by Nina Bawden
Tim was fascinated. ‘But stealing’s wrong,’ he blurted out.
Toffee Papers mopped his forehead with a large, red handkerchief. He looked shaken, as if he had surprised himself by his own eloquence. Tucking his handkerchief back in his pocket, he suddenly grinned. ‘You’re right, boy. I’m glad to see your Dad has brought you up properly. How is your poor father, by the way?’
Tim hesitated. What was he to think? Then Toffee Papers turned and spoke to a man who had come round the cliff path and was standing, looking down at them. ‘Campbell,’ Toffee Papers called. ‘Campbell—we’ve got company.’
Slowly, Mr Will Campbell came down over the rocks. Toffee Papers turned to the children. ‘What are you doing here, by the way?’ he asked, in a friendly voice.
‘Looking for rubies,’ Janey said. ‘For evidence …’
Tim said quickly, ‘I found a piece of stone that I thought looked like a ruby. But I—I lost it. So I came to look for another one.’
‘Beachcombing, eh?’ Toffee Papers said. ‘Oh—you find all sorts of things, beachcombing. When I was a lad, we used to spend our holidays at Herne Bay and one day I found—what do you think? Six half crowns and a florin.’
Mr Campbell stood a little way away. ‘Tide’s on the turn,’ he said.
‘Oh—there’s time,’ Toffee Papers said. ‘Time to help these young folk look for rubies!’ He stood up, smiling and rubbing his hands together. ‘You know—there might be something in the cave. Washed up by a high tide. Have you looked in the cave?’
‘Only a little way. It’s dark,’ Tim spoke doubtfully. It all seemed so innocent. Toffee Papers, smiling and smiling in that cheerful, enthusiastic way, just like a boy. Innocent—but somehow not ordinary …
‘Dark, is it?’ Toffee Papers was rubbing the palm of his hand over his chin as if Wondering whether he had shaved properly. ‘We’ve got a torch, I expect. I have, anyway. You got a torch, Campbell?’
Mr Campbell nodded. He was watching Toffee Papers. There was an uneasy expression on his face.
Suddenly Janey clapped her hands together. ‘Let’s go in the cave,’ she said. ‘Oh, please let’s go in the cave. I never thought I’d be able to. Tim said it was dangerous to get here, even for people who could see …’
Toffee Papers looked at her. Then he spoke very gently. ‘All right, young lady. It won’t be dangerous, not with Campbell here, and me. No harm’ll come to you.’ He looked at Campbell and spoke with an odd, meaning emphasis. ‘No harm at all, I promise.’
Campbell shrugged his shoulders. Toffee Papers bent to take Janey’s hand. He said, to Perdita, ‘Take her other hand, you with the fancy name. It’s rough going.’
Tim watched them enter the mouth of the cave. He felt a queer uneasiness he could not place or name. But what was wrong? What could be wrong? Toffee Papers, it appeared, was not a burglar after all. He was a fat, jolly, uncle-ish man who used to go beachcombing at Herne Bay and who did not mind sparing a little time from his fishing trip with Mr Campbell to amuse three children he had met on the beach. There was nothing sinister about him. There was the stone he had given Perdita, but that wasn’t sinister, on its own. He was the sort of man who enjoyed giving children presents. If the stone really was a diamond, it was pretty odd, of course, but Tim could not be sure it was a diamond. The only thing that was really strange, when you came down to it, was his leaving the hotel before breakfast this morning without telling Mrs Tarbutt where he was going. But that was impolite, rather than sinister …
‘Coming?’ Mr Campbell said. In a half dream, Tim rose from his squatting position on the beach, and followed him into the cave. Almost at once, he forgot his doubts and fears in the excitement of discovery. The cave went back, deep into the rock. From the central cavern—which was as far as he had been with his father—several high arches led off, black as the mouths of railway tunnels. Down one of these tunnels, which had high, dark walls and a smooth, sandy floor, Tim could see the light of Toffee Papers’ torch flickering. He heard Janey shouting and then her shrill, delighted laughter as the echo of her voice boomed back to her, and then Toffee Papers’ exuberant, boyish shout, and his laughter. Mr Campbell had a hurricane lamp and its light danced and swayed up the tunnel, sliding its yellow circle over the walls which seemed to be made of black columns, fitting closely together and looking in places rather like the pipes of a giant organ. The tunnel twisted and turned, other tunnels led off it and, after a little, Tim found he could not remember which one they were exploring: when he looked back, he could see only black darkness.
‘Careful, now,’ Mr Campbell said, swinging his lantern, and Tim saw they had come to a crack in the rock. Down—a long way down—there was water running, not booming like the sea, but rushing and gurgling like a narrow, fast river. They crossed this ravine by a ledge at the side of the tunnel which then wound upwards, up a sort of rough, natural stairway, and came into another cavern where the floor was not sandy, but made of stone. Examining it, Tim found it was the same columnar construction as the walls, only the columns were broken off, producing an effect rather like a tessellated pavement.
At the far side of this cavern, Janey and Perdita were sitting on a slightly taller column and singing, ‘Life is butter, butter melon …’ ‘How does it go on?’ Janey asked.
‘Life is butter, butter, melon, melon, cauliflower …’ Toffee Papers sang, broadly grinning. ‘Sing it over and over,’ he said, ‘and you’ll find it doesn’t mean quite what you thought at first.’
Seeing Tim and Mr Campbell, he came over to them, leaving the girls singing. He was mopping his face, which had suddenly gone unsmiling and thoughtful, with his handkerchief. ‘Not a bad place, is it?’ he said. ‘Dry, safe, bit of natural light.’
Mr Campbell blew out his hurricane lamp and Tim saw this was true: a faint, blue-ish light filtered down from somewhere up aloft, turning the cavern into a mysterious, exciting place. The columnar walls were smooth, but they were dry and not too smooth to climb: while Janey sat, singing on her rock, with Toffee Papers beating time beside her, Tim and Perdita explored, making their way upwards along an intricate series of ledges and precarious hand-holds, until they were some thirty feet above the floor of the cave and could see the source of the light, a high, narrow chimney in the roof. Not only light came from it. As they had climbed higher and higher, they had heard a low, musical roar which grew louder and louder. Now it seemed to fill the roof of the cave.
‘Perhaps it comes out under the waterfall,’ Perdita said.
‘I wonder if you can get up.’ Tim ranged his eye over the roof of the cave, but there was nothing there to hang on to. Except, perhaps, for a bat …
He looked down. He could see the top of Janey’s head. He couldn’t hear her singing, because of the noise, but he could see her hand, beating time. There was no sign of Toffee Papers or Mr Campbell, but he supposed they were hidden from his view, under an over-hang. ‘We’d better go,’ he said. ‘If they want to go fishing …’
‘It’s much too rough for fishing,’ Perdita said.
‘Well—they were going somewhere in the boat, weren’t they? Mr Campbell said the tide was on the turn.’
‘Perhaps they’re going to Trull,’ Perdita said.
‘What’s Trull?’
‘The island, of course. Just across the water from the Point. The island of Trull.’
Perdita looked as surprised as Tim might have done, if someone had asked him what London was.
‘What do they want to go there for?’
‘There’s a fine, big school on Trull,’ Perdita said longingly.
Tim laughed. ‘I don’t suppose they want to go to school.’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Perhaps Mr Jones wants to catch an aeroplane. Perhaps he’s suddenly made up his mind to go to South America. He told Mr Smith he was thinking of going there.’ And then, as if there was nothing at all unusual in Mr Jones making a sudden decision to fly across the world—and, indeed, Perdita would not see anyt
hing surprising in it, as she did not know where South America was—she added, ‘I think I’ll go down and play with Janey, now.’
She began to climb down to the floor of the cave. Tim followed her slowly, his mind reeling. South America? It seemed unlikely, though she had sounded so matter-of-fact. There was an airfield on Trull—he remembered his father telling him, now. If you wanted to leave the island in a hurry, that’s what you would do: go to Trull by boat and catch a plane. But why should Mr Jones want to leave in a hurry, without telling anyone? And if he did want to, if he was in such a hurry, why had he wasted time taking them into the cave? It didn’t make sense …
He reached the ground and saw Perdita, sitting beside Janey and singing with her. No one else was there.
‘Where have they gone?’ he whispered, half to himself, though he knew there was only one way they could go. Driven by a half-understood panic, he started along the tunnel. It twisted downhill and he realised, with a lift of his heart, that the men had not gone after all: he could see the yellow light of the lamp round a turn in the rocky stairway. They were talking. He was about to shout, when something in the tone of their voices warned him. He stayed quiet, crept towards the light, and listened.
‘D’you think I like it?’ Toffee Papers was saying. ‘The boy’ll be all right, and Smithie’s girl—but the other one! Poor little thing!’ His voice became thick with emotion and he blew his nose with a trumpeting sound. ‘But let them go,’ he went on, ‘and they’ll be back at the hotel before you can say knife, won’t they? The balloon’ll go up then. Tarbutt’s only to ’phone and I won’t get that plane. No, Campbell. They can stay here, I can ’phone from Trull, leave a message. Tarbutt’ll get them out, they won’t come to any harm. Bit hungry, bit cold, scared maybe—but no real harm.’
He seemed to be arguing to convince himself. It was rather the way he had talked on the beach. Suddenly Tim’s heart began to thump. It was clear to him now. That story Toffee Papers had told! On and on about how clever the jewel thieves were! Was tying him up part of the cleverness? Was he one of the gang? Of course, that was it. He’d hidden his share of the loot up here on Skua and now, after three years, he had come to collect it. And OUT. And away …
Mr Campbell said something low, and Toffee Papers answered impatiently, ‘Oh—all right. I’ll leave my torch where they’ll find it. As long as I have a chance to get clear. Once those kids begin to talk, there’ll be dead trouble.’ He laughed, and his laugh echoed coldly against the walls. ‘For you, too, so you’d best not be too tender-hearted. You’re in this, up to your neck …’
Campbell said slowly, ‘We should warn Mr Smith …’
‘And lose our own chance?’ Toffee Papers voice was indignant. ‘What good would that do? Three of us locked up instead of one, that’s all. Smithie can look after himself. He’s good at that. I’m all right Jack—that’s his motto. He’s had it easy enough, these last years, sitting on his bottom up here, riding round in a Jaguar. And it’s all his fault, when all’s said and done—the whole thing was his idea from the beginning. Months he spent, getting to know me, talking me into it … And then getting me to go stealing that kid’s ruby. Risky to leave it, he said, it turned out to be risky for me, didn’t it? Fat lot he cared …’
Tim could hold himself in no longer. He was in a wild fever of rage. He launched himself round the bend in the tunnel and straight at Toffee Papers. ‘You beast, you horrible beast … you could have killed my Dad …’ He catapulted straight into Toffee Papers’ soft belly. Toffee Papers grunted and tried to catch hold of him, but he was a fat man, out of condition, and Tim got in several extremely satisfactory blows before Mr Campbell took him from behind, picked him up by the slack of his jacket and shook him as if he were a dirty puppy. Then he threw him on the ground, so hard that Tim felt as if the breath had been driven from his body.
The two men stood over him as he sprawled, half on one rocky step and half on another. Toffee Papers’ eyes were streaming: one of Tim’s wild punches had landed on his nose. His face was red with temper. ‘You …’ he began, let out a long, hissing breath and lifted his fist. Tim rolled in a ball to protect himself, but Campbell caught the other man’s arm. ‘No need for that,’ he said quietly. ‘Time’s running short.’
He turned and clumped down the stairway, round a bend in the tunnel and out of sight. Once his hurricane lamp was gone, Toffee Papers’ torch seemed to give very little light.
Tim said, ‘You mustn’t leave us here. You cant …’
Toffee Papers smiled.
Tim tried to control the tremor in his voice. ‘You told Mr Campbell you’d leave us the torch. You will, won’t you?’
There was a little click. For a moment, coloured points of light swirled in front of Tim’s eyes, then all was blackness, a cold, dead, empty blackness. He gave a little cry and Toffee Papers laughed. He switched on his torch again: behind its pale beam, Tim could see only the bones of his flat face and the pale shine of his eyes.
‘D’you think I’d be such a fool?’ Toffee Papers asked softly.
Tim thought: I can follow him, creep behind the light. Then, when he’s got in the boat, I can run and get help …
Toffee Papers said, ‘No games, young man. No stalking games. I wouldn’t want to hurt you. And you wouldn’t want to scare your little sister, would you? She’d be scared if you left her.’
That was true, Tim realised. He couldn’t leave Janey.
‘So you just stay like a good boy,’ Toffee Papers said in an encouraging, uncle-ish voice. ‘Look after the girls until someone comes. Keep them cheerful. I wouldn’t want to think either of them were scared or unhappy …’
He sighed, with what seemed genuine regret. In the torch beam, his eyes looked moist and sad. ‘It’s bad luck the way things have turned out. Really bad luck …’
Tim thought: I can’t trust him. He changes too quickly—angry one minute, sorry the next. How could you trust a person like that? He had said he would telephone from Trull, but would he? And if he didn’t …
It was no time to be brave. He said, softly and despairingly, ‘Please don’t leave us, Mr Jones. Not without a light. Please …’
‘Sorry, old chap,’ Toffee Papers said. ‘Really sorry …’ And, shaking his head sadly, he turned and followed Mr Campbell, round the next bend in the tunnel and out of sight …
*
Tim crawled back to the inner cavern on hands and knees, one hand on the wall of the tunnel. At least he had not come far, he could find his way back. But the brief journey taught him one thing: he could never, in this frightful darkness, find his way back through the maze of tunnels to the beach. There was nothing they could do. They would have to stay here, until help came.
If help came …
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ABANDONED
‘I DON’T MIND STAYING here,’ Janey said. ‘It’s nice, being in a cave, even if it is a bit cold. I like the noise my singing makes.’
And she began to sing, beating in time and occasionally stopping to listen to the echo.
Tim had told her that they had decided to stay here for a little, while the men explored the cave further. There was no point in frightening Janey. But he beckoned Perdita to the far end of the cavern and told her more of the truth: that Toffee Papers was in a hurry to get to Trull, and had deliberately abandoned them there.
‘He said he was sorry,’ he whispered, and then added, rather viciously, ‘Crocodile tears.’
Perdita didn’t know what a crocodile was. This seemed to interest her more than Mr Jones’s eagerness to get to Trull. Tim tried to explain.
‘Are there crocodiles in England, then?’ she asked, when Tim had told her there were none on Skua, only in far-away, foreign places.
Tim sighed, and embarked on a geography lesson. Geography was not one of his best subjects, and, even if it had been, it would not have been easy to explain where Africa was to a girl who had never seen a map or a globe. Perdita was left with a rather confuse
d impression that if she took the steamer to Oban and then turned right and walked for a while, she would eventually come to Africa which was full of sand and camels—sort of cows with humps, was how Tim described them—and naked black men and crocodiles. ‘Why is it all sand? Why is it hot? Why doesn’t it rain? Why are the men black?’ she asked—on and on until Tim grew tired and answered sullenly. ‘Oh, I don’t know …’
She looked surprised. ‘Perhaps I’ll find out more when I go to school. Though you don’t seem to have learned much,’ she added thoughtfully. Then she frowned. ‘Why …’
‘Oh no, not again,’ Tim groaned.
‘Just one more thing,’ she pleaded. ‘Why crocodile tears? Do crocodiles cry?’
‘It’s just a saying. It means he wasn’t really sorry, just liked to think he was. I mean …’—he tried to think it out—‘I suppose it means that crocodiles often have water in their eyes because they live in rivers, but they eat you up, just the same.’ For a second, he was rather pleased with this explanation, but then the import of it struck him with a shock of horror. It could mean, in this case, that Toffee Papers might feel sorry enough to say he would send someone to find them, but he might not be sorry enough to do it. ‘If he doesn’t tell anyone we’re here,’ he began, and stopped. Perdita was older than Janey, but there was no point in frightening her either. Unless …