“It must be three o’clock,” he said, with polite surprise, “and the house is like a barn.  You ought not to be running around with your arms uncovered, Mrs. Wilson.  Surely you could have called some of us.”

“I didn’t wish to disturb any one,” I said, with distinct truth.

“I suppose you are like me,” he said.  “The novelty of the situation—­and everything.  I got to thinking things over, and then I realized the studio was getting cold, so I thought I would come down and take a look at the furnace.  I didn’t suppose any one else would think of it.  But I lost myself in that pantry, stumbled against a half-open drawer, and nearly went down the dumb-waiter.”  And, as if in judgment on me, at that instant came two rather terrific thumps from somewhere below, and inarticulate words, shouted rather than spoken.  It was uncanny, of course, coming as it did through the register at our feet.  Mr. Harbison looked startled.

“Oh, by the way,” I said, as carelessly as I could.  “In the excitement, I forgot to mention it.  There is a policeman asleep in the furnace room.  I—­I suppose we will have to keep him now,” I finished as airily as possible.

“Oh, a policeman—­in the cellar,” he repeated, staring at me, and he moved toward the pantry door.

“You needn’t go down,” I said feverishly, with visions of Bella Knowles sitting on the kitchen table, surrounded by soiled dishes and all the cheerless aftermath of a dinner party.  “Please don’t go down.  I—­it’s one of my rules—­never to let a stranger go down to the kitchen.  I—­I’m peculiar—­that way—­and besides, it’s—­it’s mussy.”

Bang!  Crash! through the register pipe, and some language quite articulate.  Then silence.

“Look here, Mrs. Wilson,” he said resolutely.  “What do I care about the kitchen?  I’m going down and arrest that policeman for disturbing the peace.  He will have the pipes down.”

“You must not go,” I said with desperate firmness.  “He—­he is probably in a very dangerous state just now.  We—­I—­locked him in.”

The Harbison man grinned and then became serious.

“Why don’t you tell me the whole thing?” he demanded.  “You’ve been in trouble all evening, and—­you can trust me, you know, because I am a stranger; because the minute this crazy quarantine is raised I am off to the Argentine Republic,” (perhaps he said Chili) “and because I don’t know anything at all about you.  You see, I have to believe what you tell me, having no personal knowledge of any of you to go on.  Now tell me—­whom have you hidden in the cellar, besides the policeman?”

There was no use trying to deceive him; he was looking straight into my eyes.  So I decided to make the best of a bad thing.  Anyhow, it was going to require strength to get Bella through the coal hole with one arm and restrain the policeman with the other.

“Come,” I said, making a sudden resolution, and led the way down the stairs.