Hue and Cry Page 12

  The door swung in towards the workshop. They were coming. There was just a chance that they might not see her. The corner was a yard from the door; they might not look so near at hand. The corner was dark; her coat was dark; the light of the open hatch would be in their eyes.

  Mally’s hands pressed hard on the wall. It was rough and splintery. They were coming. She mustn’t, mustn’t scream.

  When Paul Craddock moved towards the door, Ethan put a large foot on the bottom step. He had heard a faint, faint rustling sound behind him.

  “Aren’t you going to tell us——” he began.

  “I’m going through that door.”

  “Sleuths shouldn’t show temper. It plays the very dickens with the deductive faculties,” said Ethan equably.

  “Sir Charles!”

  “Hey, what? What’s all this fooling? Let’s get on with it. Let’s get done with it.”

  Ethan stopped laughing.

  “All right, sir,” he said, and with that took the two steps at a stride and opened the door.

  The loft was empty except for hay. Ethan fell back into the corner behind the door and let Paul Craddock and Sir Charles go past. He had his right hand on the jamb of the door. His left went back and fell on Mally’s shoulder.

  He had been aware of her—strangely, curiously aware. But to touch her like that was rather horrible. The long shudder, and then the stillness—it was what he had felt a hundred times when he had handled some wild thing terrified out of all reason.

  His hand pressed her shoulder gently for a moment, felt how tense the muscles were, and drew away. As he stood there, he screened her well enough. Paul was poking in the hay and raising no end of a dust. Sir Charles had begun to sneeze.

  “Damn nonsense!” he said and blew his nose. “The girl’s not a mouse, I suppose.” He sneezed and blew again. “Damn nonsense, I say. Here, better get down this way—it leads into the yard, and if you want to see Lane, he’ll be there. You coming, Ethan?”

  “The faithful Watson comes.”

  Ethan reached behind him and gave Mally’s shoulder the sort of reassuring pat that he would have given to the kitten. She heard the clatter of feet on the ladder; she heard Ethan cross the floor and follow Sir Charles and Paul; she heard them all talking in the yard outside.

  They were gone.

  CHAPTER XIX

  “Ouf!” said Mally with a great breath of relief. “What a frightfully, frightfully, frightfully near thing! If it hadn’t been for that angel lamb!”

  She flung a grateful kiss in the direction of the open hatch and executed a pirouette. Then she picked up her hat, which had fallen in the corner, dusted it, and went back into the workshop. She did not feel as if she would ever really love a hay-loft again.

  It was in the workshop, when she was picking a straw or two off her hat, that the little basket brooch attracted her attention. She unpinned it thoughtfully and fastened it on her jumper out of sight. It was pretty, but just the sort of thing that people might notice and remember. Mally had a conviction that the modest, shrinking violet half—or, better still, wholly-hidden from the eye was her rôle. It was not, it may be said, a congenial one.

  She looked all round the workshop for a mirror, and looked in vain.

  “I must be looking like absolutely nothing on earth.” Even shrinking violets should be tidy.

  She smoothed her hair, took off her coat, shook it, dusted it, and put it on again. Then she powdered her nose and pulled on the black felt hat. She found a bit of oily rag, and got the mud off her shoes. After that she sat down and began to wonder what would happen next.

  She must have dozed a little, because the footsteps were on the stair before she heard them, and she had no more than time to jump up before the outer door swung open. With a clatter and a clang there tumbled into the room a large metal cage and a little girl of about six years old. The metal cage contained a half-grown black rabbit, apparently paralyzed with terror.

  The little girl was most indubitably the angel child of mid-Victorian fiction—golden curls, blue eyes and apple-blossom complexion complete. She dumped the cage, gazed at Mally without surprise, and said:

  “I want Ethan. Where’s Ethan? I want him.”

  “I’m afraid he isn’t here.”

  The angel child frowned. Great masters have painted frowning angels. One in Venice holds a lute; this one held a parrot’s cage.

  “I want him. He was making a hutch for Dinks. This is Dinks. I got him yesterday in a bazaar, an’ Mummy said I couldn’t have him because of nowhere to put him, an’ I cried right in the middle of the bazaar, with every one saying ‘Hush,’ until she said I could, an’ Ethan said he’d make me a hutch, an’ where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Here’s the hutch.”

  Bunty Lennox flung herself down by it with a shriek. The rabbit twitched one ear; its whiskers trembled slightly.

  “It’s finished! It’s done! Put Dinks into it—put him in quickly!”

  “Hadn’t we better wait? I think he’s frightened.”

  “Not!”

  “He is—really.”

  Bunty shook her head with great vigor.

  “He’s a very fierce rabbit. I ’spect he’s the fiercest rabbit in the world. He bited my finger, an’ he bited cook’s finger, an’ he’d have bited Mummy, only she wouldn’t touch him, an’ he bited Daddy, an’ Daddy said he was a dam rabbit, an’ Mummy said, ‘Hush, Charles!’ like she does.” She paused, and added thoughtfully, “He didn’t bite Ethan.”

  “Then I think we’ll let Ethan put him in the hutch.”

  Bunty displayed a finger with a minute red mark on it.

  “I don’t mind if he bites me ever so. Ethan said it was brave of me not to mind. I wouldn’t mind how fierce he was—not if his whiskers were quite stiff with fierceness, I wouldn’t. Ethan said it was very brave of me.”

  The rabbit snuffed the air with a trembling nose, moved one foot, and then stiffened again.

  “I love Ethan,” said Bunty. “I’m going to marry him when I am old. He says I may have fifty hundred rabbits and a million guinea-pigs if I like. Mummy hates guinea-pigs quite dreadful. She won’t let me have them. An’ she hates rabbits too. But I shrieked, an’ howled, an’ shrieked till she said I could keep Dinks.”

  “How awful of you!”

  Miss Lennox agreed.

  “Yes, wasn’t it? But I wanted him so as I would have bit if they wouldn’t of let me have him—an’ that’s the very worst of all.”

  “What is?”

  Bunty gazed at her with angelic candor; her eyes were like bits of blue sky.

  “Biting is—the very worst. When I bit the butler, Mummy sent me to bed all day. Shall we put Dinks in his hutch?”

  “No,” said Mally firmly. “Ethan shall put him in his hutch.”

  “Oh! Then shall we play a game? Ethan plays lovely games. What kind of games can you play?”

  Mally put her fingers on her lips.

  “Ssh! I am playing a game—a hiding game. I’m in the middle of it—it’s frightfully exciting. Will you help me?”

  “U-m-m.” There was no doubt of Bunty’s heartfelt agreement. “Let me play, too. Who are you hiding from? Are you hiding from Ethan?”

  “No, not from Ethan.”

  Bunty jumped up.

  “Are you hiding from Paul? I saw him. Are you hiding from him?”

  “Ssh! Yes.”

  Bunty bobbed up and down.

  “Paul is a pig. Mummy says I’m simply not to call him it, but he is.”

  “Bunty,” said Mally quickly, “I want to get away without any one seeing me. When do the men go to their dinner? Could I get away then—out of the back somewhere?”

  Bunty nodded emphatically.

  “U-m-m, you could. Lane’s gone to his dinner now. I saw him. His wife makes a nawful fuss if he’s the least bit of a minute late, an’ she makes him take off his boots in the scullery an’ wash. I don’t like her much, but I like Lane.”

&nbs
p; “And the other man?”

  “Jack goes as soon as Lane goes. Shall I go an’ look an’ come back an’ tell you, an’ then I can open the gate on to the down—at least I can open it if you hold me up the teeniest scrap of an inch. Shall I?”

  She didn’t really wait for an answer, but was gone by way of the hay-loft, and in less than no time came clattering back full of importance and mystery.

  “There isn’t no one there. Shall we play you’re a princess an’ Paul is a wicked magician, an’ shall we play you’ve got on a cloak of darkness an’ I’m the fairy queen what’s helping you, an’ shall we play that no one can’t see us an’ that you’ve got on seven-league boots?”

  “Ssh. Not a word!” Mally bent close to the little pink ear. “Not a single word, or the magic will stop.”

  Bunty pursed her lips and nodded till all the curls flew. They crossed the loft together.

  Paul Craddock meanwhile had had to wait for his interview with the celebrated explorer, who was having a bath and taking an uncommonly long time over it. When he descended at last, he found a fuming host.

  “Marrington, I really must apologize—er—this is Mr. Craddock, Sir George Peterson’s private secretary—er—he insists—but really I consider the whole thing ridiculous, and, as I say, I apologize.”

  Mr. Paul Craddock explained himself. He was really very sorry to trouble Mr. Marrington. The fact was Sir George had missed important papers, and the girl who was suspected of having taken them had been traced to the garage where Mr. Marrington had left his car.

  “We thought it just possible that she might have concealed herself in one of the cars there. The missing papers are confidential, and Sir George is very much concerned to recover them.”

  This was Mr. Craddock at his most courteous. Could Mr. Marrington give them any assistance? It appeared that Mr. Marrington could. He was, in fact, very pleasantly frank—wished he had known sooner; was distressed lest Sir George should be inconvenienced by any negligence of his.

  “As a matter of fact, I took the girl for an absconding typist or cashier, or something of that sort. There was a paragraph—and the description seemed to fit. I suppose I ought to have handed her over to the police. But it didn’t seem to be my business, and——”

  “You let her go?”

  “I’m afraid I did.”

  Sir Charles was very properly shocked. He was a J.P. and did not conceive it possible that any guest of his could connive—“Hey, what?” Thought burst into speech:

  “My dear sir, you don’t mean to say that you let her go?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.” Marrington’s slight gesture expressed a bored amusement.

  Sir Charles turned purple.

  “My dear Marrington, you can’t be aware—hey, what? Did you know that you were rendering yourself liable? Good heavens, Marrington, the girl’s a common criminal—and you let her go! Hey, what? You’re an accessory after the fact—and I’m on the bench, begad!”

  Ethan Messenger left them to it. He walked up through the garden in a heavy mood. “The girl’s a common criminal——” The words made his mood the heavier. He had shielded Mally on the impulse of the moment. He began to wonder why he had done it. But even as he wondered he knew that he would probably do it again. He had a constitutional dislike to seeing weak things hurt or frightened. When it led him to the rescue of a harried kitten, it was merely an amiable idiosyncrasy; but when it rushed him into aiding and abetting young criminals—what about it?

  Ethan was not sure, but he knew very well that he couldn’t give Mally away.

  He came into the workshop and found Miss Bunty Lennox there, poking Dinks with a straw. She greeted him with a cry of rapture which made the rabbit quiver from nose to tail.

  “Put him in his hutch! She said wait for you, so I waited. I wanted her to put him in, but she wouldn’t. She said wait an’ let you put him in.”

  Ethan knelt down by the parrot’s cage and transferred Dinks deftly to the hutch.

  “Did he bite you? He bited me.”

  “That’s because you frightened him.”

  “She said that too,” said Bunty, hopping on one leg. “Does he like his hutch?”

  “Who is ‘she’?”

  Bunty came quite close and blew into his ear:

  “The hiding princess.”

  How reassuring is the atmosphere of fairy tales! Ethan put an arm round Bunty.

  “I say, Bun, what d’you mean?”

  “She said you knew. She said she was hiding, an’ we played she was a princess, an’ we played no one could see us, an’ no one did, because I looked first to see there wasn’t no one there, an’ I let her out of the back gate, an’ she ran away, an’ I won’t tell no one, only you, because it’s a magic secret an’ because of Paul being a pig——Oh!” she screamed. “Look, Ethan, look! Dinks is washing his face!”

  CHAPTER XX

  In the library Sir Charles Lennox held forth.

  “I’ll have nothing more to do with the matter. Most irregular—most. No warrant—nothing. If you catch the young woman, what are you going to do with her? You can’t lay a finger on her without a warrant—not a finger.”

  Paul Craddock kept his temper with an effort.

  “Sir George is not vindictive,” he said. “He doesn’t wish to prosecute Miss Lee.”

  “What’s he playing at then? Doesn’t wish to prosecute. What does he want?”

  “He wants to get his papers back.”

  Sir Charles walked up and down irritably. Mr. Marrington read The Times.

  “Papers? What papers? What’s the girl doing taking papers?”

  “I’ve no idea. We think she must be unhinged. The papers are of no value except to Sir George. As a matter of fact what she took was a sheet of paper with a cross-word puzzle on it. But I had made some important notes for Sir George on the back of it.”

  Mr. Marrington turned a sheet of The Times

  “Never read a worse weather forecast,” he said. “Rain, sleet, snow——”

  Paul took no notice.

  “May I use the telephone, Sir Charles?”

  The instrument was in the library. He had, in fact, to disturb Mr. Marrington to get at it. When the call came through, Sir Charles was still pacing up and down, Lawrence Marrington still reading. Mr. Craddock’s conversation was rather limited in its scope. He said:

  “Is that you, sir?” And then, “I’ve traced Miss Lee down here—I am speaking from Peddling Corner—but no one seems to have seen her since the middle of the night.”

  He heard Sir George’s voice rather faint and thin:

  “Dawson has just reported. He says she had been traced in town.”

  Paul Craddock whistled.

  “She was here last night. She hid in Mr. Marrington’s car. He took her for some one else and let her go. That was between two and three A.M.”

  Sir George again—the line very poor and interrupted by crackling:

  “Plenty of time … get back to town.… Come back.”

  “What’s that, sir? You want me to come back?”

  He listened for a moment longer, then hung up the receiver and announced that he was going back to town. Sir Charles did not press him to stay for lunch.

  Mally meanwhile had run away over the down. The ground went on rising. The grass was short and coarse and wet from last night’s snow, which had thawed upon it. The sky was a dull lead color. The wind had dropped. The air felt heavy and very cold.

  When she reached the top of the rise, she saw the down run sloping away into a mist. There were gorse bushes here and there, and a twisted hawthorn or two. She ran down the slope and came on a wood with a litter of last year’s bracken underfoot, and a tangle of thorn, holly and oak overhead. It ran for a quarter of a mile downhill and ended in a hedgerow and a tarred road beyond. Mally went back into the wood and sat down under a holly bush.

  When Paul Craddock reached town, it was to be sent off again to follow what Mr. Dawson had described as a ve
ry promising clue. He stayed only to telephone to a lady who professed herself very angry at his defection.

  “You won’t be able to come at all?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “But the Holmes will be a man short.”

  “I’m dreadfully sorry.”

  “It will put their table out—and no time to get any one else. I’m just starting. You might have let me know before.”

  “Candida, I couldn’t. You must know how disappointed I am.”

  “Are you really? Then you won’t fail for tomorrow—will you? The dance at Curston—you’ll get down to the Holmes’ for that?”

  “If I possibly can. Candida, you know——”

  Miss Candida Long rang off in a temper.

  The day went slowly for Mally Lee. She was cold, she was hungry, and she had to struggle hard and hard against the feeling that she could do no more. She began to count up what she might be said to have gained. She was free. She was out of London. No, she wasn’t at all sure that this was a gain. London was so full of people, so much easier to lose one’s self in. Here in these country lanes, if she passed man, woman, or child, they would remember that they had seen a stranger and wonder who she was. Well, anyhow she was free, and she knew where she was.

  She thought of all this country in terms of Curston and the Moorings. Peddling Corner lay on the very edge of what Lady Mooring considered a possible calling distance. She exchanged calls with the Lennoxes, and saw them perhaps once a year. Mally had heard Mrs. Armitage speak of Maud Lennox and Bunty. Well, Curston would not help her, nor any one in the Moorings’ circle. They had probably all heard most dreadful things about her by now. Jimmy was the only one who might have helped her, and Jimmy was on the high seas half-way to India.

  “Something will turn up,” said Mally to herself.

  She made up her mind to wait until it was dusk and then take the road away from Peddling Corner. Meanwhile it was cold, most frightfully cold, and dull, most frightfully dull. She pushed her hand down into her pocket, and felt the bundle that Barbara had given her in the dark bedroom. She pulled it out, curious to see what these treasured drawings would be like.