"Oh, rot!" said Gerald. "Come on! This way to the bun shop."
They went. And it was while Cathy and Jimmy were in the shop and the others were gazing through the glass at the jam tarts and Swiss rolls and Victoria sandwiches and Bath buns under the spread yellow muslin in the window, that Gerald discoursed in Mabel's ear of the plans and hopes of one entering on a detective career.
"I shall keep my eyes open to-night, I can tell you," he began. "I shall keep my eyes skinned, and no jolly error. The invisible detective may not only find out about the purse and the silver, but detect some crime that isn't even done yet. And I shall hang about until I see some suspicious-looking characters leave the town, and follow them furtively and catch them red-handed, with their hands full of priceless jewels, and hand them over."
"Oh!" cried Mabel, so sharply and suddenly that Gerald was roused from his dream to express sympathy.
"Pain?" he said quite kindly. "It's the apples--they _were_ rather hard."
"Oh, it's not that," said Mabel very earnestly. "Oh, how awful! I never thought of that before."
"Never thought of _what_?" Gerald asked impatiently.
"The panelled-room window. At home, you know--at the castle. That settles it--I _must_ go home. We left it open and the shutters as well, and all the jewels and things there. Auntie'll never go in; she never does. That settles it; I _must_ go home--now--this minute."
Here the others issued from the shop, bun-bearing, and the situation was hastily explained to them.
[Illustration: "I _MUST_ GO HOME--NOW--THIS MINUTE."]
But Jimmy said he didn't see what good it would do. "Because the key's inside the door, anyhow."
"She _will_ be cross," said Mabel sadly. "She'll have to get the gardeners to get a ladder and----"
"Hooray!" said Gerald. "Here's me! Nobler and more secret than gardeners or ladders was the invisible Jerry. I'll climb in at the window--it's all ivy, I know I could--and shut the window and the shutters all sereno, put the key back on the nail, and slip out unperceived the back way, threading my way through the maze of unconscious retainers. There'll be plenty of time. I don't suppose burglars begin their fell work until the night is far advanced."