The Box of Delights (9 page)

‘Snow’s said to be warm, if you get really into it,’ Kay said. ‘But I dare say that’s one of the things they say.’

They followed the footprints, which were those of a man about the size of Cole Hawlings. ‘But I don’t think it can be Cole,’ Kay thought, ‘because there are no tracks of
a Barney Dog: and he must have had Barney with him. But then, Rat said that the Lady was going to take the dog. Of course, she has him.’

The tracks led on over the Camp wall, across the ditch, and presently out of the wood on to the bleak upland known as Bottler’s Down. There are some spinneys on the shoulders of Bottler,
the tracks led past these, going due west. As the boys came over one of the shoulders past a spinney edge, they sighted their quarry two hundred yards ahead, a little old man, trudging the snow,
bent under a green-baize-covered bale. He was near the spinney called Rider’s Wood.

At that instant four men darted out of Rider’s Wood and ran at the old man, who dropped his bundle. One of the men had something that flew up: Kay gasped, as he thought it was a club, but
it seemed to be a sack or bag, which came down over the old man’s head. A second man in the same instant lashed rope round the old man’s arms and legs. In five seconds they had the old
man trussed up and lifted. Three of them hurried with him to the other side of the spinney; the fourth man followed with the bundle. The boys were too startled to cry out or to do anything: they
stood spell-bound.

There came the roar of an engine from beyond Rider’s Wood. ‘That’s an aeroplane,’ Kay said. They heard confused noises and the slamming-to of a door. The roaring of the
engine became much louder and an aeroplane lurched into sight past the covert-end, going across the snow to take off into the wind. ‘It will stick in the snow,’ Kay said, ‘and
then they’ll have to leave him.’ However, it didn’t stick in the snow. It lifted after a short run, and at once lifted higher and higher, with great lolloping leaps.

Now that it was in the air it was silent, of a grey colour and swifter in going and climbing than any he had seen. It had almost no wings and was in the clouds in no time (going north-west, Kay
judged).

‘Well, they scrobbled the old man,’ Peter said.

‘Come along, Peter,’ Kay said, ‘we must go to see what tracks those people have left.’

‘I say,’ Peter said. ‘I am glad I came out with you. I never thought I should see a gang scrobble an old man and carry him off in an aeroplane.’

‘It’s very lucky,’ Kay said, ‘that we’ve got the snow. All the tracks will be as clear as print. Don’t let’s run, and keep well to the side of the old
man’s tracks so as not to obscure them, and let’s get it absolutely clear so that we can tell the Police: two men in white ran out, then two others, and there must have been another man
in the aeroplane.’

‘There were four who did the attack,’ Peter said, ‘and the first one, who had a bag, was the tallest of the four, and they’d all got something over their
faces.’

They came to the scene of the kidnapping and then went into the copse to see where the gangsters had lain in wait.

They had been in the spinney some little time and had scuffled out their tracks: they had been resting in a yew clump among some tumbled stones clear of the snow. They had not smoked during
their wait: there were no cigarette-ends, no matches, no tobacco ash. They had scuffled out their foot tracks from the aeroplane, but, of course, the tracks to the aeroplane were plain. All that
they could see was that there were four men of different sizes, one a good deal bigger than the other three, and that all were wearing new rubber goloshes or rubber boots. The tracks of the
aeroplane told the boys nothing: it had run on its wheels to a level strip near the spinney on a part of the down kept clear of snow by the wind.

‘Well, that’s that,’ Kay said. ‘They’ve got him, and they’ve got away with him, and I’m pretty sure it was our Punch and Judy man.’

‘It looked jolly like him,’ Peter said. ‘Well, we’d better go back and tell the Police.’

They made a last examination where the aeroplane had rested, but there were no clues but a few spots of black oil. They took the short cuts home and called at the Police Station.

The big red-faced Inspector was an old friend of Kay’s. He understood rabbits and was a clever amateur conjurer. Kay had always thought that there was a lot of sense in him. Kay told his story; Peter backed him up.

‘Ah, indeed,’ the Inspector said: ‘that was those young officers from the aerodrome having a bit of a frolic.’

‘It wasn’t like a frolic,’ Kay said; and Peter said, ‘And they weren’t in uniform, and it wasn’t a government aeroplane.’ ‘And then,’ Kay
said, ‘it was such a lonely place and such a time in the morning.’

‘And what were you doing in that lonely place at that time in the morning, Master Kay?’ the Inspector said. ‘I hope you young gentlemen weren’t trespassing in pursuit of
game.’

‘No, of course we weren’t. We were out looking at the tracks of the animals in the snow.’

‘Ha,’ the Inspector said. ‘Now, did this old man struggle at all or cry out?’

‘He didn’t have a chance to,’ Kay said.

‘Did he see you or did the other people see you?’

‘No, they couldn’t,’ Kay said, ‘from where they were.’

‘And, did you shout or try to raise an alarm?’ the Inspector asked.

‘I’m afraid we didn’t,’ Kay said. ‘We were just spell-bound, and it all happened in an instant. They ran out, scrobbled him up, put him into the aeroplane and away
they went.’

‘Well,’ the Inspector said, ‘it sounds like the aerodrome to me: those young fellows, Master Kay, serving their country and away from the civilising influence of their mothers,
just full of spirits, the spit of what I was myself when I was a young man. It was a Christmas gambol and a bit of what you call “ragging”. And you see, Master Harker, the Law
isn’t like ordinary things: sometimes the Law has to put its foot down, sometimes it has to shut its eyes. And the Law, Master Kay, makes much of what is called “motive”:
what’s prank when meant as prank may become felony when meant as felony, and what you saw seems to me to be no more than prank.

‘But all the same, I am obliged to you, Master Harker. We in the Law are always glad of evidence, first-hand evidence, from one who knows what’s what. I’ll keep my eyes and
ears open, Master Kay, for anything out Bottler’s Down way, but nothing’s come in yet: no job for the Law has been done out Bottler’s Down way. But we in the Law keep our eyes
open as well as our ears. I’ll ask what aeroplanes were out that way this morning.

‘And you were a matter of two hundred yards from the scene of this fracas,’ the Inspector said, ‘and you didn’t recognise any of the parties?’

‘Well,’ Kay said, ‘we both think, and are almost sure, that the man was the Punch and Judy man who was at Seekings House last night from half-past five to half-past six. He was
stopping yesterday at the
Drop of Dew
and his name was Cole Hollings or Cole Hawlings.’

At this moment the telephone bell rang. The Inspector lifted the receiver. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Condicote seven thousand. What is it?’ Someone talked to him for a minute or
two. ‘Now that,’ the Inspector said, putting down the receiver, ‘that’s what we call in the Law a coincidence. That was our officer at Tatchester asking about your Punch and
Judy man, Cole Hollings or Hawlings. The man is at Tatchester now and the Police are asking “Is he a fit kind of man to give a public performance at the Bishop’s Palace this very night
as ever is?”’

‘And he’s at Tatchester now?’ Kay asked.

‘Yes,’ the Inspector said, ‘at the Police Station, showing his licence. You heard me ask “Is he all right?”: they said “Yes.” You heard me ask
“Does he make any complaints?”: they said “No.” So if he was the man you saw, Master Harker, he can’t be much the worse, even if they did put him in the aeroplane. Now
is he, Master Harker, a kind of man to perform before a Bishop and other holy men?’

‘He’s simply wonderful,’ Kay said.

The Inspector took up the receiver and spoke again. ‘I have every reason to suppose,’ he said, ‘from information received, that the man is a good performer and can be trusted
not to disappoint nor yet to shock the company. By the way, is the man there?’

He listened and then said, ‘Just bring him to the telephone. There’s a young gentleman would like to know something. Hallo. Hallo. Is that Mr Hawlings? Are you any the worse for
being in the aeroplane?

‘(“No,” he says, “none the worse, sir.”)

‘Mr Hawlings, who was it put you in the aeroplane?

‘(He says some young friends, with more fun than sense.)

‘And what brought you out Bottler’s Down way in the snow, Mr Hawlings?

‘(He says it was the only flat bit where he could meet the aeroplane.)

‘Now here’s a young friend wants to ask how you are.’

The Inspector handed over the receiver to Kay.

‘Is that you, Mr Hollings?’ Kay asked. ‘I rang you up to ask how you are . . . if you’re any the worse for the wolves or the aeroplane?’

The telephone was full of crackles and buzzes. A female voice said, ‘Pottington-Two-Five, please.’ A distant man’s voice said, ‘Give up the strychnine and go on with the
belladonna’; then from far away an old man’s voice said, ‘No, none the worse, I thank you: all the better.’

‘You are really Mr Hollings?’ Kay asked, ‘that found my ticket and was scrobbled into the aeroplane?’

‘Really, truly he,’ the voice answered. ‘And you’re the young gentleman?’

‘Yes,’ Kay said.

‘Goodbye, my young Master,’ the voice said. Kay hung up the receiver.

‘So that’s that,’ the Inspector said. ‘That’s how Science helps the Law. You thought your friend was scrobbled. Now by Science and the Law you hear from his own
lips that all is well.’

Somehow Kay wondered if all was well. The telephone was working badly and the voice was like the old man’s voice, but still, somehow he felt uneasy.

‘I’m very glad,’ Kay said, ‘that the man is safe. Please forgive us for taking up so much of your time.’

‘A public man’s time is the public’s,’ the Inspector said. ‘It’s my duty, as a public man, to listen to all and sundry at all times. Sometimes the Law has to
shut its eyes, sometimes there isn’t enough for the Law to go upon, sometimes the Law intervenes; but at all times, I say, let the Law in, Master Harker. Any tale that’s first-hand
evidence, you bring it to the Law, and, depend upon it, Master Kay, murder will out. However dark the deed, Master Kay, we bloodhounds of the Law, as they call us, will bring it into the
limelight.’

Kay thanked him again, then they talked for a moment of brighter topics – rabbits, simple conjuring tricks, blue Persian cats, the Condicote Rugby Team, etc. – then they both shook
hands with the Inspector and wished him a very happy Christmas and New Year, and then they went home to breakfast, for which they were a little late.

Just before they clambered over the garden fence of Seekings a puff of air came upon Kay’s face, which made him look up at the sky. It had been bright clearing weather at dawn; now it was
clouding over from the west on a muggy windless air. A weeping thaw had set in. As he entered the house there came the slip and splosh of snow dropping from the roofs. ‘There’s a
thaw,’ he said. ‘We shan’t get very far with that snowman we were going to build.’

Before he went to breakfast, Kay tried to telephone Caroline Louisa, to ask how her brother was. Unfortunately, the line was out of order, owing to the snow. They said that the men were doing
their best, but couldn’t promise anything; they hoped to have the line ready during the day. The post had not come: that, however, was due to Christmas, not to the snow.

All through breakfast, the snow fell from roofs and trees; slither, slither, splosh. When they went into the field to set about their snowman they found the snow rapidly becoming too sloshy:
they were soon working in slush.

‘We’d better stop,’ Jemima said. ‘We shall be wet through. He’ll never look up to much.’

‘We’ll give him a sort of a head,’ Kay said. They did this. Maria topped it with an old top hat that had lost its crown, Susan put in some dark stones for the eyes, and Peter
added a clay pipe. Then they flung some sploshy snowballs at him.

Ellen called to them from the door: ‘If you please,’ she said, ‘you’re not to get wet through.’

‘Oh, by the way, Ellen,’ Kay shouted, ‘have you had any telephone message?’

‘No, the telephone isn’t working,’ Ellen said.

‘Are they doing their best?’ Peter called.

‘Oh, Miss Susan,’ Ellen said, ‘you are naughty to go and get yourself wet through like this; and you, Miss Jemima. Miss Maria, your things will be ruined.’

‘Jolly good job,’ Maria said.

‘No, Miss Maria,’ Ellen said ‘it isn’t a good job, and you know that it isn’t; and you ought not to say such things. To be wet through in the cold is the way to
take your Death. Come along now, like a good little girl. Come along in now; no nonsense. You must change all your things.’ She shepherded the girls to the door, and then remembered the boys:
‘And you, Master Kay, you are wet through too,’ she said.

‘Oh, come on, Peter,’ Kay said. ‘Let’s get out of this. There’s too much discipline here altogether.’

They slipped over the fence in spite of Ellen’s calls. ‘What shall we do now?’ Peter asked.

‘Shall we go out again to Arthur’s Camp?’

‘But you’ve been there once this morning.’

‘I know, but I don’t think we’ve heard the last of that aeroplane . . . I can’t help thinking we shall find out some more or hear some more, if we go out. And we might
try tracking the foxes down. It’s only a mile.’

‘Well, all right,’ Peter said.

Though the thaw was now streaming, they found their own tracks and those of the little old man. Beside these were the tracks of two other men.

‘You see, two men have been along here since we were here,’ Kay said, ‘and they are not country men, for they didn’t wear nailed boots.’

‘One of them was smoking a cigarette,’ Peter said: ‘see the ash. There’s the cigarette-butt – Egyptian.’

‘What on earth have they been doing here, sweeping the snow aside?’ Kay said. ‘I wonder why they’ve done that?’