The Box of Delights (30 page)

‘What line is that?’ someone asked.

Rat gurgled with laughter. ‘I’ll die laughing at it,’ he said.

‘Come, out with it, Rat,’ some voices said. ‘Stand up and sing it . . . up, on your hind legs now.’

Kay could hear Rat’s chair pushed back: the clamour ceased for the new line; there was silence. Rat gulped with laughter.

‘Come, spit it out, man,’ someone said.

Rat gurgled with laughter: ‘You’ll die laughing at it,’ he said. ‘This is what it is: I don’t know that I can, for laughing:

‘That’s what.’

He gurgled with laughter: there was a long silence. Then Rum-Chops said:

‘I don’t think I quite followed. Would you repeat it?’

The wretched creature repeated it, but seemed to feel that something had gone wrong. There was a long, awful silence. Then Kay heard one of the pirates say:

‘Where’s that nephew of his? Here, Alf Rat, help your uncle up to bed.’

Abner turned off the wireless set with a click.

‘So,’ he said, ‘mutiny even here. I rather feared it. No matter. They shall pay the penalty and I will go to my island by aeroplane. Number Three Plane is at all times ready
for the voyage. And these clumsy brutes think to pit their wits against me . . . So be it. They shall pay dearly, that I promise them. Very good . . .

‘And now,’ he added, ‘now for the great moment. Now for my Pouncer. Much as I have suffered from these fools, I have suffered more from my sweet Pouncer; but to make sure of my
sweet Pouncer will be but the work of half an hour.’

So saying he left the room, singing a little ditty with a chorus:

The clock ticked slowly. It struck for a half-hour, then for ten o’clock, then for half-past ten, but Abner did not return. Presently, Kay heard the door open. He thought
for a moment that it would be Abner returning, but two people came in.

‘You see, my Pouncer, what,’ a familiar voice said, ‘I told you he was going to put a double-cross on us. There is the boodle, all packed up.’

‘False-hearted, treacherous Abner,’ the Pouncer said.

‘Ha-ha, what,’ the foxy-faced man replied. ‘My master-key will soon resolve the matter.’ Kay heard him unlock the padlock on the chain and unlock the deed-box.
‘Ha-ha, you see, what,’ the foxy-faced man said, thrusting back the lid. ‘Cat’s-Eyes, Diamonds, Pearls, Emeralds, Rubies – everything; even the special blue and yellow
Sapphires.’

‘Never shall he look upon them again,’ the Pouncer said. ‘Quick, into our suitcase.’

The pair had a suitcase. ‘They are going to fly together,’ Kay thought.

In their hurry and excitement they did not notice Kay, but they thrust bag after bag of jewels into the suitcase.

‘Wait, you have left something,’ the Pouncer said.

‘Ah, it is only a bit of rag,’ the foxy-faced man answered. It was not a bit of rag: it was poor, trembling Kay at the bottom of the box. The foxy-faced man picked him up between
thumb and forefinger and pitched him into the grate, where luckily he fell into the ashes, not into the fire. ‘It was only a bit of old chamois,’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘A bit
of jeweller’s rag. Now we had better be off.’

‘Wait,’ the Pouncer said. ‘Fill the box up with coal.’

‘My Sylvia, what an inspiration,’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘Never was your equal born.’

Nimbly he placed some big lumps of coal from the scuttle inside the deed-box; he then carefully muffled their jolting with a towel and a tablecloth.

‘My dear Charles, you think of everything,’ the Pouncer said.

‘Who would not, inspired by Sylvia,’ he answered, taking up the keys. ‘Now, swift . . . there it is, locked . . . there is the chain . . . and there, finally, the padlock.
Beautiful and no traces left.’

‘And now, away, my Charles,’ the Pouncer said.

‘Wait yet, my Sylvia,’ the foxy-faced man answered. ‘He has put old Joe in one of the dungeons. We must set old Joe free first. Did you ever see his Zoo?’

‘I never did,’ the Pouncer said.

‘You shall now,’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘We’ll have time before the Police are here.’

Kay saw them work the mechanism of the lift and disappear within it. As soon as they were gone, he crawled out of the grate, which was unpleasantly hot. He was half stunned by his fall into the
grate, and half choked by the ashes. He was too miserable at the loss of the Box to mind these things. All that he could think was, ‘Now I shall be tiny, like this, unable to help those
people, who will all be drowned; and for my own part I shall be burned when he sets fire to the house.’

He was crouching in a corner of the room when he heard the lift drawing near. Sylvia, Charles and Joe came out. Sylvia was wearing nine diamond necklaces. Kay saw that the suitcase had gone. Joe
carried a small bag; Charles had a big dressing-case. ‘They have been repacking for their journey,’ Kay thought.

‘There’s the box that he’d packed the boodle in,’ Charles said, pointing to the deed-box.

‘I’ll boodle him, the beauty,’ Joe said. ‘What can I do against him, I wonder.’

‘Oh come along, Joe,’ Charles said.

‘I’ll put my boot through his window first,’ Joe said. He kicked through each pane: snow came driving in in a cloud.

Sylvia Pouncer peered into the fireplace. ‘Didn’t you throw away a bit of chamois, Charles?’ she asked. ‘I’d like it now, if you could find it, to give my diamonds
a rub with.’

Charles peered into the grate beside her. ‘It was just a bit of dirty chamois,’ he said. ‘Like a little rag, what? I’m afraid it went into the fire and got burned. It
doesn’t seem to be there now. Perhaps we’d better come along now. Come along, Joe.’

‘No, wait just one minute,’ the Pouncer said, ‘for perhaps it didn’t go into the grate, but beside the fireplace here. I thought I saw it, to tell the truth.’

She poked about quite close to Kay, but luckily didn’t see him.

‘If it’s chamois leather that you want,’ Joe said, ‘you’ll find a piece in the kit-box in the aeroplane; if that would do.’

‘Yes, that would do,’ Charles said. ‘We had really better go.’

They stole out of the room and were gone.

‘I shall never find the Box again now,’ Kay said to himself. ‘If it’s in the deed-box, Abner will find it, as The Boy said he would. If it isn’t in the deed-box, it
is probably in one of those bags which they are carrying; they’ve been sharing the spoils evidently. There is just a chance that it has been spilled out on to the floor here . . . Oh, I do
hope it has.’

He looked, with a beating heart, but could not see it. While he was looking, the door of the room opened: Abner came in.

‘Confound this window,’ he said. ‘The snow’s drifted in all over the place again and broken the window, too.

‘Where on earth has the Pouncer got to? Well, I must get going, and leave that deed undone.’

He picked up the deed-box. As he did so, Kay clutched Abner’s shoelace and swung himself once more into the turned-up trouser-end. Abner did not notice him doing this. He took the lift
down to the gallery and walked swiftly to Cole’s cage. Near the cage, all muttering, snarling and snapping, was a pack of little aeroplanes and motor cars, each headed like a wolf, plainly
ordered by Abner to be guards and annoyances to Cole. Abner stopped, put down the box, sat upon it and spoke:

‘Now, Ramon, or Cole, my merry old soul,’ he said. ‘I have only one thing to say to you: I want your Elixir. How about it?’

‘No,’ Cole said, ‘nothing that you can offer shall buy the Elixir from me. You are unfit to possess it.’

‘You realise the alternative,’ Abner said. ‘If I am not to have the Elixir, be sure that you will not profit from it. You see this iron wheel in the rock-face? It works sluices
by which I can flood these cellars at will. I think the Elixir would hardly preserve you from twenty feet of water, chained as you are.’

‘Whether it will preserve me or not,’ Cole answered, ‘will be known later. But my secret shall not preserve you from anything through any weakness of mine.’

‘So?’ Abner said, ‘you remember of course that I am offering to bargain . . . Your Box for your Elixir . . . It is a fair exchange.’

‘You have nothing with which to bargain,’ Cole answered. ‘You say that you have my Box, or will have it. You are wrong: you will not have it. But I most absolutely refuse to
bargain with you in any way whatsoever. I defy you.’

‘Very good then,’ Abner said. ‘In any case, there is no need to continue the conversation.’ He walked over to the wheel in the rock and cast loose its safety-catch . . .
‘You still refuse?’ he asked.

‘I do,’ Cole said, ‘I most absolutely refuse to bargain with you in any way.’

‘Very good then,’ Abner said. ‘The water shall come in.’ He took the wheel and was about to swing it round, when a thought seemed to strike him; he turned again to Cole.
‘Wait one moment,’ Abner said. ‘I confess I do set a little store by your Elixir of Life. You are not ignorant of Magic. If you see my Helper, you will hear from him that your Box
of Delights will be mine before midnight. That may convince you.’

He lifted his hand in the familiar way. There came a noise of dripping, mixed with a limping, hobbling, shuffling step, difficult to describe. In the corridor appeared that boy whom Abner had
smitten with the timetable. The creature’s head was still deep within his chest, his legs were still telescoped into his body; but his sulkiness and pertness were gone. He was dripping wet.
Dead leaves and bits of sodden twig were stuck about him. He came limping, hobbling, shuffling up to Abner, where he stood and dripped and whimpered.

‘So,’ Abner said, ‘the waterfall has taken some of the insolence from you, it would seem. Now, tell this gentleman the truth. The Box that I search for, shall I not have it by
midnight?’

‘No,’ The Boy whimpered.

‘You told me that I should have it,’ Abner said.

‘I didn’t,’ The Boy said. ‘I said you’d have it under your hand and you’ve had it under your hand. You’ve had it under your hand for something like an
hour this afternoon and you didn’t know. Now, it isn’t under your hand and it won’t be under your hand again, and you don’t know where it is and you’ll never know
where it is.’

‘Tell me instantly where it is,’ Abner said.

‘I won’t tell you another thing more,’ The Boy said. ‘You can peg me under the waterfall, or melt me in the fire, or bury me, or blow me through the winds, yet I’ll
never tell you another thing, except that you had the Box and didn’t know it and now won’t have it again, ever. So that’s what I call Squish to you.’

Abner smote The Boy on the top of his neck and Kay saw him telescope up under the blow: this time his legs went right through his body, and out at the shoulders.

‘Get you back to your waterfall,’ Abner said; ‘and you will stay there for seven years.’

At this moment, Kay saw Cole Hawlings in the cage lifting his right hand in spite of his irons. As he did so, The Boy slowly began to untelescope: the legs went down; the body rose up from the
legs; the neck and head rose up from his chest, till there he was, a boy again, looking, Kay thought, rather less bony and unpleasant than he had looked in Abner’s study.

‘Well, I shan’t,’ The Boy said to Abner. ‘I shan’t be pegged under the waterfall, for I’ve been set free, see, from you and yours. You had the Box under your
hand and didn’t know it and now you’ll never get it again. A jolly good Squish to you – Squish, Abner!’ At this he suddenly became fainter and disappeared upwards.

‘You see,’ Cole Hawlings said, ‘you have deceived yourself. The Box will not be yours, nor shall my secret be yours, whatever happens to myself.’

‘Very well,’ Abner said. ‘I have other Helpers beyond any power of yours. I am not to have your Elixir, it seems, and I am not to have your Box. Very well; but I shall have
something, and that’s revenge on you. D’you know what this river and lake are famous for?’

‘I know what they are infamous for,’ Cole answered – ‘a very ugly scoundrel.’

‘They are famous for crayfish,’ Abner answered, ‘little freshwater lobsters, excellent with mayonnaise. Before midnight some of them will have begun upon you: for I am going to
drown you, Cole Hawlings, like a rat in a trap.’

He seized the wheel and spun it round. Kay heard a distant clattering noise, a thud, and then a great, fierce but still distant roaring rush of water.

‘You hear,’ Abner said. ‘The sluice is working beautifully. I love the noise of running water. As one of the poets says:

You feel that draught of air rush past? That’s air driven out by the water. There’s a great head of water in the lake: thirty feet of dammed-back flood water is
coming after you. It won’t take very long to reach you. And now I shall set off with my little earnings to a place of rest and beauty.’

‘You will not set off,’ Cole answered. ‘All the exits to this place are now guarded by Police.’

‘No Police can guard the exit by which I shall go,’ Abner answered. ‘Goodbye. My last act before I leave will be to drop a wreath down the sluice for you and your clerical
friends. Sleep well, Cole.’

He kissed his hand to his victim and turned to walk away. As he turned, Kay slipped from the folded trouser edge; he had had enough of Abner.

Abner whistled to his guard of little wolves that were yapping and snarling. They came to heel with their little headlights glaring like radiant eyes. One of the little motor cars snapped at Kay
and almost got him. They passed rapidly along, following Abner like a pack of dogs at the heel of their master.

From far away Kay heard something give way at the intake of the water. The rush of the flood water increased suddenly threefold.

‘Mr Hawlings,’ Kay said. ‘Mr Hawlings.’

‘Ah, is that you, Master Harker?’ Cole said, leaning towards the bars of his cage. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t keep that size, Master Harker.’

‘Mr Hawlings,’ Kay said, ‘I have lost your Box: I had it: it was shaken out of my pocket somewhere, and now I can’t get back to my proper size.’