“George is brave all right,” said Dick. “As brave as any boy could be when she’s in a fix! Julian, let’s go and tell Joan. We’ve GOT to make up our minds what we are going to do about this — and also, we must safeguard Berta somehow. She can’t possibly wander round with us any more.”

Berta all at once began to feel scared. George’s sudden disappearance brought home to her the very real danger she was in. She had not really believed in it before. She looked over her shoulder and all round and about as if she expected someone to pounce on her.

“It’s all right, Berta — there’s no one here at present!” said Dick, comfortingly. “But you’d better get indoors all the same. I don’t think George would give away the fact that she wasn’t you, but the men might find out some other way — and back they would come, hotfoot!”

Berta raced indoors as if someone was chasing her! Julian shut and locked the garden door and called Joan.

They had a very serious conference indeed. Joan was horrified. She wept when she heard that George must have been kidnapped in the middle of the night. She wiped her eyes with her apron.

“I said we must lock the doors and the windows, I said we must tell the police — and then Miss George has to go down all by herself into the garden!” she said. “If only she hadn’t had the poodle with her! No wonder they thought she was Berta, with Sally in her arms.”

“Listen, Joan,” said Julian. “There are a lot of things to do. First we must tell the police. Then somehow we must contact Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin — it’s so like them not to give us an address! Then we must most certainly decide about Berta. She must be well-hidden away somewhere.”

“Yes. That’s certain,” said Joan, wiping her eyes again. She sat and thought for a minute, and then her face lightened.

“I know where we could hide her!” she said. “You remember Jo — the little gypsy girl you’ve had one or two adventures with?”

“Yes,” said Julian. “She lives with your cousin now, doesn’t she?”

“She does,” said Joan. “And my cousin would have Berta straightaway if she knew about this. She lives in a quiet little village where nothing ever happens, and nobody would think anything of my cousin having a child to stay with Jo. She often does.”

“It really seems an idea,” said Dick. “Doesn’t it, Julian? We’ve simply got to get Berta away at once. We could trust Jo to look after her, too — Jo’s as sharp as a packet of needles!”

“The police would know, too,” said Julian, “and would keep an eye on her as well. Joan, can you ring up and get a taxi and take Berta now, this very minute?”

“It’ll be a surprise for my cousin, my arriving this time of the morning,” said Joan, standing up and taking off her apron, “but she’s quick in the uptake, and she’ll do it, I know. Master Leslie, get a few things together — nothing posh, mind, like your silver hair-brush.”