“But who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
Somebody’s fist banged on the roof of the cabin above their heads.
“Come out of that,” said a voice.
“That sound like George Owdon,” said Joe.
“You talk,” whispered Bill. “Gimme time to get breath.”
“Who’s there?” asked Joe as sleepily as he could.
“River watchers.”
“All well here,” said Joe.
“We’ll give you all well.” The boat lurched as the visitors stepped aboard. Hands pawed over the door. “They’ve got the door locked,” said a voice. “Run him to earth all right. Shine your torch here. You can see the key’s in the lock.” There was a sudden angry rattle at the door.
“You clear off and leave us alone,” said Joe. “We want to get to sleep.”
There was a long silence. Then the noise of muttering in the cockpit. Then someone spoke aloud.
“He’s there all right.”
“I bet that’s George Owdon,” whispered Joe.
“They’ll have the door in in a minute,” whispered Bill, as someone outside started hammering on the door and then kicking at it.
“You may as well come out now as later,” said a voice and there was such a banging on the door that Joe, for a moment looked anxiously at the hinges.
“Stop that,” he shouted angrily.
There was whispering in the cockpit, and then a curse as someone tripped over the bucket which Joe had left there after the last washing up. Some sort of argument went on in low voices. Bill thought he heard the word “camera”. There was more muttering and they heard someone say, “I tell you we’ve got to make sure.”
“Shall I let ’em in now?” whispered Joe.
“No,” said Bill.
“We don’t want ’em to go without our seeing ’em,” urged Joe. “Case that photo don’t come off. Pete ain’t no expert like that Dick.”
“Keep ’em busy,” whispered Bill. “Give Pete time to get clear. We don’t want ’em to go and catch him with the camera. More row they kick up the better. Warn Pete not to come here.”
“Who are you?” shouted Joe.
“You’ll see soon enough. Are you going to open this door?”
“What for?” said Joe. “We ain’t invited anybody.”
“We’ll break it in then.”
“You’ll have a job,” said Joe.
The answer was a still more violent rattling of the door. Then there was another whispered debate in the cockpit, ending as before with the words, “I tell you it isn’t safe not to make sure.”
The next thing heard in the cabin was the splash of the bucket over the side. Then steps on the cabin roof…. Then … as Bill said afterwards, it was like the end of the world. There was a loud hiss of water on hot coals…. The door of the stove flew wide open…. The cabin was full of smoke and scalding steam…. Bits of coal flew in all directions and lay hissing where they fell. Water poured from the stove.
“You all right?” Joe gasped.
“Beasts!” shouted Bill. “Beasts!”
Again the bucket splashed over the side, steps sounded on the roof, and another deluge of water poured down the chimney and out over the cabin floor bringing cinders with it.
Bill choked.
Joe, coughing and spluttering, reached for the door.
“We’ll open.”
He unlocked the door. It was pulled wide. A hand reached over his head, grabbed him by the collar and hauled him out of the cockpit.
Bill, struggling to escape from all that smoke and steam, was in the doorway. He too was hauled out.
“Any more?” said George Owdon. “Three of you, aren’t there? Where’s the third?”
“You can see he ain’t here,” said Bill.
“You ain’t got no right to make a mess of our boat even if you are river watchers,” said Joe.
“We know now who was casting boats off,” said Bill.
“Shut up.”
“Been swimming?” he asked.
A large hand swung round and caught him on the side of the head.
“Who are you hitting?”
“You … and you’ll get some more if you start any cheek. Come on, George. Better make sure.”
“Wait till the smoke’s cleared … You’d have done better to open the door when we asked you.”
The smoke and steam were drifting out of the cabin and the lamp, burning clearer now, showed the dreadful mess that had been made.
“You might have set the ship afire,” said Bill.
“Ship!” jeered George Owdon. “A lot you cared what happened to the ‘ships’ you cast adrift.”
“We didn’t,” began Joe, but Bill gave him a nudge and he said no more.
“I’m going in now,” said George Owdon. He stooped and went in, hitting his head on a beam as he did so. “Harder’n ever Tom hit his,” said Joe with some pleasure telling about it afterwards.
“What’s he doing?” asked Bill.
“Shut up,” said the other big boy, George Owdon’s friend, who was standing guard over them in the cockpit.
In the cabin, George Owdon was looking this way and that. He pushed his way forward, opened the cupboards, pulled everything out on the floor, tore the blankets off Pete’s bunk, came back, hitting his head again, and hunted along the cabin shelves, sweeping things off them as he hunted.
“Hullo!”
Joe and Bill, watching the sack of their cabin, heard George Owdon exclaim.
“Got it!”
He had found the square wooden box on the shelf over Joe’s bunk.
“Don’t you touch that,” shouted Joe. But George Owdon was already feeling in it and pulling out the cotton wool. The next moment there was a yell, and he had flung the box into the forepart of the boat and was sucking a bleeding finger.
Joe broke free from his captor and plunged into the cabin, pushed past George Owdon and picked up the box. It was empty, but he saw something white close under the deck in the very bows of the boat.
“I’ll kill that rat for you,” shouted George Owdon.
“You won’t,” said Joe. “All right, old Ratty. It’s all right.”
“Leave him alone,” said the big boy in the cockpit, who still had Bill by the collar. “You’re sure it’s not there?”
“I thought it was in that box,” said George Owdon, looking at his bitten finger by the light of the hanging lantern.
“Come on then,” said the other boy.
“You wait till morning,” said Joe angrily. “We’ll tell Mr. Tedder what you done to our boat.”
“I’ll tell him I caught you casting loose that cruiser,” said Bill.
George Owdon laughed. “Who’ll believe you?” he asked. “We’ve got something to tell Mr. Tedder too. We saw you unmoor that boat and put her adrift. You saw him, didn’t you, Ralph?”
“Swear to him any day,” said the other boy.
“Now what about Mr. Tedder?” said George. “This’ll settle it. We were watching for you and we saw you take those anchors up and push her off. That was all he said he was waiting for, for someone to catch you in the act.”
“Liars!” gasped Bill.
“We’ll tell him first,” said Joe.
“Come on, George,” said the second boy. “We’ll go and tell him now.”
The two of them went ashore and disappeared in the dark.
“Are rat-bites poisonous?” Bill heard George say.
“Hope that one is,” shouted Bill.
There was the sound of a scuffle. “Let go.” Bill heard George’s voice.
“Never mind him,” he heard the other boy say. “Now you listen to me. What’s the name of that kid? We’ve both got to say we saw the same one.”
They were gone.
Bill joined Joe in the wrecked cabin. Joe was talking to the white rat, persuading it to come back.
“I say, Joe.”
“Yes…. Come on, Ratty, old
chap. There ain’t nobody to hurt you.”
“I say, Joe. What if that Tedder believe him?”
“Well, you saw him pushing the boat off.”
“Not to swear,” said Bill. “There was that light right afront of my eyes, and I didn’t see nothing not hardly. I didn’t know who they was till they come drive us out of our cabin.”
“What about Pete?” said Joe.
“I were frightened all the time he’d come walking in on us,” said Bill. “If they catch him with that camera, we’re sunk. And if he bungled that photo we’re sunk too. Pete may have seen ’em, but that’s not much good if he did. Our word against theirs, and everybody in the place believing it’s us anyhow.”
“If Pete come along, he sheer off when he hear ’em,” said Joe…. “Good old Ratty….” He had got the white rat on his knee by now and was stroking it and tickling it behind its ears. “Pete’s got sense. He’ll likely be watching for ’em to go. He’ll be along, soon as he think the coast’s clear. Pete’s lucky. His is the only dry bunk in the ship. That water splash over everything. Take us a week of Sundays to put all straight. What was that George looking for, throwing things about?”
“That flashlight make ’em think,” said Bill. “He were looking to see if we got a camera. That’s why they don’t say they seen us till they make sure we ain’t got a photograph.”
“And if they’d found it?”
“They’d have put it in the river, or spoil the picture somehow.”
“Do you think Pete take that photo?” asked Joe. “Didn’t, we’re no better off than we was.”
“I don’t know,” said Bill wearily. “That light startle me when I pull that trigger, and if it startle Pete too he’d be too late maybe.”
For some time they were busy, putting things back into their places by the light of the lantern, mopping up the mess on the floor, clearing the bunks.
“It’s the end of the old Coot Club,” said Bill in deep gloom. “We was being a bit too clever. You see, if they asks me I can’t say I weren’t there. And it’s them being river watchers and helping Tedder and all that.”
“All right if Pete get that photo,” said Joe. “Wish he’d show up. Shall I give him a shout?”
“Better not,” said Bill, but he went out into the cockpit, turned his torch on and waved it to and fro for a signal, in case Pete might be lurking somewhere near.
“I’m lighting up that fire again,” said Joe. “He’ll be clem cold hanging about. Dry things up a bit too.”
They got the fire burning again, boiled a kettle of water and made cocoa.
“No good going looking for him,” said Bill. “Pete know enough not to get caught. Pull the curtains. Leave the door open. So he’ll see all’s clear. Gone to Tom’s likely. Maybe Tom’ll be coming with him. Well, there’s cocoa for all.”
They sat by the fire in the cabin, sipped their hot cocoa, told each other all the many things they might have done to George Owdon and his friend if only they had thought of them in time, and in the end dropped asleep where they sat.
CHAPTER XXX
“ALL THE EVIDENCE WE GOT”
“WAKE up, Bill. Where’s that Pete?”
Joe was shaking Bill by the arm. Sunlight was slanting through the orange curtains.
“Wake up. That Pete ain’t come back.”
“Leave go my arm.” Bill woke slowly. He sat up and stretched out an arm, stiff and cramped after the night. He blinked at Joe and stared sleepily at his own feet, wondering to find them in sea-boots. Suddenly he remembered the battle with the besiegers, the tremendous flash in the darkness, the splashes of the pursuers in the ditch behind him, and Pete, left with the camera in his hiding place on the bank of the river.
“Ain’t he come in?”
“Ain’t you heard me tell you?”
“Gone to Tom’s. Tom’ll have give him a doss down.”
“Come on then.”
Rubbing their eyes, they hurried along the bank, through Mr. Farland’s garden, over the little drawbridge and so to Dr. Dudgeon’s. They could hear the clatter of crockery and pans and someone singing in the kitchen.
“Tom! Coots!”
There was no answer as they stood by Scotland Yard looking up at Tom’s window.
Bill gave a hard tug at the string. A moment later, Tom, still in pyjamas, looked out.
“You nearly had my hand off that time,” he said sleepily, and then, waking up … “Look here … Why didn’t you fetch me when it was my watch? Why? What? What’s happened?”
“They come all right,” said Bill. “But everything go wrong.”
“Didn’t the trap work?”
“I couldn’t see a thing after I let go that flash,” said Bill. “But they was there all right. And I bolt, like you said, and they go in the ditch clopwollop, and the next thing were that George Owdon and that other banging at the Death and Glory.”
“Three cheers,” said Tom. “We’ve got them.”
“We ain’t,” said Joe. “They say they see Bill pushing off the Cachalot. But where’s that Pete?”
“Did Pete get the photograph?” asked Tom.
“Ain’t Pete with you?” said Joe.
“Of course he isn’t.”
“Pete lie low, like you say,” said Bill, “and we ain’t seen him since.”
“Perhaps he went to Dick’s.”
“He’d never go to Mrs. Barrable’s, not in the middle of the night,” said Bill. “Dick ain’t got a string from his window.”
“Why didn’t you come here last night?” said Tom.
“We fall asleep. That’s why,” said Bill.
Joe was already running for the road. “Come on, Bill,” he shouted over his shoulder. “We tell young Pete to lie low and he never dare shift. He’s by the Cachalot yet. Been there all night.”
Bill pelted after him.
Side by side they ran down the road to the Ferry, round the inn, through the gate and across the meadow to the bank of the river.
There was the Cachalot, anchored just out of reach from the bank. Pete or no Pete, Joe was delighted that his idea had worked out so well.
“She lie beautiful,” he said. “Lucky we put that weight down to hold her. Might have been anywheres by now.”
“Pete,” shouted Bill.
There was no answer.
They came on the apparatus Bill had used to fire off the flashlight powder. It was lying beside the path, with the biscuit-box shield, just where Bill had dropped it before racing off with the villains close behind him. Joe picked it up. It was wet with dew, but Dick would surely want it again. Bill rescued Tom’s oilskin.
They pulled aside the branches of the willow bush, where the photographer had lurked in hiding. There was no sign of Pete or of the camera.
“And he ain’t come to the Death and Glory,” said Bill. “Nor yet to Tom’s. Joe! You don’t think they get him? May have been more of ’em than them two. I never think of that.”
“Silly young turmot,” said Joe. “What if he tumble in the river getting away?” He did not believe it when he said it, but saying it somehow made it seem possible, and both of them looked anxiously along the bank.
“He’ve been out all night,” said Bill. “Joe. We got to tell his Mum.”
“If them chaps fright him,” said Joe, “he’d likely run t’other way.”
They looked down the river and this way and that over the low-lying meadows. There was never a sign of a wandering photographer.
“He’ll be all right,” said Joe doubtfully.
“We got to tell his Mum,” said Bill.
“Well, he ain’t here,” said Joe.
They had a last look round and hurried back to the village. If Pete’s Mum had to be told, the sooner it was done the better.
“Wish that Dot never think of that trap,” said Bill. “That turn out wrong all ways.”
“What about telling Tedder?” said Joe, as they passed the policeman’s house at a good jog trot.
&n
bsp; “No use us telling him,” said Bill. “Pete’s Mum’ll do that. You don’t really think he tumble in?… Pete’s not one for that…. It were a black dark night…. I couldn’t see nothing hardly, after that flash….”
“Think they’ll drag the river?” said Joe.
Bill did not answer and they ran grimly on, round the corner by the inn, and so to the row of cottages, one of which was Pete’s home.
Pete’s mother was on her knees scrubbing her doorstep. She looked up at them. “Well,” she began, as if she had a good deal to say.
“We lost Pete,” said Joe.
“Down river below the Ferry,” said Bill.
“Lost him?” she said. “You just miss him. But didn’t you two promise me that if he come in that old boat you’d see he go regular to bed?”
“Just miss him?” said Joe eagerly. “Has he been here?”
“He go out just before you two come. Rapscurry-hurrying he were too. But what I want to know is what you was doing with him running loose at all hours of the night?”
Pete was all right. There were other things to think of now.
“Have he got a camera with him?” asked Bill.
“He didn’t hardly finish his breakfast before he got off with it.”
“He’ve gone to Dick’s,” said Joe. “Come on.”
“There’s going to be no more of that….” said Pete’s mother, but they never heard what there was to be no more of, for they were off again on their way to Mrs. Barrable’s.
*
They never got there. Turning the corner of the road they met Dorothea hurrying down to Scotland Yard. She was almost running, carrying a small suitcase.
“Oh good,” she cried. “Come on, quick. Tell me what happened. Pete said there were people at the Death and Glory last night, and he went home with the camera, and his mother put him into bed. But what happened?”
“Did he get a photo?” asked Bill.
“He doesn’t know if he did or not,” said Dorothea. “And Dick and he have rushed back to develop the film. They’re coming after us. We can’t wait for them. We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry. We’ve got to get all the evidence together and take it to Mr. Farland. And if we’re late he’ll be gone to Norwich. But do tell me what happened.”
The Big Six: A Novel Page 29