"I just don't want to chance your being hurt."

"Ingrid, rest your delightfully concerned mind, and know that I shall wring a lot more than a mere apology out of anybody who seeks to see me hurt."

She relaxed back in the chair, while Percy made arrangements with the orphanage.

As he spoke to the lady at the other end of the telephone, Percy's mind dismissed the possibility of making another telephone call.

"I can't be alerting Inspector Higgins to this one yet," he thought, "Perhaps police protection would come in handy against this new threat to my partnership with Ingrid. However, that option would start new problems. I would rather solve the current ones myself."

There was a deeper reason brewing in the back of Percy's mind. As he concentrated on confirming the arrangements with the staff member of Larmont Orphanage, the Sneaky Spy's mind had not yet given complete structure to the base concept behind his approaching idea: Colin Geoffries was not the usual sort of naughty one faced by the Sneaky Spy and his companions. He was more than a mere headache to be battled. Somehow Percy faced the fact that there might be only one acceptable way to ultimately ensure Ingrid's safety ...

Percy pocketed the key to the billiard room door as he led Ingrid around the corner and through the courtyard.

"If we have come this way, why not just cross the large lawn and go through the bushes?" asked Ingrid.

"It only makes less noise until we have to trample through those bushes," said Percy, "I'm not that worried about the naughty ones hearing us from any perch in the street, but we cannot risk waking the present owners of Jenny’s old residence as we approach the tennis court fence from this side."

"Was this Jenny important to you?"

“Very, until I met you actually.”

“The soul of diplomacy, even under fire.”

"If we were caught now, we could be charged with trespassing. We know that we intend no harm, and we are doing it for your safety. However, that's all the more reason to pull the coup off successfully without being discovered and delayed. We'll cross the enclosed lawn, go through the hedge opening, and then climb the end of the tennis court fence between the coach house and the start of those bushes."

The girl followed his lead, taking great comfort in his presence. His influence over the developments that evening had scarcely given her a chance to appreciate the full extent of how frightened she was. Her hero was there, and as long as that was still true, she would not give way to blind fear and panic. She briefly thought about the fact that she could be both damsel in distress and leading lady to him, and also the huntress of a number of tiny fellows who would take a different role in her life.

They ascended the fence nimbly, and took their time to avoid any sudden shakes. On the far side, the door to the court was closed. Percy opened it silently, having advised the girl to run to the street if any slight creak caused him to jerk it open and dart away himself. By the time such noises had been investigated, they would have been well on their way to Larmont Orphanage. No such speedy exodus was necessary.

"To think that that house has played a part in saving me at this point in time!" said Ingrid, when they had reached Burns Road.

"I would imagine, sweetheart, that every brick, window, roof tile and door would have been honoured to have contributed to the worthy cause of preserving your valuable heart-warming existence," replied the Sneaky Spy, "and before this rattling shindig's over, I plan to make Colin Geoffries regret not having saved us the trouble. Had he behaved himself, he might well have found a nice young damsel of his own."

*          *          *          *

"She's not to know about it, Kyair," said the Sneaky Spy within the confines of the Venetian orphan boy's bedroom, "but I would like you to keep a watchful eye on her safety. If any of the naughty ones do find their way into this well-placed retreat; well Kyair, I don't really mind how badly you cork the thighs of an unwanted visitor if he's here to trouble Ingrid. I will see you escape any legal reproach for using those martial arts skills of yours."

"I'll protect Ingrid if I need to, Sneaky boss," said the lad with a reassuring grin that showed his sincerity, "I just wish that you would let me go back to the Water Street house with you, when you go."

"That privilege is for me alone," said Percy, “Sleep well, boy. If I want to avert any suspicions, or preferably prevent their even existing, then I had best retrace my trespassing footsteps in the house where Jenny Winters used to live behind my grand parents’ home, before it became mine."

He took the trouble to close the tennis court door again. This would leave no hint of the two journeys that had been made (the former with the previous resident of the house). However, this time the major concern was that of making sure that any other watchers had no chance to discover his secret exit and re-entry. He was by no means through with Colin Geoffries and his Geofflings that night, but even a Sneaky Spy needed his sleep, and Percy's last act - before going to bed - was to check the surprises on the insides of the downstairs doors to the world outside.

*          *          *          *

Percy's dreams were not disrupted, and he welcomed the morning sunshine with a keenness to prepare his breakfast.

He had to know.

This was the thought that played on his mind, as Percy enjoyed four toasted ham sandwiches.

He had used liberal quantities of ham, and enjoyed the result immensely.

The Sneaky Spy had to know how Colin planned to achieve his objective of taking Ingrid Castlecove away from Percy Dale. It was unlikely that Ingrid's house would be attacked. It would have dawned powerfully on Geoffries - as he bade farewell to his guests and organised the visit which Percy had that last night interrupted - that the Sneaky Spy would be unwilling to trust his precious heart's desire to the unprotected quarters in which she usually resided. The return of the visitor would confirm that. But what would he do next?

"It takes a certain sort of artist to misuse the art of heroism," thought the Sneaky Spy, "and if I were merely a fictional character, then I might have met Ingrid Castlecove for the first time at last night's hoods gathering in party guise. I might well have been instantly catapulted into the crush of no return and spent the entire evening wishing for the presence of some naughty ones, forever hoping that some threat to this newfound gem would afford me the chance to polish my armour with the curtains from the houses of those possible naughty ones. I would crave it with a passion, though the day might never come, when an opportunity to be both rescuer and survivor would win the heart of Miss Castlecove. However, I just don't see it like that."

Percy was powerfully convicted by this last realisation. It was all very well to go paddling about in a lake of iniquity, thrusting his objections in the faces of the dwellers therein; but why should a deranged criminal mind like Colin's have a tender spot for a shy affectionate girl like Ingrid, who would never develop any respect for people who kept their snipers in their gardens and arranged nocturnal voyeurism sessions in a garden of innocent geranium bushes?

As his mind wrestled with the problem, he came to the conclusion that Colin's attraction to Ingrid Castlecove was purely in existence because of her physical beauty.

"That can be rather hard to help at times," thought the Sneaky Spy, "especially for the male mind. Ladies can hardly blame us for harbouring feelings which we are powerless to change. However, I am very much appreciative of the fantasy and depth of the relationship that Ingrid and I have been able to share. I could not have developed such a strong mental kinship with Donna. I can't help but think that Colin would keep company rather happily with one of the female trio in the train carriage yesterday evening. Maybe he was born tender and began to rough it in response to life's indecent blows. The continually confusing question is: How did he ever expect to get away with what he tried? Admittedly one doesn't expect the average party guest to have my skills, but he was still showing a gall. Approaching a girl with a boyfriend of her own, again and again after he had received the first refusal; and using a sniper at the house during a party, which was still in full swing were two highly foolish undertakings."

A man in an unbalanced state of mind may not be aware of the consequences of such folly. The Sneaky Spy would have to enlighten him. No conventional appeals to rationality could be relied on with such an opponent; and yet neither could the Sneaky Spy use the man's lack of rationality as a reason to doubt his capacity for wreaking havoc.

"There's only one course of action open to me," he thought decisively, "Whether I like it or not, whether it's easy or challenging, whether I'm expected or overlooked, I must choose either today or tonight as an opportunity to prowl that place and find any clue as to the nature of Colin Geoffries' newest battle plan."

He had to know, and that was the end of the story.

Were he to fail in his endeavour to protect Ingrid, he would most likely mention Ordinairy Man Manor and his close companions in the same sentence of his will. That thought did not frighten the Sneaky Spy half as much as the visions in his mind of the awful life that the victor might then attempt to inflict upon Ingrid. It must not be allowed to happen.

He had to know.

There's one thing that I do know for the first time in my abnormal career," thought the Sneaky Spy, "That one thing is the fact that there is a gangster living two or three blocks from my very own house. If it were not for his burst of lovesickness, I might never have known, until it was too late."

Whether he invaded Colin's territory in the day or the night, there would undoubtedly be some surprises waiting for him, and it did not pay to underestimate an opponent. He would have to brave the situation and think out some of his escapes on the heat of  the moment.

"My other problem is knowing that this house is safe from Colin's own prowlers while I am giving his quarters the once over."

Then the idea came to him. It was one of Percy's oldest philosophies that when two problems were played off against each other, each problem might well be used as a solution to the other. It had to be properly engineered. In this case, he had laid the groundwork the night before at a time when he was too tired to see the beauty of it.

"Ingrid's absence is the key to my pulling off both tricks. The naughty ones don't know about it. They will plan whatever they have in store for this house in the earnest belief that she is still holed up here. I have never thought that much of tennis, but the idea of a tennis court fence acting as a borderline between two backdoor neighbours has proved doubly useful this time. I can lay traps here for lots of naughty ones and expect to find as many. Why it even solves my third problem about involving the police. I can truthfully tell Higgins that I had a watcher at the window last night. I can honestly say that he was armed and that I let him go, because I did not wish to take the law into my own hands. I can say that the naughty one was probably performing a reconnaissance mission as a prelude to attempted burglary. He need never know the full story. If Higgins and his men caught a collection of hoods in my house or gardens, the hoods would talk in such a way as to make their efforts appear to be nothing more than a planned robbery that failed. I would make no efforts to force the truth out of them, and the threat to Ingrid's safety would not become common police knowledge. Their desire to find Ingrid here will draw more of them away from Colin's house, leaving me free to enter it at a time when security provisions are made to suffer from a lack of numbers."