Sweet Danger
Page 14
Tears choked her. Then she stood before them speechless, angry, and forlorn, while they looked at her helplessly. She pulled herself together.
‘Come on,’ she said; ‘we must get Scatty and Lugg out. They’re locked in the cellar. I’ve been listening to them swearing for the last two hours. The cellar grating is just outside this window.’
Hal and Eager-Wright went down to release the crestfallen bodyguard, and Guffy and Amanda adjourned to the drawing-room, where the others were still assembled. But it was not until Farquharson had revived and Aunt Hatt had made of tour of the house, to discover that the place had been ransacked, but apparently not pillaged, that Guffy put the question which had been worrying him for half an hour.
‘Miss Huntingforest,’ he demanded, ‘who set you free?’
The good lady stared at him. ‘Why, you, of course,’ she said. ‘Don’t look at me like that, boy. You came up behind me and whisked the gag out of my mouth and the next thing I knew both my hands and feet had gotten free.’
‘But I let Guffy loose,’ said Mary. ‘And you untied me, Aunt Hatt, and –’ she broke off, a terrified expression creeping into her eyes. ‘Who?’ she demanded, looking round the dismantled room where the whole household was assembled. ‘Who set Aunt Hatt free?’
There was a long silence as they looked from one to another, startled enquiry in the face of each. No one replied, and all around them the great ancient house was silent and empty as a deserted tomb.
CHAPTER XIII
’Ware Amanda
THE LETTER ADDRESSED to ‘The Rev. Albert Campion’ arrived by the post on the following morning and it lay upon the side table in the hall, an object of curiosity to all beholders from the moment of its arrival to the time of its disappearance and subsequent recovery.
Since it had not been re-addressed, bore a Northamptonshire postmark, and was labelled ‘Urgent’, the feeling in the family that it might contain useful information was acute.
The household had spent an uncomfortable night in ransacked rooms, and Guffy at least was considerably more grim and morose when he descended the stairs, a lump the size of an egg on the back of his skull.
At a hurried council of war on the evening before it had been unanimously decided not to call in the police. Nothing had been taken, as far as could be discovered, and the visitors were convinced that in the circumstances County Police investigation was the last thing to be desired. Aunt Hatt had been curiously amenable to this arrangement, and the residents of the mill had decided to undertake their own defence, and, when possible, to wreak their own vengeance.
Guffy caught sight of the letter on his way in to breakfast. He stopped in his stride and stood looking at it thoughtfully. He saw himself faced with a minor but irritating problem. If he followed the simple course which his instincts and upbringing dictated, he reflected, he would re-address the letter ‘c/o Xenophon House’, and dismiss the incident from his mind. But, weighed down with the responsibility of his new vocation, he hesitated. His head was hurting abominably, and, hearing Amanda whistling happily as she clattered down the staircase behind him, he made a dive for the breakfast room, leaving the letter where it lay.
Amanda’s reaction to the envelope on the table was very different. As soon as she saw it she paused, and, after a single guilty glance round to make certain she was unobserved, she whisked it off the polished wood and tucked it into that schoolgirl reticule, the knee of her knickers, and strode on in to breakfast.
Her whistling had not ceased throughout the incident, and Guffy would have been prepared to swear that she had followed him straight into the room.
The group gathered round the breakfast table in the warm morning sunlight was still considerably shaken by the events of the preceding night. Farquharson looked pale and unsteady, and Eager-Wright had several ugly bruises round his jaw. Young Hal possessed a black eye, of which he was inordinately proud, and only Aunt Hatt looked her compact, unruffled self.
A constraint had arisen between Guffy and Mary, and there was a slightly old-world shyness about the girl which enhanced her somewhat Edwardian beauty, and reduced the young man to a state of pleasurable idiocy pretty to watch.
Amanda alone had a light of triumph in her eye, and an even more pronounced jauntiness than before. Her wrists and ankles were disfigured by bandages, but her spirit appeared to have been strengthened rather than diminished. She planked a heap of wireless catalogues on the table next her plate, and began to turn over the leaves with tremendous interest.
‘It seems to me the radio’s like drink; it just gets a hold on you,’ Aunt Hatt remarked cheerfully to the table at large. ‘Amanda, will you drink your coffee before you spill it? This girl spends half her time reading advertisements of fearful machines which she never even hopes to buy.’
‘Not at all,’ said the miller with a certain amount of justifiable resentment. ‘I’m going to purchase four outsize valves – the plates run white hot at a thousand volts – a bunch of loud-speakers, and something rather sensational in the accumulator line. Very probably a new dress, too, if I feel like it.’
Her brother and sister laughed politely at this exuberance, and passed each other the honey, but Amanda was not content to let the matter drop.
‘Do you think,’ she enquired gravely of Eager-Wright, who sat opposite her, ‘that it would be better to buy a new accumulator for the car or a new car altogether?’
‘Not to-day, Amanda. No bright conversation to-day. We’re all a bit rattled.’
Young Hal’s voice had the genuine note of authority in it. It was evident that he took his position as head of the family with becoming seriousness.
The girl turned upon him coldly. ‘I’m perfectly serious,’ she said. ‘As it happens, I’ve come into a certain amount of money and I’m debating how to spend it. I think, perhaps, a new car after all. A last year’s Morris would be fun. I’ve been talking to Scatty out of the window this morning, and he thinks we could pick one up in Ipswich for about ninety pounds. I thought I might go in and see about it this morning. The car would take me as far as Sweethearting and I can get a bus from there.’
Hal, Mary, and Aunt Hatt exchanged glances.
‘Poor Amanda, it’s the excitement,’ said the elder lady compassionately.
‘Wait a minute, Aunt.’ Hal put out his hand apologetically and then turned to his sister, his young face grave and politely enquiring. ‘Do you mean this, Amanda?’
His sister granted him a single truculent stare. ‘Of course I do. You don’t imagine I’m sitting here making a fool of myself. I’ve got a first instalment of three hundred pounds, as a matter of fact, and as there are naturally a few things I want, I’m deciding how to spend it to its best possible advantage.’
Recollecting suddenly that the Fittons possessed an income of one hundred pounds a year, apart from their various activities, Guffy understood the expression of blank amazement on his host’s face.
Amanda remained calm, but a little sulky.
‘Three hundred pounds? Where is it?’
‘In my dressing-table drawer. In your collar-box, if you want to know. It was so lumpy I didn’t know where else to put it, so I borrowed your box.’
Hal frowned. He was leaning forward in his chair at the head of the table, his eyes wide and puzzled.
The two faced one another, Amanda superficially casual and ridiculously truculent, and the boy startled and incredulous. They were absurdly alike; the Pontisbright hair glowed and shone above their expressive faces.
‘Do you mean to say you’ve got three hundred pounds in notes in the house?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Amanda’s tone was plaintive. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Lots of people have three hundred pounds all at once. You often do, don’t you, Guffy? Don’t be so bourgeois, Hal.’
Flushing under the injustice of the final admonition, the head of the Fitton family stuck to his guns.
‘Where did you get it? And what’s all this about a first instalment?’
‘But, Amanda, you’re joking,’ Aunt Hatt appealed nervously.
‘Of course I’m not, darling. I happen to have three hundred pounds, that’s all. I may also have some more. I’d like to say, too,’ she went on, eyeing the assembly severely, ‘that, in my opinion, all this interest in my money is a trifle vulgar.’
‘Was the money in the house last night?’
‘It was.’
‘And they never took it!’ burst out Aunt Hatt, who could not get the burglary idea out of her head. ‘What a mercy!’
‘Perhaps they were just six Santa Clauses in unorthodox costumes,’ said Hal contemptuously.
Amanda’s cheeks flamed. ‘That’s mean, mouldy, and unfortunately typical,’ she said, and rose to her feet. ‘Now I’m going to Ipswich.’
As the door closed behind her Hal coughed deprecatingly, the gesture of a man three times his age.
‘Very extraordinary,’ he observed, and went on with his breakfast with studied deliberation.
Eager-Wright caught Farquharson’s eye and stifled a desire to laugh.
Guffy was thoughtful. It occurred to him that, amusing though Amanda’s attitude might be, the facts were certainly odd, if true, and when he recalled her indignant outburst at Hal’s suggestion concerning the possible identity of their visitors of the night before, an uncomfortable suspicion flashed through his mind. He put it from him hastily, but it still hovered there, and he could not get it out of his head that three hundred pounds might not be such an inconsiderable mess of potage if one needed it badly enough.
It was evident that something of the same idea had occurred to Hal, for he suddenly put down his table-napkin and rose to his feet.
‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment,’ he said with that grave courtesy which was his chief characteristic, ‘I think I’d like a word with Amanda before she goes off.’ And leaving the table he hurried after his sister.
Amanda’s room was situated directly above the apartment in which they sat, and although Aunt Hatt and Mary skilfully fielded the conversation it was impossible not to overhear the staccato sounds which emanated from the floor above. It began with angry voices and continued in a series of rumblings which suggested that the rightful Earl was beating his sister up and that she was defending herself with true Pontisbright spirit. Eventually, the noise ceased and Hal reappeared in the breakfast room looking flushed and a little ruffled, but outwardly dignified and composed as ever.
He came in at the door, glanced round to make sure that they had all finished, and then turned to his aunt deferentially.
‘I wonder if you would mind, dear,’ he said in exactly the tone which his father and grandfather must have used before him in their more pompous moments. ‘There is something I would like to discuss with our guests, as I feel it concerns them.’
Aunt Hatt, who was extremely fond of her nephew, withdrew immediately without so much as a smile, beckoning Mary to follow her.
Hal went over to Guffy, who was standing on the hearthrug reflecting that the Fitton family had a charm which made even their quarrelling delightful.
‘Look here, Randall,’ – the boy’s tone was gravity itself – ‘I’ve got a confession to make on behalf of my sister Amanda. I’m sorry she’s behaved like this, but you know what women are – no manners when it comes to it. I don’t think they can help it. Just natural weakness, I imagine. I say,’ he went on, suddenly forgetting his head of the family pose, ‘she really has got that money. I’ve seen it. Three hundred pounds in five-pound notes. It’s awfully fishy, isn’t it? However, that isn’t what I was going to talk to you about. I’d like you all to hear about this, although it’s rather disgusting. When I went up to Amanda just now I came on her somewhat unexpectedly. She was reading this letter. I asked her whom it was from, but she wouldn’t tell me. And then I saw the envelope lying on the bed. Look, here it is. It’s addressed to Campion.’
He stood before them, the envelope which Guffy had seen in the hall held out in front of him. It was considerably crumpled and explained in some measure the noise of five minutes before. Hal was blushing painfully.
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am, and I don’t want to make excuses for her. She’s behaved atrociously, and I’ve told her so. I would like to say, though, that she doesn’t always do this sort of thing. She’s not that kind of girl at all. Perhaps,’ he added hopefully, ‘they knocked her on the head rather badly last night. It might be that, you know. Still, I think you ought to read the letter. It’s not my affair, I know, but it does seem important. Aunt Hatt and Mary and I can’t very well help gathering what you’re up to down here, and – well, it seems important.’
He thrust a ragged piece of notepaper into Guffy’s hand.
‘I’m afraid Amanda’s read it,’ he remarked. ‘But she didn’t seem particularly interested. I think she took it in a fit of wanton mischievousness.’
He pronounced the last phrase as a single word, and seemed considerably relieved to get it off his chest.
Guffy read the letter carefully. It was a remarkable document, written in a flowing, somewhat affected hand on a large sheet of buff-coloured notepaper, ornamented by a crimson facsimile address stamp.
‘My dear sir: In reply to your civil letter I may say that I was profoundly interested in the question you raise. In my letter to The Times of July 4th last year, which you are pleased to quote, I referred to the reprehensible habit of the curators of our lesser-known museums of relegating some of their most interesting exhibits to the more musty and inaccessible corners of the ugly, ill-ventilated mausoleums over which they preside.
‘As it happens, I am able to answer the question which you raise, and let me take this opportunity of assuring you that it is no trouble at all, but that I take a very real pleasure in being able to perform what I regard as a public service. I may say that in a long, and, I trust, useful, pursuit of correspondence with the public Press, I have seldom attempted to reply to a question which has interested me more. The Pontisbright drum, which you refer to erroneously as the Malplaquet drum – its generally accepted appellation being the Pontisbright drum of Malplaquet – was placed in the parish church at Pontisbright when the ancient mansion was demolished and the tide fell into abeyance.
‘Some years later, in 1913 to be exact, it was loaned, by whose authority I know not (although I should certainly like to have a word with that gentleman!), to the Brome House Museum at Norwich, where it remains to this day, a shocking example of laxity in the preservation of ancient relics. I feel sure you will respect my confidence in this matter and not bruit it to the Press until you, in your position (which is, I trust I am right in assuming, the incumbent of the parish), have been able to secure its return. As I know the curator of the Brome House Museum slightly, I have taken the liberty of dropping him a note by the same mail informing him that his little delinquency has been surprised, and that I fear he must surrender the prize he has held so long. (I am afraid the good people of Norwich have long since ceased to regard the drum as the eighth wonder of the world, as it is now, I hear, in a very inferior position.)
‘My friend Mr Formby (I feel sure he will remember my name, although we are only correspondent acquaintances) held his present post at the time of the original loan, so there should not be any irritating formalities.
‘Thanking you again for the many civilities, and, I fear, flatteries, which you have been kind enough to write about my little hobby, and expressing the hope that I have been of some slight assistance in your estimable quest,
‘I beg to remain, my dear sir,
‘Your obedient servant,
‘RUDYARD GLENCANNON.’
‘Well, I’m damned!’ said Guffy. ‘What a genius Campion was – is, I mean. Well, that settles that, doesn’t it?’
Hal coughed discreetly. ‘I d
on’t want to interfere, of course,’ he said, ‘but who is Mr Glencannon?’
‘One of the prime busybodies of the world,’ said Farquharson, grinning. ‘You’re bound to come across his name sooner or later. He’s an old boy of independent means who spends his life writing to the newspapers. He must spend half his day reading them and the other half writing to them. He’s been going for fifty years or so, and, of course, by this time he’s a mine of information. Just the one person in the world to appeal to on a question of this sort. Campion must have written to him as soon as Amanda showed him the oak.’
Hal still hovered and it occurred to Guffy that the boy’s position was invidious.
‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I don’t know how much you’ve gathered, but I’d like to assure you that we’re definitely on the right side and all that sort of thing. I know we can count on you at any time, can’t we?’
It was just the right attitude to adopt, and Hal, who was so precocious in some things, and such a child in others, regarded him gratefully.
‘Any time,’ he said enthusiastically. ‘Rather! I say, are you going to dress up as parsons and get the drum?’
Guffy was silent for a moment. The call to action contained in the letter had not before occurred to him, and he was somewhat taken aback by this startling suggestion.
‘Why, no,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Of course, we can hardly do that.’
Eager-Wright joined him, but Farquharson grimaced.
‘It’s rather the sort of thing Campion would do, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I mean, after all, we’ve got to get hold of the drum somehow or other, and in the circumstances the way seems open for us to go right in and ask for it.’
‘There’s something in that, you know,’ agreed Eager-Wright quickly. ‘We can’t very well dress up as parsons, of course; it’s a rather serious, unpleasant offence, to start with, and I don’t think any of us could bring it off, for another thing. But, after all, I don’t see why we shouldn’t turn up as lay-readers or something – zealous parishioners who have called to take the parish property back to its old home.’