by Joan Aiken
“What sort of horse?” Phil’s tone was sceptical. Plainly he didn’t trust Robert to know a horse from a camel.
“A racehorse,” said Robert. “His name’s Galloper. Come up to the Pullman and see him,” he added hospitably. It occurred to him that he had now painted Mr Cheam’s Jimmy in each of the wigs and it was time he looked out for a new model; this boy appeared to have a harmless sort of muzzy face, what could be seen of it. “Come up this evening.”
He tidied Galloper a bit before the professional’s visit; polished off stray crumbs of Oat Crisp and gave him a rub with a suede brush. As Galloper blew sociably down his neck, he reflected that it would be quite amusing to paint Phil sitting on the horse; make an interesting bit of composition.
Presently Phil appeared on Daisy with a little parcel bearing the blessed label of Chicory and Flax.
“There’s two men with a loose box at the bottom of the hill,” he said. “Are you getting another horse? Oh, and the postman asked me to give you this.” Then he stopped and gazed openmouthed at Galloper.
“There!” said Robert proudly. “That’s a proper racehorse, isn’t it?”
“Where did you get her?”
“Won him. Did you say her?”
“Well, she’s a mare, isn’t she? But don’t you know what she is? That’s Dog-rose, the favourite that was stolen.”
“Oh, nonsense,” Robert said. “Absolute bosh. How do you know? Horses are all alike, you can’t tell one from another like that. His name is Galloper and he answers to it, don’t you, Galloper?”
All the same a nasty chilly doubt began to gnaw at his mind. This boy seemed very sure of his facts; he probably studied form, whatever that meant. Supposing those two men in bowlers had stolen Galloper—Dog-rose—this would be an excellent place to leave him hidden while pursuit died down. And then they would come back—
“Hey,” he said to Phil. “Did you say there were two men with a loose box?”
“Yes.”
“Little men with bowlers?”
“Yes, they did have bowlers.”
Robert became inspired. “Now listen,” he said. “They are the miscreants who palmed off this valuable racehorse on me under false pretences. But I have a plan. I can hear them coming up now. You must take Galloper through the tunnel, out the other end—the gate’s always left open—and gallop over the downs to the police station at Cowchester. I’ll hold these chaps in play till you’re well away, and if they turn nasty I can retreat into the tunnel too and shut the gate on them. You can leave Daisy inside. Now scram—race-gangs always carry razors, I believe.”
In fact they could hear the van toiling up the track, and Phil vanished into the tunnel-mouth with Galloper and was soon out of earshot.
Robert flung himself down in a careless attitude on the turf and began studying an Oat Crisp packet. When the little men appeared, he greeted them gaily.
“Good evening,” he said. “Don’t tell me I’ve won another horse? Or have you called in to see how Galloper’s getting on?”
He hadn’t had time to undo the sealed parcel containing his glasses, so he could not see their expressions.
“I’m afraid an unfortunate mistake has occurred,” said Small Bowler. “We have discovered that the award was wrongly made. The horse should have gone to a Mr Oswald Kellaway, and we have come to take it back. Naturally, a written apology from Oat Crisps, Limited, will follow in due course.”
“My middle name is Oswald,” Robert said affably.
“Now, no joking, please, Mr Kellaway.” Small Bowler’s tone was curt and cold. “A mistake was made, and we have to rectify it. Where is the horse? I don’t want any unpleasantness, but it’s a valuable piece of property, and it’s coming with us.”
“I pawned him,” said Robert.
The little man let out a sort of snarl and moved nearer to Robert, who noticed something glinting in his right hand: a piece of horse-equipment, no doubt.
Robert suddenly lost patience. “It’s no use your looking for him,” he said rashly, “because he’s halfway to Cowchester by this time and the police will be looking for you, you lousy pair of swindlers.”
The object in Small Bowler’s hand went off with a loud bang, and Robert’s parcel shattered into fragments.
“Look here!” he snapped. “Those were my new glasses.”
Then wisdom overtook him, and he leapt into the tunnel entrance, slammed the gate, and raced a hundred yards into the gloom. A couple more bangs behind suggested that the vindictive bowlers were still trying to get him, and bullets ricocheted off the mossgrown concavities of the tunnel. Then they evidently gave it up as a bad job, and he heard the van start and drive off.
“They’ll try to intercept Galloper on the way to Cowchester,” Robert said to himself, “but it’s twenty miles by road and they can’t go over the top of the down. They’ll never catch him.”
Highly satisfied with himself, he mounted Daisy and guided her towards the tiny pinprick of light that was the Cowchester entrance. There was no use in going back, because the gate worked on a spring lock and he kept the key in the Pullman; he would have to continue on and round.
Gradually the pinprick became a keyhole, and expanded to a circle, as Daisy crunched along the permanent way. It grew bigger and bigger, and then Robert began to notice with dismay a metal tracery across it—
“Hullo,” hailed a cheerful voice. “I hope you’ve brought a key with you, because this gate is locked.”
“What?”
“I suppose they wanted to stop sheep from getting in,” said Phil. “We’ll have to sneak back and out your end when we’re sure those men have gone.”
“We’ll have to spend the night in the tunnel,” corrected Robert gloomily. “Unless you’re any good at smashing a lock with a stone.”
Unfortunately they couldn’t even get at the lock, which was on the far side of the steel mesh. It was the neatest prison ever devised.
“Mr Cowlard might let us out. He comes up to see you in the evenings, doesn’t he, sometimes?”
“He’s in bed with lumbago.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose the postman will let us out in the morning. It’s a pity it’s so damp and stony in here. Still, we’ve got Dog-rose, that’s the main thing.”
“Why the devil did they leave him with me? Do I look like a sucker?”
“They do call you crazy Mr Kellaway in the village because you always look so puzzled,” said Phil. He chuckled. “I expect that’s what gave the men the idea you’d be a safe bet. And it’s nice and secluded.”
“I’m not puzzled,” said Robert angrily. “I’m shortsighted, that’s all. And now those spivs have broken my new pair of glasses. It’s all very well for you to laugh, you wretched boy—”
“Say that again,” interrupted Phil. Robert patiently repeated what he had said.
“Oh—oh well, of course if you’re shortsighted that explains a lot. Do you think,” said Phil, “it would be sensible to walk back to your end of the tunnel now?”
“Very well.” Robert’s tone was chilly. He was wondering how he could make conversation to this boy through the long hours of the night. They started plodding back through the dark with their mounts.
“Do you like cricket?” Robert asked laboriously.
“No,” said Phil. But luckily it turned out that Phil was an enthusiastic admirer of Gauguin and Matisse; indeed, Robert had to admit that the boy was an intelligent and amusing companion, and the night passed far more quickly than he would have thought possible. They were stiff and chilly, though, by the time Fred the postman appeared and let them out.
“I suppose I’ll have to take Galloper to the police,” said Robert sadly when they were drinking coffee in the Pullman.
“I expect there’s a reward,” Phil consoled him. “You can buy another horse.”
That evening, after Robert had paid a rather shamefaced visit to the police with Galloper, and had been mercilessly ribbed in The Goat and Badger for receiving
stolen property, he went on to inquire if Phil was all right after his night in the tunnel.
To his surprise, Colonel Paragraph was very indignant.
“I suppose you realize you ought to marry my daughter, young feller?” he barked.
“Your daughter?” said Robert, utterly at sea. “I’ve never laid eyes on her. You must be thinking of somebody else.”
“Never laid eyes on her, he says? Didn’t you spend the whole night with her in the tunnel? You’ve compromised her, sir, compromised her!”
“Don’t talk nonsense, Father,” said Phil, coming in with two Black Dewdrops. “He didn’t even know I was female.”
“Wh—what did you say?” stammered Robert hoarsely.
By Derby Day Robert had grown accustomed to his engaged state and was finding it quite enjoyable. He even felt secure enough to submit to Larry Selvage’s paragraph beginning: Handsome Bob Kellaway has been caught at last. His third pair of glasses had not arrived, so he had painted two hazy, gauzy portraits of Phil sitting on fat Daisy, wearing Mr Cheam’s wigs. They had discovered a lot more conversational topics. In fact they would just as soon have stayed at home and gone on painting and talking, but Colonel Paragraph insisted that they must go to the Derby, in which the recovered Dog-rose was a hot favourite.
“If he wins,” Robert said, “the manufacturers of Oat Crisps are going to pay me £3,000.”
“Should be enough to marry on, my boy, what?” said the Colonel. “Here, you can’t see a dam’ thing, can you? Have my field-glasses for the run in.”
Robert looked through the glasses, but the first thing he saw was his fiancée, Miss Philippa Paragraph, looking so ravishingly beautiful and loving that he felt quite faint. Nemesis had caught up with him at last. He lowered the glasses to reduce her to a bearable haze once more, and stood blissfully holding her hand as Dog-rose romped home to a spectacular finish.
Spur of the Moment
The radio is out of order,” said Mr Newbery, putting his head round the kitchen door. “Would you mind singing?”
It was his peculiarity that he could only work if accompanied by music. Julia obligingly broke into “The First Nowell” as she sprinkled Neap over the breakfast dishes.
Her father lingered a moment or two, straightening the sprigs of holly in the dish-rack, in order to give genius time to kindle. “You ought to let each dish drain for one and three-quarter minutes before drying it,” he said reprehendingly.
Julia raised her eyebrows and, without ceasing to sing, reached down a tea-towel printed “Be a Deer and Dry Up.” Mr Newbery took the hint and escaped rapidly back to his study.
Just as Julia finished the dishes there was a thunderous banging on the front door, which burst open. A loud voice shouted, “Hullo, ’ullo, ’ullo. Happy Christmas Eve! Anybody at home?”
“Oh lord,” Mr Newbery muttered distractedly. “It’s that young man of yours. Can’t you get rid of him?”
But he heard his treacherous daughter exclaiming in accents of rather overdone surprise and delight, “Why, Hugh! Fancy seeing you so soon after breakfast! You couldn’t have come at a better moment; my bike’s got a puncture, and Father was just saying the radio’s gone wrong.”
Hugh came boiling in like the south-west wind, grinning from ear to ear. He had a set of teeth worthy of Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, but the disposition behind the teeth was, Mr Newbery privately considered, regrettable: like a houseleek. Hugh had taken hold of the Newberys and put down roots, and was using up more and more space that might have been better employed.
“What do you see in that oaf?” Mr Newbery often lamented to Julia, and she said blandly, “But he’s so useful!”
In a twinkling now Hugh had the puncture mended and the radio put to rights, but Mr Newbery doubted if these benefits were worth the lectures on Care of Tyres and Getting the Most out of Your Battery that they were then obliged to sit through.
Julia made coffee. “Not strong enough, Juley,” Hugh said. “You ought to put one heaped measure for every cup. Ought to get an espresso machine really, Dad, you know.”
“I’m not your Dad yet,” said Mr Newbery with restraint.
“Well, well. Won’t be long now, as the monkey said when the mower cut his tail off. Come for a run over to Brinsley, Juley? I’m demonstrating efficiency methods there today.”
“No, thank you, Hugh,” said Julia. “I must clean out the pantry. And there’s the turkey to stuff.”
“Should come, you know; do you good. Brighten those wits a bit. She’s been a bit dull lately, hasn’t she, Dad?”
But Mr Newbery said he must get back to his work; if Julia wanted to spring-clean the pantry on Christmas Eve it was her affair. When Hugh had gone, though, he reappeared and said, “Julia, you must shed that incubus. He is slowly sapping what remains of my mind. I can’t work any more; I sit in a paralysis of fright waiting for a bang on the door and those shouts of ‘Hullo, Dad!’ He is too hearty for this degenerate family, Julia; either he goes or you go. But before you go I want some help with my new programme.”
“Programme?” said Julia, whose method of spring-cleaning the pantry appeared to consist of sitting on the kitchen table and reading a literary weekly. “But I thought Town Hat was the success of all television successes?”
“So it is, so it is,” said her father testily. “But we must not rest on our laurels. The trouble is that I’m getting bored with it. I’m utterly stuck for ideas. I need stimulating company. What’s the use of a daughter who attracts suitors like flies when all they can do is mend punctures? Put away that snobbish highbrow paper, take this twenty pounds, which is probably our last, go to Rampadges, buy any ten or more articles, and bring them home.”
“May I buy clothes?” said Julia, looking suddenly alert.
“No clothes.”
“Oh.”
“You must buy at random. And be back in time for tea; I want to try to get something sketched out before that repulsive young man turns up again. I’m hoping that your selection of purchases will put some ideas into my head.”
Julia bolted upstairs and returned almost immediately in town clothes and a silly but enchanting hat like a lemon with white frills. Mr Newbery looked at her gloomily.
“Don’t pick anybody up,” he admonished her. “Ten inanimate objects.”
“Do I ever?” She flashed him an innocent, speedwell-blue glance and ran from the house.
Richard Stoke usually walked to his office, the firm of Stoke and Pringle, Architects and Surveyors, in which he was slowly qualifying to step into the shoes of Stoke Senior. This morning he was late. He jumped on a bus.
“Upstairs,” said the conductor, giving him a martyred look.
It is not easy to achieve complete control of a sextant and a four-foot spirit-level while leading a large and lively Alsatian puppy, but Richard was adept after much practice. Raoul, the puppy, went on ahead while Richard encouraged him from behind with the level.
The conductor, after the manner of his kind, came darting upstairs in pursuit so as to cause Richard the maximum inconvenience by asking for his fare before he had his impedimenta stowed. Luckily there was a diversion: the girl across the aisle had dropped a threepenny piece. Burdened as she was with two large pineapples and, moreover, apparently suffering from hiccups, she was having some difficulty in recovering it.
“I’m so sorry,” she apologised sweetly to the conductor. “I always get hiccups if I have to travel on the top deck.”
By the time the vanquished conductor had found her coin for her, Richard had produced his own threepence and had fallen in love. When the girl got out at Rampadges, Richard urged Raoul to his feet and followed her like a hypnotic subject.
She darted first to the stationery and book counter, where she bought three sermon pads, reduced to one-and-eleven, and a manual called How to Build Your Own Cathedral in 100 Man-Hours. Next she acquired a musical box, and then moved to the electrical department, where she lingered over a display of sunlamps.
A knot of last-minute Christmas shoppers surged by. When they had passed, Richard was disconcerted to see that as well as the sunlamp she was purchasing a deaf aid. Was this enchanting creature deaf?
But sidling closer—as well as he could for Raoul, the sextant, and the spirit-level—he heard her say to the assistant, “Oh, no, it’s for my father, the bishop. He gets worried, you know, when he can’t hear the cathedral bells, so he’s been insisting on ringing the tenor bell himself, and of course that’s bad for his tired heart.”
The look of grave, daughterly concern on her face was bewitching, Richard thought as he followed her to the sports department, where he was startled to overhear her buying a pogo stick—“For my father, so that he can nip across the Close when he’s late for Matins. He’s getting rather old and stiff, and this will be a great help.”—and an inflatable, rubber paddling pool. “We are going to fill it with Epsom Salts,” she explained solemnly to the woman who sold it to her. “Then Daddy needn’t go to Tunbridge Wells every April.” She also bought two pairs of snowshoes, observing that you never knew when they would come in handy.
As she had by now acquired a largish heap of parcels, she left them all in the travel goods department while she bought a duffel bag to put them in.
Next she made for the Food Hall, whither Richard pursued her—and a kindly assistant gave Raoul a free sample of Puppikrisp. The way led through the pet department; in passing, the girl was seduced by a parrot offered at the bargain price of five pounds.
“It’s because he bites, miss,” the man told her. “I wouldn’t advise you to have him, he can be downright nasty if he takes a dislike to anyone.”
“Oh, but that’s just what we need at home,” the girl explained. “Since the minor canons started their skiffle group, they’ve given Father no peace: always asking him to join. A bad-tempered parrot in the porch might keep them away.”