"Where was Cecil before you went to live in the wing?" I asked. "Was she in the house?"
"Oh, she'd been in that wing for weeks before Father and I moved in," said the boy. "Mother slept there at night. And Cecil could look out as much as she liked, because there was no one about except us, and Krammie. Krammie doesn't count! She's the same as the family, because she's so old--she nursed Mother when Mother was a baby. Seems funny she _could_ have been a baby, doesn't it? But Krammie loves her better than any one, except me. She never splits on me to them if I do anything. But now I've eaten all the cakes, so we'd better go and find Krammie. If we don't, she may go into the wing first. There'd be the _devil_ to pay then!"
It seemed to me that there was the devil to pay already--a devil in woman's form--unless my imagination had made a fool of me. I shivered with disgust at the thought of those two witches--the middle-aged one and the hag. I hope I didn't take their wickedness for granted because they were both _Germans_, though we have got into that habit in the last five years, with all we've gone through, and with the villains who used to be Russian in novels now being German!
If I did hand over my prize to the elder witch, the boy was lost to me. I should never get a second chance to catch my fox with cake! And even were I sure that he wouldn't blab, or that Kramm wouldn't, the secret of our meeting was certain to leak out. In that case, the red baize door would never again open to my knock. So what was I to do?
"Come along," urged the boy. Having got all he could get out of me, he began to sulk. "I don't want to stay with you any more."
"Wait a minute," I pleaded. "I'm thinking of something--something to do for _you_."
Though I wasn't a German, the most diabolical plot had just jumped into my head!
"Look here, Bertie," I said, "what I've been thinking of is this: you'd better hide, and let me go alone to find Krammie. _Suppose_ your mother has looked in your room! She'll know from Kramm that the ladies are motoring, so she may come out to speak with Kramm and ask for you. Squeeze into this clump of lilac bushes at the end of the terrace! Trust me to make everything right, and be back soon."