The Box of Delights (17 page)

The Inspector went rapidly through the house and examined doorhandles for fingerprints through a strong lens. ‘Yes,’ he repeated, after the examination,
‘they’ve been in. Smart London men, Master Kay: old hands. They’ve all worn gloves. I’ll just ask what the maids say about it.’

Ellen and Cook said that at about half-past three a car had come from the
Rupert’s Arms
with the word that a telephone message had come from Ellen’s mother at Naunton Crucis
to come at once as she was dangerously ill. So she and Cook had gone and had found, on arrival, that the mother was well. ‘Well, that may be a clue,’ the Inspector said. ‘We may
be able to trace where the telephone message came from, but it’s none too rosy.’

‘And Maria hasn’t come back,’ Kay said.

‘Ah, that reminds me,’ the Inspector said. ‘I’ve got a message for you about that. Your young friend, Miss Jones, was at St Griswold’s looking at the glass with
some clerical gentlemen and Father Boddledale. Then they had lunch at the
Bear’s Paw
, and after that Father Boddledale says he and his young men said goodbye and came away, and Miss
Jones was to come by a later bus. What happened to her since we don’t yet know, but she was seen at the
Bear’s Paw
long after Father Boddledale had gone. But you leave the matter
in the hands of the Law, Master Kay. The Law is said sometimes to be slow, but it never sleeps. While you are snug in your bed, Master Kay, the Law is up and about taking thought for you, and your
Miss Maria won’t be long missing, you take my word for it.’

Presently the Police had made all their examinations and had questioned everybody remotely connected with Seekings. They went away. Kay longed for his guardian to be back: even to have a word
from her would have been much in this time of trouble, but there was no word from her. But as Ellen said, ‘The posts are all upset for Christmas.’

After supper that night, as the four children were sitting round the study fire, the hall door opened and somebody came in. ‘I wonder is that my guardian,’ Kay said. He went into the
hall and there was little Maria. ‘I say, Maria, I am glad to see you,’ he said. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

‘I don’t know where I’ve been,’ Maria said. ‘I’ve been scrobbled just like a greenhorn. I knew what it would be, not taking a pistol. Well, I pity them if I
ever get near them again. They won’t scrobble Maria Jones a second time.’

‘But what on earth happened to you?’ Peter said. ‘You aren’t usually the one to get scrobbled. Who scrobbled you?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I went with those clergymen people and looked at the stained glass: then we had lunch. It was the only good part of the proceedings: I’m
very partial to duck patty. Then, presently, they went out: said they’d got to go. Well, it was beastly wet, as you know, so I thought I’d take a taxi to the bus: telephoned for a taxi
from the
Bear’s Paw
: taxi came: I got into it: “Drive me to Market Square, please,” I said. Presently I saw it was going a different way, so I said, “Market
Square!” The driver said, “The road’s up, miss: got to go this way,” and at that he put on speed and a sort of cast iron curtain came down over all the windows. There I was,
shut up in a black box, going about fifty miles an hour, right out of Tatchester. I beat on the shutters, but they were cast iron and I might have spared my strength; and the car went faster and
faster and at last, from the queer lurch it gave, I knew that it was up in the air.’

‘Oh, that’s rot,’ Peter said. ‘How can a car go up in the air? And a Tatchester taxi! Poor old crocks tied together with boot-lace!’

‘This wasn’t a taxi,’ Maria said. ‘I don’t know what it was: it was some marvellous invention, but it was an aeroplane or a car that became an aeroplane. And there
we were, lurching through the air, going lickity-spit in absolute darkness – I hadn’t a ghost of a notion in which direction we were heading: we were making hardly any noise,
too.’

‘It couldn’t have been an aeroplane, then,’ Peter said. ‘You must have an enormously powerful engine to go fast, with an enormous number of cylinders and an enormous
number of explosions every second, so, of course, you have noise.’

‘I tell you,’ Maria said, ‘this was an aeroplane, and it was silent, and it was going lickity-spit.’

‘I say,’ Kay said, ‘you are in luck, Maria. And what happened then?’

‘Well, it would have been about a quarter to three when I got into the taxi,’ she said. ‘Presently I felt that the aeroplane was dipping down. Then it touched the ground and
went bumping over grass for a while, then I heard it scraunch on gravel. Then I heard a sort of door clang to behind it, and I said to myself, “Now we’re in the garage.” Then
there came a sort of sickening feeling, as though we were dropping down a well. The shutter went up on one side and the sort of door of the thing opened, and I saw a light.

‘Well, the light was along a little passage. It seemed to me that the car or taxi or aeroplane or whatever it was was in a small stone cellar. The door was open and, as I said, I could see
into this little passage with the light at the end. I didn’t see anybody, but I got out of the aeroplane and I walked towards the light. I came into a small room with no window, but a sort of
a little ventilator high up. The walls were rock: I touched them; and they had been whitewashed. It was lit from the ceiling about twelve feet up. I was no sooner in the room than a great iron door
shot up behind me and there I was, shut in. Then rather high up on the wall an iron shutter slid to one side and there was an iron grille with what I took to be a lady’s face; and a very
silky female voice said, “Miss Maria Jones, please forgive any inconvenience we may have caused you in bringing you here and, above all, don’t be afraid.” “I’m not
used to being afraid,” I said; but all the same I was afraid. “We only brought you here,” the female said, “because we hope that you may be interested. We are rather in need
of a dashing young associate at the moment and we wondered whether we might persuade you to become that.” “Oh,” I said, “what are you: a gang of crooks?” “Oh
no,” she said, “a business community.” “Oh,” I said, “what business does your community do?” “Social service,” she said. “Setting
straight injustices with the least possible inconvenience to all concerned.” “And how do you do it?” I asked. “Oh, sometimes in one way, sometimes in another,” she
said. “You would soon learn if you would join us.” “Why d’you want me?” I asked. “Well, you are young,” she said, “and full of dash. It’s an
interesting world for our younger agents: lots of motor cars, lots of aeroplanes. Life is one long, gay social whirl.” “And what is the work?” I asked. “Ah,” she said,
“we shall discuss that if you expressed a willingness to become one of us.” “If your job were honest,” I said, “you’d say what it is. It can’t be nice, or
it wouldn’t have you in it.” “If children are pert here,” she said, “we make them into dog-biscuit. Many a good watch-dog is barking now on insolent little chits like
you.” So I said, “If ladies are pert to me I make them into cats’-meat. Many a good caterwaul have I fed on meat like you, cold.”

‘We should have become quite eloquent, but a black-bearded man’s face appeared at the bars and he said, “Now, ladies, ladies, ladies! The first word in business of any kind is
unity. Do let us have unity. Without that we can never get anywhere. Now, Miss Jones, if we cannot have unity from you, let us have some information. When Mr Cole Hawlings gave his performance of
Punch and Judy at Seekings, did he hand you a small black box?” “No,” I said, “he didn’t.” “Did he leave it with one of the others of your party there, or
hide it in Seekings House?” “How on earth do I know?” I said. “That’s the point,” he answered. “Do you know?” “Well, I don’t know,”
I said.

‘This time, by the light from the bars, I looked at my watch and found that it was four o’clock. “You need not look at your watch,” the woman said. “You will have
lots and lots of time. If I were you, sir,” she added, “I would put this young person into the scrounger. D’you know what a scrounger is, my dear?” “Yes,” I
said. “I don’t think you do,” she replied. “It’s a place that we put people into. It has a thing in it that goes round and round and round, which is the scrounger; and
then, presently, of course, the thing scrounged becomes dog-biscuit.” At that the shutter went across the bars and the light went out. I was in absolute darkness and utter silence: I might
have been fifty feet underneath the ground. I don’t know how long I was in that absolute blackness. I stood perfectly still for some little time because I was afraid that there might be a
trapdoor which would let me down into some dungeon.’

‘I say,’ Peter said, ‘you’re making all this up.’

‘Am I?’ she said. ‘Let something of the sort happen to you and you’ll see whether you can make it up.

‘Presently, I couldn’t bear standing still. I thought that I might perhaps come to some door in the wall that would lead somewhere, so I groped to the wall and felt my way all round
the room. I reckoned that it was fourteen feet by twelve feet: cold stone walls, cold stone floors; but not damp and the air neither chilly or foggy; it was well-ventilated. I had gone all round
the room feeling the wall and there wasn’t so much as a knob or a crack. I had gone round once and was starting round in the opposite direction to make absolutely certain, when suddenly, down
came something thick and warm and woolly right over my head and shoulders and I was pinioned. I couldn’t see, but I felt that the light went on and that horrible woman’s voice said,
“All right, you needn’t kick and you needn’t try to bite and you can’t scratch. I only just want to know if you have got this box upon you.”

‘Well, I was searched, and then I was carried along the little passage by which I had come and I was put into the taxi which had brought me. They removed my woollen, and, though I hit out
pretty hard when they took it away, the woman was a lot too quick for me and I only rapped my knuckles on the taxi door, which was sheet-iron. They turned on a little light in the taxi roof and I
saw that they had put me a pot of tea and some cold ham and some bread inside the taxi, so I thought, “Well, nothing like keeping one’s pecker up,” and so I made a hearty
meal.’

‘Was there any knife with the food?’ Kay asked.

‘No such luck,’ she said. ‘I had to eat it with my fingers. I’d have soon hacked my way out if they had left me a knife.’

‘Weren’t you afraid of the food being drugged?’ Jemima asked.

‘No, that never occurred to me,’ Maria said. ‘I’d been through a good deal of mental strain and had to restore my nervous force.

‘Well then, after I had made a meal I looked about and there on the floor of the taxi was a little bit of pink tissue-paper. I picked this up and it was a bit of one of those coloured
papers which floated down after the Punch and Judy man had gone. You remember you, Susan, had one with a bit of your name torn from it. Well, this is the very bit. You see: “. . . san
Jones”: it was the one designed for you.’

‘I’ve got the torn cap here,’ Susan said. ‘You see, it does fit. How very, very strange.’

‘Yes,’ Maria said. ‘That Punch and Judy man was one of the gang.’

‘He was nothing of the sort,’ Kay said. ‘He was scrobbled by the gang the morning after his performance, and he was scrobbled in the sort of aeroplane that carried you. But
what happened next?’

‘Well, I waited and waited for what seemed like hours: I didn’t hear any sound of men, only from time to time I thought I heard, very, very far away, the noise of water falling;
quite a lot of water: a sort of waterfall. Then the light went out and I was in the dark. I suppose, what with fatigue and fear and one thing and another, I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew
the taxi was moving. I heard some roller doors clang open, and we scraunched on the gravel, and then we ran upon grass, and then we gave that sort of lurching leap that an aeroplane does and we
were away in the air, going higher and higher and making no noise. And then, presently, we were on the ground, running along the road. We stopped. The bottom of the aeroplane quietly opened and
dropped me through it and, before I could get on to my feet, it had moved away. And there I was in the churchyard, with the Condicote church clock striking nine and chiming, and the taxi or
aeroplane or whatever it was was away. It just lifted up past the church and was gone.’

‘Did you see which way it went?’ Kay asked.

‘It just went behind the church and then I couldn’t see it any further. I haven’t the vaguest notion where I’ve been. I should think we were flying for an hour and a
quarter both times and I don’t doubt that we were going at a frightful speed. We might have got to Scotland for all that I know. We might easily have gone three hundred miles.’

‘I say,’ Peter said, ‘you do have all the luck.

‘Well, I’m awfully glad you’ve got out of it. Would you like to go round to tell your story to the Police Inspector?’

‘I’m not going to tell any more story,’ Maria said. ‘What I want is underdone chops and plenty of them. I’m going to build up my nervous system before anything
else, and then I’m going to bed.’

‘Well, come along down to the larder,’ Kay said. ‘And, Jemima, you might put on a kettle and we’ll boil her up some cocoa.’

‘I’m not going to drink any poison like cocoa, thank you,’ Maria said. ‘When one’s had a nervous strain such as I have, one wants a posset with three fresh eggs in
it and a spoonful of sherry.’ They went into the larder and found a nourishing meal after Maria’s own heart. Then Jemima and Susan took her up to bed and gave her a posset.

Kay and Peter went up to their room. ‘Well, I’m blessed,’ Peter said, ‘we are having a holiday. I wonder what was in the black box that the gang wanted. I shouldn’t
wonder if it wouldn’t be the Duchess’s diamonds that were stolen.’

‘I hope they won’t kidnap any more of us,’ Kay said; and with that he slipped the black box under his pyjama coat next to his skin, rolled over and fell asleep.

He hadn’t been long asleep before he woke in a state of perplexity and excitement. He kept thinking of what Maria had told him. He said to himself, ‘She might have been fifty feet
underneath the ground, in cold stone walls and cold stone floors: well, she must have been underground. And where was it I was reading about, or heard about, caves underneath the ground? It was
that Roman chap last night, talking about Chester Hills: he said, “It’s a limestone country, all honeycombed with caves; and those wolves, as we call them, were all underground.”
I wonder whether this gang is at Chester Hills? There would be nothing like a lot of underground caves for the secret quarters of a gang. Get down there with their aeroplanes which can become taxis
by pressing a button and the Police might hunt for years and never find them. And then, what if this Theological Missionary College should really be a gang in disguise? It’s just what I
should do if I were a gangster: pretend to be a clergyman. And I’m sure that Abner Brown is that man they call Father Boddledale – the Reverend Father Boddledale, D.D. He’s a magician and a gangster of the deepest dye, and now that he’s married to the Pouncer he’s probably five times as
bad as he ever was before. And I do wish my guardian were here and then I could ask her advice.’