t, but Janet shook her head.

"It might be too late. Miss Pringle's sure to be suspicious if Phyllis
rings the bell and then has nothing to say, and she may take Don away."
She spoke as though the mitten had already been identified.

"I'll tell you," said Phyllis. "Chuck, you watch at the corner, and
when you see the caretaker go you come back and go over the roof. I'll
ring the bell then and I'll talk my head off to Miss Pringle. If the
mitten is Don's, you climb up to the window. We've a ladder in the
cellar."

"And I can take it across the yard and help you haul it up," Janet
announced. "It's not a bit heavy."

"Go on," Chuck said again.

"You go into the room and get Don and--" Phyllis paused; the window
seemed at a dizzy height now that she thought of it as a descent for
Don.

"I'll take him downstairs and straight out the front door," Chuck
exclaimed. "I'd like to see a dozen Miss Pringles stop me."

Phyllis looked at him and decided that it would indeed take more than
the weak flutterings of the old costume-maker to stop him.

He hurried down the stairs, and they heard the door slam behind him.

CHAPTER XVI

DON!

"We'd better get the ladder," Janet suggested.

They went down into the cellar and found it close by the door. It was
only a matter of minutes before they had it waiting in readiness in the
yard. Luckily Annie and Lucy were too busy preparing supper to notice
them.

They were back in the house just in time to meet Chuck.

"He's gone," he announced, "and there was another man with him, and I
heard him say he was due down town by five o'clock."

"Are you sure he was the caretaker?" Phyllis inquired, and Chuck gave a
satisfactory description.

"Then I'm off," she said as she hurried into her coat. "Give me time
to get there before you start."

She hurried to the house on the next street and rang the bell
violently, and waited; then she rang it again, three short rings.

"Perhaps I can make her think it's a telegram," she thought, and her
scheme was rewarded, for after a little wait she heard some one
scuffling downstairs. The door creaked as the bolt was drawn back, and
then it opened a crack.

"What do you want?" Miss Pringle's voice quavered as she asked.
Phyllis put her foot in the crack as she had seen villains do in the
movies.

"Why, I just came around to see you for a minute, Miss Pringle," she
said sweetly. "I saw you come in here the other day, so I kn