The Big Six: A Novel

by Arthur Ransome

  “Let her go,” said Dick. “That’s the way detectives find things out.”

  “He probably knows everything Tom’s just told us…. No, I don’t mean he’s listening….” Pete, looking hurriedly round, had stolen to the door. “Of course he might be….”

  “Nobody here,” said Pete.

  “The villain’s in just as much of a stew as we are,” said Dorothea. “His deep laid plans have come to nothing. He’s got to do something at once. Time is going on. Tomorrow the innocent people he had hoped to send in chains to the gallows are going to see a solicitor and lay the proofs of their innocence before him….”

  “Do he know what proof we got?” asked Pete.

  “If he doesn’t he’s probably thinking we’ve got more than we have. You see, he knows he’s guilty even if no one else does. So he knows what lots of proofs there must be to find if only we knew where to look for it,” said Dorothea. “He’s probably heard Mr. Tedder raging about what Mr. Farland said to him. He’s wishing there were other boats near the Death and Glory so that he could push them off and get the Death and Glories blamed for it. You’ve been back from Ranworth three whole days and nothing’s happened. Nothing new. And Mr. Farland saying you ought to have been caught in the act. ‘Ah’, says the villain to himself, ‘another lot of boats adrift and nothing would save them.’ He strides up and down, planning furiously, and his friends shrink from him in fear.”

  “You don’t know who he is, do you?” said Pete hopefully.

  “We’ve got a lot of clues,” said Dick.

  “Bad luck everybody using them Dunlop tyres,” said Joe.

  “We know a lot about him beside the tyres,” said Dorothea. “We know he’s somebody who’s got some reason for wanting people to think it’s Tom or the Death and Glories. We’re pretty sure he’s somebody who lives near here, because if he didn’t he couldn’t get to know so soon what you and Tom are doing. Then, the thing to ask is, what is going to happen if we can’t prove it isn’t any of you?”

  “We’ll be taken off the river,” said Bill.

  “Bust up of the Coot Club,” said Tom.

  “Well,” said Dorothea, “who is there who lives near here and has a bicycle with Dunlop tyres and would be glad if the Coot Club got busted?”

  “There’s only George Owdon,” said Bill. “He’d be glad enough if there wasn’t no bird watchers on the river.”

  “It can’t be him,” said Tom. “He was one of the people keeping watch on the staithe that night when you were all at Potter Heigham.”

  “Tom,” said Joe suddenly. “When you go to Potter that time, to put the Coots on the look out, what did you say to young Bob Curten?”

  “I told him everybody was wrong in thinking you’d cast off those boats, and I asked if any other boats had been cast off, and I told him to let us know quick if any more boats got cast off. But it was no good because he said he isn’t to have anything more to do with the Coot Club.”

  “You didn’t say anything about that George Owdon?”

  “Of course I didn’t,” said Tom. “Why should I?”

  “I’m off,” said Joe. “Look here, Pete, if I don’t get back, mind you give old Ratty his supper.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Tom.

  “I got an idea,” said Joe. “Bill, I’m taking your bike.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Potter Heigham.”

  “They’ll grab you sure,” said Pete. “That Tedder say the chaps at Sonning’s was fair mad about them boats, let alone them shackles. They’ll half kill you and ask questions after.”

  “They’ll have to catch me first,” said Joe. “I got to go. I got to go now. Tomorrow’ll be too late.”

  Dorothea’s eyes sparkled. “If we could prove George Owdon was there,” she said.

  “But everybody knows he wasn’t,” said Tom.

  “All the better if we could prove he was, and he may have been there even if we can’t prove it. But don’t get caught, Joe….”

  Joe had already gone.

  Dorothea was scowling again.

  “What’s he thinking now?” said Tom.

  “Shackles,” said Dorothea. “You see he’s still got some. That notice said a gross and a half. How many’s that?”

  “144 and 72,” said Dick. “That’s 216.”

  “He must have about a hundred and fifty left,” said Dorothea, “and he’s wondering what to do with them.”

  “I’m going to the ship,” said Pete. “We don’t want any more of them shackles aboard.”

  “Come on,” said Bill. “We’d better keep watch.”

  “But we’re just getting at something,” said Dorothea. “And anyway he won’t do anything in daylight.”

  “Pete’s right,” said Tom. “Nobody could see what he was doing once he’s got into the Wilderness. And if he’s desperate…. Look here. Let’s shift her to the river. Nobody would dare to touch her if she’s in full view from everywhere. And there’s no point in keeping her hid when Tedder and everybody knows where she is.”

  “But you’ll come back here,” said Dorothea.

  “It won’t take a minute to shift her,” said Tom. “And you can go on being the villain. It would be too awful if there’s another lot of shackles.”

  “I’m coming too,” said Dick.

  “All right,” said Dorothea. “I’ll be looking through the evidence.”

  Pete ran on ahead and looked all over the Death and Glory, but found no shackles. Then, when the others came, they put the anchors aboard, and brought her down the dyke, clear of the osiers, and moored her again just above the place where the dyke joined the river. There she could be seen by anybody on the water or on the banks and no one was likely to risk playing tricks with her, at any rate before dark.

  “You’ll have to keep a watch on deck all night,” said Tom, as, with easier minds, they went back to Scotland Yard.

  They came back to find Dorothea full of a new idea.

  “I don’t believe he’ll bother about the shackles,” she said. “You see there was the bloodhound the first time and getting his hands all over green paint the second. He may think another try would come off worse. And anyway he’s got what he wanted, because everybody thinks you stole them. He’s trying to think of something else. He’s bothered because of what Mr. Farland said to Mr. Tedder. He’s in an awful hurry because of tomorrow. He’s trying to think of something that could happen tonight.”

  “Well there ain’t no boats near us,” said Pete.

  “I wish there was one,” said Dorothea. “He’d be absolutely certain to push her off tonight…. If only there was…. The detectives would lurk in the bushes listening and watching. And then, just as the villain creeps up in the dark to push her off, they would leap out and shine their torches on the villain’s guilty face.”

  Dick jumped. “I say,” he said. “We could do something even better. I’ve still got a lot of that flashlight powder.”

  “Torches are better,” said Tom.

  “Not to take a photograph,” said Dick. He pulled his spectacles off at the thought. “We could wait in hiding with the camera all ready and then, just as the villain was pushing off the boat, we could fire off the flash and get a photograph of him in the very act.”

  Dorothea clapped her hands. “Simply lovely,” she said.

  “Gosh!” said Tom. “That would settle it.”

  “But how’d we know which boat he’s going to set adrift?” said Bill.

  “And there ain’t no boats anywhere’s near,” said Pete.

  “What about Mr. Farland’s Flash?” said Dorothea. “If we could only borrow her and moor her somewhere.”

  “Uncle Frank would never lend her,” said Tom. “He’s laid her up for the winter already, because of Port and Starboard being in Paris. And besides, he thinks the Coots are guilty, so he wouldn’t lend her anyhow. He’d think it was some new trick.”

  “It’s an awful pity,” said Dick. “We’d h
ave to have a boat in a good place to be cast off from, for one thing. And fairly near the Death and Glory for another. And we’d have to get everything ready before dark … focusing the camera and all that. But if only it worked and we got a photograph of the villain in the very act, it would be as good as all the clues put together.”

  “It’s no good talking about it,” said Tom. “It would be a fine idea if there was a likely boat, but there isn’t. You came to the Wilderness so as to be away from places where there are boats to be cast off. And if there’s no boat the villain can’t cast one off. He’ll be doing something else.”

  “We’ve got so little time,” said Dorothea.

  “Nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” said Tom. “Nothing much can happen between now and then. We ought to get ready every bit of evidence we’ve got.”

  “I’ve been going through it,” said Dorothea. “Let’s start at the beginning, and do it in a new way. I’ll write down our evidence opposite each case.” She wrote down “Cruiser at the staithe” and said, “Evidence?”

  “We only know there was someone there that night beside the Dead and Glories and me.”

  “Evidence?” said Dorothea again.

  “Someone was there, to throw that brick back through the window of the sail loft.”

  “That’s something,” said Dorothea. “And the next case….”

  “That was the boat we rescued with her mast stuck in the trees.”

  “Evidence?”

  “We were with the eelman up river when she was cast off. We were on our way back when we found her. Only George Owdon saw us tying her up and thought we were casting her off….”

  “George Owdon,” said Dorothea. “It isn’t exactly evidence, but I’ll put it down…. ‘G.O. was on the staithe’.”

  “He just come biking on his way to Norwich with that pal of his,” said Pete.

  “Never mind,” said Dorothea. “What about that first case? Wasn’t he there in the morning when people thought you had cast off the cruiser?”

  “He think we cast her off,” said Pete. “He say so loud enough. At least he think it were Tom.”

  “G.O. in the morning thought it was Tom,” wrote Dorothea. “Next case.”

  “Potter Heigham,” said Tom.

  “Potter Heigham,” wrote Dorothea. “Evidence?”

  “Them shackles,” said Bill.

  “The shackles are evidence in the wrong way,” said Tom. “Everybody says the Death and Glories couldn’t have got the shackles if they didn’t steal them.”

  “That’s what the villain wants them to say,” said Dorothea. “We know the villain put the shackles in the Death and Glory so that they would get the blame.”

  “Down the chimbley,” said Pete, looking at his fist. “I very near skin my knuckles.”

  “And there’s more than that,” said Dorothea thoughtfully. “I saw someone at your chimney…. And then there’s the bit of flannel torn by our bloodhound from the villain’s trousers. If we only knew. I wish Joe would hurry up and get back.”

  Pete gently tickled the roll of fat round William’s neck.

  “That’s all the evidence we got with the first lot of shackles,” said Tom. “But we’ve got Dick’s paint trap with the second lot. There’s the print on the chimney … and then the green paint on the shackles.”

  Dorothea wrote busily.

  “Will it be an awful job to take the chimney off the boat?” asked Dick.

  “Easy,” said Bill. “It just fits over and there’s two chocks to hold it. I can have them screws out in two ticks.”

  “We’ll have to take it with us,” said Dick.

  “Chimney pot,” wrote Dorothea. “Evidence to be produced in court.” She said the words aloud.

  “Court!” exclaimed Bill. “If they takes us to court we’re sunk. It don’t matter what happen. If they take us to court there’ll be no more Coots.”

  Dorothea scribbled “If necessary” after “to be produced in court,” and said, “We’ll have to show it to the lawyer anyhow.”

  “Shall we go and get it off now?” said Dick.

  “We’ll be lighting the fire tonight,” said Bill. “I can have them screws out quick in the morning.”

  “When Mr. Farland sees those fingers on the chimney,” said Dorothea, “he can’t help knowing that there was someone there.”

  “That’s about all we’ve got about Potter,” said Tom. “Unless Joe gets something out of Bob Curten…. But I don’t see what he could get. Bob was as certain as the rest of them that the Death and Glories cast those boats off.”

  “What came next?” said Dorothea. “Ranworth….”

  “Sir Garnet,” said Pete. “That night after you come and we was all in the old ship and old Simon tell us to keep an eye on the wherry, and we did and saw her warps was made fast proper, and yet off she go in the night and Jim Wooddall’s new warp turn up in Jonnatt’s boatshed.”

  “Sir Garnet,” wrote Dorothea. “Evidence?” She waited.

  “We ain’t got none,” said Bill. “Everybody go for us and we was lucky getting away. If that George hadn’t have spoke up for us….”

  “George Owdon again,” said Dorothea eagerly. “Go on. What did he say?”

  “He tell ’em he didn’t see what harm we could do in Ranworth, and we just push off while they were arguing.”

  “Dot,” said Tom. “That ought to go with the Ranworth evidence. Don’t you see? George Owdon knew they’d gone to Ranworth.”

  “What’s the good o’ that?” said Bill. “Everybody on the staithe know where we was going. George only say to let us go. By the time they done shouting I wonder chaps didn’t know in Ranworth we was coming before ever we get started.”

  “All the same,” said Dorothea. “That’s George Owdon again. He comes in a bit every time except when you were at Potter Heigham.”

  “No good,” said Bill. “What about that Tedder? Tedder come in the first time and every time after. He keep track of us and come knocking on our cabin-top before we’d hardly got into the old Wilderness. But he ain’t evidence, no more’n George Owdon.”

  “What else at Ranworth?” said Dorothea.

  “Tyre prints,” said Dick, “and bicycle pump.”

  “We know somebody come over the Ferry that night,” said Bill.

  “We’ve got a list of the people who use Dunlop tyres,” said Tom digging it out from among the papers on the table. “Beginning with me and Bill, and Mr. Tedder, and the old parson. It’s about a mile long. We’d have done better to make a list of the people who don’t use Dunlop tyres. It would have been a lot shorter.”

  Dorothea was looking through the list. Her finger stopped at a name. “George Owdon’s got Dunlops,” she said.

  “Everybody has,” said Tom.

  “Don’t see how that matter,” said Pete.

  “Well, if he had Palmers,” said Dorothea, “we’d know it wasn’t him at Ranworth.”

  “Why,” exclaimed Pete. “You ain’t really thinking it’s him.”

  “In detective stories,” said Dorothea, “they don’t rule out anybody. It’s usually the most unlikely person.”

  “Gosh,” said Pete. “I bet it was Mr. Tedder. Look at the way he try to patch it on us. Policeman too. Nobody’d think it were him. And he use Dunlops. I saw ’em.”

  “I’d better make a fair copy,” said Dorothea. “So as to be sure of not forgetting anything when we’re putting our case before the lawyer.”

  “Mark at the side where we have a clue to show him,” said Dick. “We’ll take them all with us.”

  She set to work, with the others looking over her shoulder and making suggestions from time to time. She had not nearly finished when Joe, hot and dusty from his ride, came into Scotland Yard in triumph.

  “How long have I been?” he asked. “George Owdon could do it quicker.”

  “What did you find out?” asked Dorothea, jumping up from the table.

  “Real evidence,” said Joe.

/>   “What happened?” said Tom.

  “They didn’t catch you?” said Pete.

  “Nobody see me till I were off again,” said Joe happily. “They shout after me then but they was too late.”

  “Did you find Bob?”

  “I find him, and his Dad had tell him never to speak to none of us, but I soon settle that. I say to him, ‘Young Bob,’ I say. ‘Have you seen that George Owdon about?’ And what do you think he say? He say, ‘No, I ain’t seen him this ways not since that night you was here casting them boats off.’ So I clout his head and tell him we don’t cast off no boats. And he say Tom Dudgeon tell him that but everybody think we do. And I tell him he got to be here tomorrow morning to go with us to Mr. Farland, but he say he can’t do that. So I make him write it down and here it is.” He held out a scrap of paper. Dorothea took it.

  “Read it out loud,” said Dick.

  Dorothea read, “I swear I see George Owdon by Potter Bridge the night before you come through. Bob Curten.”

  “That’s right,” said Pete. “He see us come through the bridge next morning. He were shouting and signalling, but we was in tow.”

  “George Owdon comes in every time,” said Dorothea.

  “He’ll be putting the rest of them shackles aboard,” said Joe.

  “We’ve shifted her out of the dyke,” said Tom.

  Joe turned and made for the door. “I’ll just see she’s all right,” he said. If anybody else had been mooring the Death and Glory, Joe wanted to have a look at her anchors for himself.

  “But we ought to go through the evidence with you,” said Dorothea, too late for him to hear her.

  “Let’s all go,” said Pete.

  Dorothea took her rough copy with her, and they went along the river bank to find Joe, who had had a look at the anchors, feeling the Death and Glory’s mooring ropes to make sure they were not stretched too taut.

  “IT’S THE CACHALOT”

  Sitting in the cockpit and on the cabin roof they went through the evidence with Joe. He had nothing to add, though, after his ride to Potter Heigham, he tried hard to think that they had proved George Owdon was the villain. The others saw only too clearly that they had only proved that somebody else could have done the things the Death and Glories were accused of doing. They had no real proof that any particular person had done them. And, worst of all, they had not proved that they had not done them themselves.