt he felt as to the likelihood
of Mr Simpson’s lending a favourable ear to his complaint, but the
Colonel did not appear to perceive this, and went on:

“And here’s a sixpence—no, I see it’s a shilling—and you be off home,
and don’t think any more about it.”

The youth hurried off with agitated thanks, and the Colonel and Parkins
went round to the front of the Globe and reconnoitred. There was only
one window answering to the description they had been hearing. “Well, that’s curious,” said Parkins; “it’s evidently my window the lad
was talking about. Will you come up for a moment, Colonel Wilson? We
ought to be able to see if anyone has been taking liberties in my
room.”

They were soon in the passage, and Parkins made as if to open the door. Then he stopped and felt in his pockets. “This is more serious than I thought,” was his next remark. “I remember
now that before I started this morning I locked the door. It is locked
now, and, what is more, here is the key.” And he held it up. “Now,” he
went on, “if the servants are in the habit of going into one’s room
during the day when one is away, I can only say that—well, that I don’t
approve of it at all.” Conscious of a somewhat weak climax, he busied
himself in opening the door (which was indeed locked) and in lighting
candles. “No,” he said, “nothing seems disturbed.”

“Except your bed,” put in the Colonel. “Excuse me, that isn’t my bed,” said Parkins. “I don’t use that one. But it does look as if someone had been playing tricks with it.”

It certainly did: the clothes were bundled up and twisted together in a
most tortuous confusion. Parkins pondered. “That must be it,” he said at last: “I disordered the clothes last
night in unpacking, and they haven’t made it since. Perhaps they came
in to make it, and that boy saw them through the window; and then they
were called away and locked the door after them. Yes, I think that must
be it.”

“Well, ring and ask,” said the Colonel, and this appealed to Parkins as
practical. The maid appeared, and, to make a long story short, deposed that she
had made the bed in the morning when the gentleman was in the room, and
hadn’t been there since. No, she hadn’t no other key. Mr Simpson he
kep’ the keys; he’d be able to tell the gentleman if anyone had been
up. This was a puzzle. Investigation showed that nothing of value had been
taken, and Parkins remembered the disposition of the small objects on
tables and so forth well enough to be pretty sure that no pranks had
been played with them. Mr and Mrs Simpson furthermore agreed that
neither of them had given the duplicate key of the room to any person
whatever during the day. Nor could Parkins, fair-minded man as he was,
detect anything in the demeanour of master, mistress, or maid that
indicated guilt. He was much more inclined to think that the boy had
been imposing on the Colonel. The latter was unwontedly silent and pensive at dinner and throughout
the evening.