Complete Novels of E Nesbit, page 185
“You don’t mean to say all that wheeze is real?” Jimmy asked.
“Of course it’s real,” said Kathleen. “Go on, Jerry. He’s just got to where he threw the stone into your bread-and-butter pudding, Mabel. Go on.”
Mabel climbed on to the wall. “You’ve got visible again quicker than I did,” she said.
Gerald nodded and resumed:
“Our story must be told in as few words as possible, owing to the fish-frying taking place at twelve, and it’s past the half-hour now. Having left his missive to do its warning work, Gerald de Sherlock Holmes sped back, wrapped in invisibility, to the spot where by the light of their dark-lanterns the burglars were still — still burgling with the utmost punctuality and despatch. I didn’t see any sense in running into danger, so I just waited outside the passage where the steps are — you know?”
Mabel nodded.
“Presently they came out, very cautiously, of course, and looked about them. They didn’t see me — so deeming themselves unobserved they passed in silent Indian file along the passage — one of the sacks of silver grazed my front part — and out into the night.”
“But which way?”
“Through the little looking-glass room where you looked at yourself when you were invisible. The hero followed swiftly on his invisible tennis-shoes. The three miscreants instantly sought the shelter of the groves and passed stealthily among the rhododendrons and across the park, and” — his voice dropped and he looked straight before him at the pinky convolvulus netting a heap of stones beyond the white dust of the road—”the stone things that come alive, they kept looking out from between bushes and under trees — and I saw them all right, but they didn’t see me. They saw the burglars though, right enough; but the burglars couldn’t see them. Rum, wasn’t it?”
“The stone things?” Mabel had to have them explained to her.
“I never saw them come alive,” she said, “and I’ve been in the gardens in the evening as often as often.”
“I saw them,” said Gerald stiffly.
“I know, I know,” Mabel hastened to put herself right with him: “what I mean to say is I shouldn’t wonder if they’re only visible when you’re invisible — the liveness of them, I mean, not the stoniness.”
Gerald understood, and I’m sure I hope you do.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right,” he said. “The castle garden’s enchanted right enough; but what I should like to know is how and why. I say, come on, I’ve got to catch Johnson before twelve. We’ll walk as far as the market and then we’ll have to run for it.”
“But go on with the adventure,” said Mabel. “You can talk as we go. Oh, do — it is so awfully thrilling!”
This pleased Gerald, of course.
“Well, I just followed, you know, like in a dream, and they got out the cavy way — you know, where we got in — and I jolly well thought I’d lost them; I had to wait till they’d moved off down the road so that they shouldn’t hear me rattling the stones, and I had to tear to catch them up. I took my shoes off — I expect my stockings are done for. And I followed and followed and followed and they went through the place where the poor people live, and right down to the river. And —— I say, we must run for it.”
So the story stopped and the running began.
They caught Johnson in his own back-yard washing at a bench against his own back-door.
“Look here, Johnson,” Gerald said, “what’ll you give me if I put you up to winning that fifty pounds reward?”
“Halves,” said Johnson promptly, “and a clout ‘longside your head if you was coming any of your nonsense over me.”
“It’s not nonsense,” said Gerald very impressively. “If you’ll let us in I’ll tell you all about it. And when you’ve caught the burglars and got the swag back you just give me a quid for luck. I won’t ask for more.”
“Come along in, then,” said Johnson, “if the young ladies’ll excuse the towel. But I bet you do want something more off of me. Else why not claim the reward yourself?”
“Great is the wisdom of Johnson — he speaks winged words.” The children were all in the cottage now, and the door was shut. “I want you never to let on who told you. Let them think it was your own unaided pluck and farsightedness.”
“Sit you down,” said Johnson, “and if you’re kidding you’d best send the little gells home afore I begin on you.”
“LOOK HERE, JOHNSON,” GERALD SAID, “WHAT’LL YOU GIVE ME IF I PUT YOU UP TO WINNING THAT FIFTY POUNDS REWARD?”
“I am not kidding,” replied Gerald loftily, “never less. And any one but a policeman would see why I don’t want any one to know it was me. I found it out at dead of night, in a place where I wasn’t supposed to be; and there’d be a beastly row if they found out at home about me being out nearly all night. Now do you see, my bright-eyed daisy?”
Johnson was now too interested, as Jimmy said afterwards, to mind what silly names he was called. He said he did see — and asked to see more.
“Well, don’t you ask any questions, then. I’ll tell you all it’s good for you to know. Last night about eleven I was at Yalding Towers. No — it doesn’t matter how I got there or what I got there for — and there was a window open and I got in, and there was a light. And it was in the strong-room, and there were three men, putting silver in a bag.”
“Was it you give the warning, and they sent for the police?” Johnson was leaning eagerly forward, a hand on each knee.
“Yes, that was me. You can let them think it was you, if you like. You were off duty, weren’t you?”
“I was,” said Johnson, “in the arms of Murphy — —”
“Well, the police didn’t come quick enough. But I was there — a lonely detective. And I followed them.”
“You did?”
“And I saw them hide the booty and I know the other stuff from Houghton Court’s in the same place, and I heard them arrange about when to take it away.”
“Come and show me where,” said Johnson, jumping up so quickly that his Windsor arm-chair fell over backwards, with a crack, on the red-brick floor.
“Not so,” said Gerald calmly; “if you go near the spot before the appointed time you’ll find the silver, but you’ll never catch the thieves.”
“You’re right there.” The policeman picked up his chair and sat down in it again. “Well?”
“Well, there’s to be a motor to meet them in the lane beyond the boat-house by Sadler’s Rents at one o’clock to-night. They’ll get the things out at half-past twelve and take them along in a boat. So now’s your chance to fill your pockets with chink and cover yourself with honour and glory.”
“So help me!” — Johnson was pensive and doubtful still—”so help me! you couldn’t have made all this up out of your head.”
“Oh yes, I could. But I didn’t. Now look here. It’s the chance of your lifetime, Johnson! A quid for me, and a still tongue for you, and the job’s done. Do you agree?”
“Oh, I agree right enough,” said Johnson. “I agree. But if you’re coming any of your larks — —”
“Can’t you see he isn’t?” Kathleen put in impatiently. “He’s not a liar — we none of us are.”
“If you’re not on, say so,” said Gerald, “and I’ll find another policeman with more sense.”
“I could split about you being out all night,” said Johnson.
“But you wouldn’t be so ungentlemanly,” said Mabel brightly. “Don’t you be so unbelieving, when we’re trying to do you a good turn.”
“If I were you,” Gerald advised, “I’d go to the place where the silver is, with two other men. You could make a nice little ambush in the wood-yard — it’s close there. And I’d have two or three more men up trees in the lane to wait for the motor-car.”
“You ought to have been in the force, you ought,” said Johnson admiringly; “but s’pose it was a hoax!”
“Well, then you’d have made an ass of yourself — I don’t suppose it ud be the first time,” said Jimmy.
“Are you on?” said Gerald in haste. “Hold your jaw, Jimmy, you idiot!”
“Yes,” said Johnson.
“Then when you’re on duty you go down to the wood-yard, and the place where you see me blow my nose is the place. The sacks are tied with string to the posts under the water. You just stalk by in your dignified beauty and make a note of the spot. That’s where glory waits you, and when Fame elates you and you’re a sergeant, please remember me.”
Johnson said he was blessed. He said it more than once, and then remarked that he was on, and added that he must be off that instant minute.
Johnson’s cottage lies just out of the town beyond the blacksmith’s forge and the children had come to it through the wood. They went back the same way, and then down through the town, and through its narrow, unsavoury streets to the towing-path by the timber yard. Here they ran along the trunks of the big trees, peeped into the saw-pit, and — the men were away at dinner and this was a favourite play place of every boy within miles — made themselves a see-saw with a fresh cut, sweet-smelling pine plank and an elm-root.
“What a ripping place!” said Mabel, breathless on the see-saw’s end. “I believe I like this better than pretending games or even magic.”
“So do I,” said Jimmy. “Jerry, don’t keep sniffing so — you’ll have no nose left.”
“I can’t help it,” Gerald answered: “I daren’t use my hankey for fear Johnson’s on the look-out somewhere unseen. I wish I’d thought of some other signal.” Sniff! “No, nor I shouldn’t want to now if I hadn’t got not to. That’s what’s so rum. The moment I got down here and remembered what I’d said about the signal I began to have a cold — and —— Thank goodness! here he is.”
The children, with a fine air of unconcern, abandoned the see-saw.
“Follow my leader!” Gerald cried, and ran along a barked oak trunk, the others following. In and out and round about ran the file of children, over heaps of logs, under the jutting ends of piled planks, and just as the policeman’s heavy boots trod the towing-path Gerald halted at the end of a little landing-stage of rotten boards, with a rickety handrail, cried “Pax!” and blew his nose with loud fervour.
“Morning,” he said immediately.
“Morning,” said Johnson. “Got a cold, aint you?”
“Ah! I shouldn’t have a cold if I’d got boots like yours,” returned Gerald admiringly. “Look at them. Any one ud know your fairy footstep a mile off. How do you ever get near enough to any one to arrest them?” He skipped off the landing-stage, whispered as he passed Johnson, “Courage, promptitude, and despatch. That’s the place,” and was off again, the active leader of an active procession.
“We’ve brought a friend home to dinner,” said Kathleen, when Eliza opened the door. “Where’s Mademoiselle?”
“Gone to see Yalding Towers. To-day’s show day, you know. An’ just you hurry over your dinners. It’s my afternoon out, and my gentleman friend don’t like it if he’s kept waiting.”
“All right, we’ll eat like lightning,” Gerald promised. “Set another place, there’s an angel.”
They kept their word. The dinner — it was minced veal and potatoes and rice-pudding, perhaps the dullest food in the world — was over in a quarter of an hour.
“And now,” said Mabel, when Eliza and a jug of hot water had disappeared up the stairs together, “where’s the ring? I ought to put it back.”
GERALD HALTED AT THE END OF A LITTLE LANDING-STAGE OF ROTTEN BOARDS.
“I haven’t had a turn yet,” said Jimmy. “When we find it Cathy and I ought to have turns same as you and Gerald did.”
“When you find it —— ?” Mabel’s pale face turned paler between her dark locks.
“I’m very sorry — we’re all very sorry,” began Kathleen, and then the story of the losing had to be told.
“You couldn’t have looked properly,” Mabel protested. “It can’t have vanished.”
“You don’t know what it can do — no more do we. It’s no use getting your quills up, fair lady. Perhaps vanishing itself is just what it does do. You see, it came off my hand in the bed. We looked everywhere.”
“Would you mind if I looked?” Mabel’s eyes implored her little hostess. “You see, if it’s lost it’s my fault. It’s almost the same as stealing. That Johnson would say it was just the same. I know he would.”
“Let’s all look again,” said Mabel, jumping up. “We were rather in a hurry this morning.”
So they looked, and they looked. In the bed, under the bed, under the carpet, under the furniture. They shook the curtains, they explored the corners, and found dust and flue, but no ring. They looked, and they looked. Everywhere they looked. Jimmy even looked fixedly at the ceiling, as though he thought the ring might have bounced up there and stuck. But it hadn’t.
“Then,” said Mabel at last, “your housemaid must have stolen it. That’s all. I shall tell her I think so.”
And she would have done it too, but at that moment the front door banged and they knew that Eliza had gone forth in all the glory of her best things to meet her “gentleman friend.”
“It’s no use” — Mabel was almost in tears; “look here — will you leave me alone? Perhaps you others looking distracts me. And I’ll go over every inch of the room by myself.”
“Respecting the emotion of their guest, the kindly charcoal-burners withdrew,” said Gerald. And they closed the door softly from the outside on Mabel and her search.
They waited for her, of course — politeness demanded it, and besides, they had to stay at home to let Mademoiselle in; though it was a dazzling day, and Jimmy had just remembered that Gerald’s pockets were full of the money earned at the fair, and that nothing had yet been bought with that money, except a few buns in which he had had no share. And of course they waited impatiently.
It seemed about an hour, and was really quite ten minutes, before they heard the bedroom door open and Mabel’s feet on the stairs.
“She hasn’t found it,” Gerald said.
“How do you know?” Jimmy asked.
“The way she walks,” said Gerald. You can, in fact, almost always tell whether the thing has been found that people have gone to look for by the sound of their feet as they return. Mabel’s feet said “No go,” as plain as they could speak. And her face confirmed the cheerless news.
A sudden and violent knocking at the back door prevented any one from having to be polite about how sorry they were, or fanciful about being sure the ring would turn up soon.
All the servants except Eliza were away on their holidays, so the children went together to open the door, because, as Gerald said, if it was the baker they could buy a cake from him and eat it for dessert. “That kind of dinner sort of needs dessert,” he said.
But it was not the baker. When they opened the door they saw in the paved court where the pump is, and the dust-bin, and the water-butt, a young man, with his hat very much on one side, his mouth open under his fair bristly moustache, and his eyes as nearly round as human eyes can be. He wore a suit of a bright mustard colour, a blue necktie, and a goldish watch-chain across his waistcoat. His body was thrown back and his right arm stretched out towards the door, and his expression was that of a person who is being dragged somewhere against his will. He looked so strange that Kathleen tried to shut the door in his face, murmuring, “Escaped insane.” But the door would not close. There was something in the way.
“Leave go of me!” said the young man.
“Ho yus! I’ll leave go of you!” It was the voice of Eliza — but no Eliza could be seen.
“Who’s got hold of you?” asked Kathleen.
“She has, miss,” replied the unhappy stranger.
“Who’s she?” asked Kathleen, to gain time, as she afterwards explained, for she now knew well enough that what was keeping the door open was Eliza’s unseen foot.
“My fyongsay, miss. At least it sounds like her voice, and it feels like her bones, but something’s come over me, miss, an’ I can’t see her.”
“That’s what he keeps on saying,” said Eliza’s voice. “E’s my gentleman friend; is ‘e gone dotty, or is it me?”
“Both, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Jimmy.
“Now,” said Eliza, “you call yourself a man; you look me in the face and say you can’t see me.”
“Well — I can’t,” said the wretched gentleman friend.
“If I’d stolen a ring,” said Gerald, looking at the sky, “I should go indoors and be quiet, not stand at the back door and make an exhibition of myself.”
“Not much exhibition about her,” whispered Jimmy; “good old ring!”
“I haven’t stolen anything,” said the gentleman friend. “Here, you leave me be. It’s my eyes has gone wrong. Leave go of me, d’ye hear?”
Suddenly his hand dropped and he staggered back against the water-butt. Eliza had “left go” of him. She pushed past the children, shoving them aside with her invisible elbows. Gerald caught her by the arm with one hand, felt for her ear with the other, and whispered. “You stand still and don’t say a word. If you do —— well, what’s to stop me from sending for the police?”
HE STAGGERED BACK AGAINST THE WATER-BUTT.
Eliza did not know what there was to stop him. So she did as she was told, and stood invisible and silent, save for a sort of blowing, snorting noise peculiar to her when she was out of breath.
The mustard-coloured young man had recovered his balance, and stood looking at the children with eyes, if possible, rounder than before.
“What is it?” he gasped feebly. “What’s up? What’s it all about?”
“If you don’t know, I’m afraid we can’t tell you,” said Gerald politely.
“Have I been talking very strange-like?” he asked, taking off his hat and passing his hand over his forehead.
“Very,” said Mabel.
“I hope I haven’t said anything that wasn’t good manners,” he said anxiously.
