The Box of Delights (13 page)

‘Oh, no, Master Kay, he’s well-known, and a very holy man, and his lady, Mrs Boddledale; oh, she does wear lovely jewels. And she reminds me of someone whom I’ve seen
somewhere: it’s always on the tip of my tongue who.’

Kay knew who, but did not say.

By this time, a steady warm rain had set in from the west. Under it, the snow was falling apart into water: all spouts and gutters streamed and gurgled. The snow heaped at the sides of the roads
had turned to a dirty grey. As it was very wet, the children stayed indoors after lunch. First, they played Work, then they played Murder. Kay thought, ‘If Maria doesn’t come back by
dark I’ll go to the Police about her. We shall have to start for Tatchester at half-past four. Somehow, I don’t think the Inspector will be much help in the business.’

The darkness came before four o’clock that evening. Little Maria had not returned. Kay slipped round to the Inspector of Police and told his story with his suspicions.

‘Have no fears, Master Kay,’ the Inspector said. ‘The Reverend Doctor Boddledale is a pillar of the Church and respectability. I’ve sung in the Glee Club with him time
and time again. A very sweet tenor, Master Kay. Now, depend upon it, Master Kay, you have come home, if I may say so, a little faint from the strain of learning. Your nerves want food. I often
notice it in young fellows just back from school. Your young friend is in good hands, believe me, and as to her not being back in quite the time they said she’d be back, consider, Master Kay,
the state of the roads, all swimming with sludge and filth, and the rain coming down on your windscreen so that you can’t see a thing. She’ll be back, you may be sure. Or, wait one
moment, Master Kay, wasn’t you to be tonight at the Punch and Judy show at Tatchester Palace?’

‘Yes,’ Kay said, ‘I was. We were just going to start.’

‘And wasn’t Miss Maria to be there?’ the Inspector asked. ‘Well then, you say she’s been to St Griswold’s to look at that old glass: why should she come back
all the way to Seekings if she’s got to be in Tatchester again at half-past five? She’s a young lady who knows what’s what. She’ll have stopped in Tatchester, depend upon
it, Master Kay; had tea there, and gone on direct to the Palace. You’ll find her there when you get there.’

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ Kay said. ‘Of course, that’s very likely to have happened.’

‘Ah,’ the Inspector said, ‘we in the Law, Master Kay, we’ve got a maxim, “It’s the easy explanation that never occurs”. You think all battle, murder and
sudden death, and all the time it’s only a tyre getting a puncture, or something equally simple. And we in the Law, Master Kay, have another proverb: “Never cross the water until you
come to it.” Time enough to think of making a bridge when you are at the water’s brink, but until then, don’t worry, Master Kay. And you get that good guardian of yours to see you
take a strong posset every night. But you young folks in this generation, you don’t know what a posset is. Well, a posset,’ said the Inspector, ‘is a jorum of hot milk; and in
that hot milk, Master Kay, you put a hegg, and you put a spoonful of treacle, and you put a grating of nutmeg, and you stir ’em well up, and you get into bed and then you take ’em down
hot. And a posset like that, taken overnight, it will make a new man of you, Master Kay, while now you’re all worn down with learning.’

Kay thanked him and hurried back to Seekings, where all the children were clamouring for him to hurry up or they would be late for the Punch and Judy.

‘It’s all right,’ Kay said. ‘We shall be in lots of time. It’s not much of a run to Tatchester. On a Roman road most of the way.’

They got into the car, and, in spite of the slush upon the roads, they were soon at Tatchester Palace, where the Bishop and his sister gave them a royal tea.

‘P
lease,’ Kay said to the Bishop, ‘can I talk to the Punch and Judy man?’

‘I am afraid not,’ the Bishop said. ‘He asked specially that the children should not talk to him either before or after the performance. He is giving two performances. He is an
old man, and is suffering rather from his throat and doesn’t want to talk in addition to having the strain of the two performances.’

‘But, it is Cole Hawlings, isn’t it?’ Kay asked: ‘the old man who was at Seekings last night?’

‘Oh, yes,’ the Bishop said, ‘it’s Cole Hawlings.’

‘Well, could you tell him from me,’ Kay said, ‘that I am so very glad that it’s all, all right?’

‘Certainly, I will tell him that,’ the Bishop said. In spite of the Bishop’s words, Kay hoped very much to talk to Cole Hawlings.

Presently, they were all taken to the room in which the performance was to be given. Kay thought, ‘Now I’ll be able to speak to him,’ but in this he was disappointed. The room
was a long room, once the guest room of the pilgrims; at the end of it there was a stage covered with a curtain. Kay realised that the performance would take place on the other side of the curtain
and that there would probably be no chance whatever for him to speak to old Cole. The Bishop made a little speech and welcomed them all. Then the curtain was partly drawn aside. On the stage was
the theatre for Punch and Judy. It seemed to be exactly the theatre that Cole had used and the Toby dog was an Irish terrier, but at the end of the play when Kay called, ‘Barney,
Barney,’ the dog did not answer to his name. Kay wondered several times during the performance whether the performer’s voice was quite that of Cole. He couldn’t be sure. After
all, the shrill of one Punch is very like another.

‘And now,’ the Bishop said, ‘Mr Hawlings will give you a much older version of the Punch and Judy play, which his grandfather used to play upon the roads.’ It was a very
interesting performance and the children hugely enjoyed it, but not so much as they had enjoyed those magical tricks which he had played at Seekings.

Presently, the curtain fell and that was the end of Kay’s hopes of speaking to the old man, for the Bishop at once said, ‘And now, everybody, I want you to move into the next room,
there behind you, to dance round our Christmas Tree and receive the gifts allotted to you.’

The door opened behind the company. Beyond the room in which they had seen the show was another room, also a part of the hostel. Pilgrims had come to that place in hundreds in the Middle Ages,
for the Cathedral had then held the Shrine of the great Saint Cosric, Saxon King and Martyr, who had worked such famous miracles in the cure of Leprosy, and Broken Hearts.

In the midst of this room was the biggest and most glorious Christmas Tree that had ever been seen in Tatchester. It stood in a monstrous half-barrel full of what looked like real snow stuck
about with holly and mistletoe. Its bigger boughs were decked with the glittering coloured glass globes which Kay so much admired. The lesser boughs were lit with countless coloured electric lights
like tropical fruits: ever so much better, Kay thought, than those coloured candles which drip wax everywhere and so often set fire to the tree and to the presents. At the top of this great green
fir tree was a globe of red light set about with fiery white rays for the Christmas Star.

The boughs were laden with the most exquisite gifts. For the little ones there were whistles, drums, tops of different kinds, whips, trumpets, swords, popguns, pistols that fired caps and others
which fired corks. There were also many dolls and teddy-bears. For the older boys there were railways with signals and switches and passenger trains and goods trains, some of which went by steam
and others by clockwork. There were goods yards with real goods: little boxes, bales and sacks, real cranes by which these could be hoisted, and pumps by which the engines could get water. There
were aeroplanes which you could wind up so that they would fly about the room. There were others which you made to fly by pulling a trigger. There were farmyards with cocks and hens which really
pecked and cows which waggled their heads. There were Zoos with all sorts of animals, and Aquariums with all sorts of fish (in real water which could not splash out). Then there were all sorts of
mechanical toys, of men boxing, or wrestling, or sawing wood, or beating on anvils. When you wound up these they would box or wrestle or saw or hammer for three or four minutes. Then there were
squirts of all kinds and boxes of soldiers with cavalry and cannons, boxes of bricks and of ‘Meccano,’ and all sorts of adventure books and fairy books. Then for the girls there were
needle-boxes with silver thimbles and cases of needles. There were acting sets with costumes of different colours, so that they could dress up to act charades. For each girl there were necklaces,
bangles and brooches, and each brooch had the girl’s name done in brilliants. There were also boxes of chocolates and candied fruits and great glass bottles of barley-sugar, raspberry drops,
peppermint drops and acid drops. Then for both girls and boys there were toy boats, some with sails, some with clockwork engines, some with steam engines that would make real steam with methylated
spirit furnaces. Hanging from the boughs here and there were white and scarlet stockings all bulging with chocolate creams done up in silver paper.

All round this marvellous tree were wonderful crackers, eighteen inches long. The Bishop made all the children stand in a double rank round the tree, each with one end of a cracker in each hand.
The musicians struck up a tune and they danced in the double rank three times round the Christmas Tree. Then the Bishop gave the word: they pulled the crackers, which went off with a bang together,
like cannons. And then, inside the crackers there were the most lovely decorations – real little tiny coats of coloured paper that you could put on, with the most splendid hats and necklets
like real gold. Then the Bishop’s sister and her friends gave each child two presents. Then they all played ‘Hunt the Slipper’ and other merry games and then, suddenly, Kay
remembered that he had not thought about little Maria since he left the Police Inspector and that she wasn’t there.

‘Good heavens!’ he thought, ‘Maria isn’t here. What shall I do?’ He went up to the Bishop’s sister and asked her if little Maria had been there.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No. And the Bishop said just now to me, “I’m sorry not to see little Maria here. She may think that I bear malice for the smashing up of my car
that time, but, indeed, that isn’t so. I should have loved to have had her here.”’

‘D’you mind if I telephone?’ Kay said. He went down and telephoned to Ellen.

‘No,’ Ellen said, ‘Miss Maria hasn’t come back.’

‘By the way,’ Kay called, ‘we shall be a little late in getting away from here. Will you ask the
Rupert’s Arms
to send a car to meet the eight-seven?’

Ellen said that she would do that. Then, presently, the evening came to an end and all the happy children got ready to go away.

Just as they were crowding into the hall, going off in instalments as the cars came for them, the butler came to the Bishop with a look of great gravity on his face. Kay was standing close
beside the Bishop at the moment. The Bishop said, ‘What is it, Rogers?’ and the butler said, ‘I am sorry to tell Your Grace, but during the performances the burglars have been in
every room of the Palace. They have turned the place just topsy-turvy, Your Grace.’

‘Indeed,’ the Bishop said. ‘Warn the Police, Rogers. I will be with you in a moment as soon as my young friends have gone.’

‘If you please, Your Grace,’ Kay said, ‘d’you think I might say goodbye to the Punch and Judy man?’

‘I am afraid he has gone,’ the Bishop said. ‘Somebody in an old car came for him as soon as the performance was over.’

‘D’you know where he went to?’ Kay said.

‘I seem to know. I really can’t quite recollect. He did say, but I have forgotten,’ the Bishop said. ‘I shall think of it when I go to bed tonight. Somewhere not very far
from here.’

Kay thanked the Bishop for their glorious treat. Presently, they were in the car driving home in the slush.

‘The Palace has been burgled,’ Peter said, ‘while we were at the Punch and Judy. A gang got in. They got every single thing that there was worth taking.’

‘How d’you know?’ Kay said.

‘I was up there talking to Rogers,’ Peter said. ‘The Palace is full of guests – seven old dowagers at least – and they have all brought their family jewels, and
they’re gone. A cool forty thousand wouldn’t pay the insurance.’

‘The footman said we shall have the Police on us tomorrow,’ Kay said, ‘and we shall have our fingerprints taken to see if we were accomplices.’

‘I say,’ Susan said, ‘d’you think we shall?’

‘Sure to,’ Peter said, ‘it will be a matter of Police routine.’

Kay thought that the burglary was a matter of Abner Brown’s Routine.

‘Well I do hope,’ he said, ‘I do really hope that little Maria hasn’t been in it with the gang. It would be just like her to do a thing like that.’

‘Oh, I do wish it was tomorrow morning,’ Jemima said, ‘and we could see the papers about it. If the motor cars have gone from the garage, then we may suspect that Maria has had
a hand in it.’

‘Maria won’t have had a hand in it,’ Susan said, ‘except to collar all the swag and bring it back to its owners.’

When they reached home there was no news of little Maria, but in some strange way the news of the burglary had reached Ellen. She greeted the children with, ‘I do hope the burglars
didn’t frighten you.’

‘No, they didn’t,’ Kay said. ‘But has Miss Maria turned up?’

‘No, not yet, Master Kay,’ Ellen said.

‘Is my guardian back?’ he asked.

‘No, Master Kay,’ Ellen said. ‘The
Rupert’s Arms m
an met the eight-seven, but she didn’t come by that train, and there’s no other train from London
tonight.’

‘Has any message come from her?’

‘No,’ Ellen said. ‘I telephoned through to the number you gave. She’d started to catch that train.’

‘Well,’ Kay said, ‘I suppose the trains are all upset, partly with Christmas and partly with the snow. She may have gone a certain distance and then had to come on by
car.’

‘It may have been something like that,’ Ellen said.