The Mouse led by all sorts of strange ways towards the Rupert’s Arms, along corridors, down steps, across forgotten cellars, behind a skirting-board, out on to somebody’s backstairs, down into another person’s cellar, then along an old wall and then downstairs and downstairs again to a very damp, chilly cellar, where the floor and walls gleamed with salt crystals and wept tears of moisture.
‘This is the Powdering Cellar,’ the Mouse said. ‘It’s here that we must look out.’
They stepped to one side from the Powdering Cellar and entered the thickness of the wall again. As they went on they found that it was becoming much warmer and, presently, it was hot.
‘What makes it hot?’ Kay whispered.
‘This is near the furnace of William’s Vintry,’ the Mouse whispered, ‘and it’s near here that they’ve got their quarters.’
As they turned a corner, a reek of strong tobacco filled the air, there came a noise of a chair being pushed back, glasses were pounded, a drunken voice squealed with joy that Old Rum-Chops was going to sing . . . The Mouse put a warning paw on Kay’s arm. ‘They’re at it . . . just inside there,’ he whispered.
Indeed, just beyond them, the light fell into the corridor from an open door. From within the door there came cheers, mocking remarks of ‘Good Old Rum-Chops,’ ‘Sick him Rum-Chops,’ and the pounding of hands upon a table: then a coarse voice said:
‘Pray silence now, gents, for the song.’
Kay and the Mouse paused, while within the room a most unpleasant voice broke into song. The singer may have been a little drunk, for he sometimes forgot his words and often forgot his tune, but whenever this happened the other members of the company cheered and pounded the table. These were the words of the song:
‘We fly a banner all of black,
With scarlet Skull and Boneses,
And every merchantman we take
We send to Davey Jones’s.
‘Chorus gents, please. . .’
And the company broke out into the chorus:
‘And every merchantman we take
We send to Davey Jones’s.
Sing diddle-diddle-dol.’
The singer went on with his song:
‘To fetch the gold out of the hold
We make them shake their shankses.
Then over the side to take a dive
We make them walk the plankses.
‘Chorus gents, please . . .’
And the company shouted with drunken cheers and laughter:
‘Then over the side to take a dive
We make them walk the plankses.
Sing diddle-diddle-dol.’
They were going on with this disgusting ditty, but the company seemed so overcome by the beauty of the words and the sentiments that they all pushed back their chairs, rose to their feet, snapped their clay pipes and started to repeat the chorus.
‘Quickly, while they sing,’ the Mouse whispered.
As they slipped past the open door Kay glanced in. Oh, what a terrible scene was within! There, gathered round a table, lurching, shouting, swaying and clutching at each other to keep their balance, were the Wolves of the Gulf, all Benito’s crew, whom the Rat would have described as marine cellarmen. On the table round which they lurched and carrolled were the remnants of a ham-bone without any dish, and a big bowl of rum punch. As Kay glanced, one of the ruffians fell forward with his head into the bowl. He splashed the rum over his head and another tried to set fire to him with a candle, but was too unsteady in his aim. All these men wore sea-boots, rough red caps and red aprons. No words can describe the villainy of their faces, all bronzed with tropical suns, purple with drink, scarlet with battle and bloated from evil living.
‘Sing diddle-diddle-dol,’
they cried. Then they drew their pistols and fired them at the ceiling, so that the plaster came down with a clatter.
The Mouse plucked Kay on along the corridor. They turned a corner. There in front of them, at the passage end, Kay saw the familiar figure of Rat, with a younger marine cellarman. Kay and the Mouse slipped back so as not to be seen. They heard Rat saying:
‘Now here we are at the door. Now, nephew, remember what it was I told you. Don’t you be afraid of the gent: speak out.’
‘I ain’t afraid of no gent,’ the Rat’s nephew answered.
‘Well, that’s what,’ Rat said and, stooping down, he knocked at a little door.
‘What d’you knock for?’ the nephew asked.
‘To show respect to the great Abner Brown,’ the Rat answered.
Kay heard Abner’s silky voice say, ‘Come in.’ Rat and his nephew passed into the room and shut the door behind them.
‘Are we in the Rupert’s Arms?’ Kay asked.
‘Yes, this is the Rupert’s Arms,’ the Mouse said. ‘If you will step up here there is a place where you can see right into the room.’
He led Kay up a fallen wooden moulding to a ledge behind the panelling of the old room. There was a crack in the panelling through which Kay could see. There was Abner in a green silk quilted dressing-gown, sitting at a table. Beside him was a rather stout, rosy-faced, but stupid-looking man whom Kay took to be the man Joe. Opposite Joe was the foxy-faced man. Opposite Abner was a lady, whose figure and bearing seemed familiar. She turned her head a moment to light a cigarette at a taper burning beside her and Kay saw that it was indeed, as he had thought, one who had been his governess: Sylvia Daisy Pouncer, a witch.
‘Come in, Rat,’ Abner said. ‘Who have you got with you?’
‘I make so bold as to present my nephew, Master Abner,’ Rat said. ‘Make a reverence to the gentleman.’
‘What’s your nephew’s name?’ Abner asked.
‘Oh, he answers to any name,’ Rat said; ‘Alf or Bert or any name. He ain’t earned a name better’n one of those.’
‘Now,’ Abner said, ‘what will you take, Rat?’
‘Well, since I’ve been marine cellarman,’ Rat said, ‘I can’t stand the climate like what I used. I do like a drop of rum. Not because I like it, it’s poison, but without it I can’t stand the climate.’
‘A drop of rum for Rat,’ Abner said.
They gave Rat a tot of rum in a thimble. Rat wiped his lips with the back of his paw and said, ‘Happy days, gents!’ tossed it off and rubbed his chest. ‘That’s the stuff,’ he said – ‘poison. I can feel it doing me good all the way down.’
‘Now Alf,’ the Rat said, when he judged that he would not receive any more rum, ‘stand there and tell the gentlemen what you seen last night.’
Alf Rat came forward and seemed much abashed at having to speak in company. Kay thought that he had seldom seen a more hardened young villain; he was pleased to see the brazen face now confused, the eyes downcast, sweat starting from the brow, and the cheeks flushing and turning white by turns.
‘Speak up, Alf,’ Abner said. ‘What does he say, Rat?’
‘He says so many of you makes it worse than being tried, Mr Abner,’ Rat said.
‘Well, speak for him,’ Abner said.
‘Honoured company,’ Rat said, ‘my nephew, Alf, what is here, and doesn’t often stand in such company, went faithful to orders to the Drop of Dew, by Henry Cockfarthings, at the hour of a quarter to five yesterday. He was told to keep an eye on One that you wot of, which was C.H., what keeps a Dog B. Danger of Dog my nephew Alf was in. But he don’t flinch for that, no; he bides and looks. There is C.H. with Dog B. Presently in come Two that you wot of, a man with chains and a woman without chains. They talk a lot of foreign talk. C.H. pulls out a Box thing, which they look at. He says, “The Wolves have come very close.” “Yes,” my nephew Alf thinks, “they’ve come closer than you think.”’
‘Oh, I know all about this, you told me this last night,’ Abner said testily. ‘They agreed that the only way not guarded was out by Arthur’s Camp, and that this C.H. could get away at dawn by Arthur’s Camp; well, we waited for him at dawn at Arthur’s Camp and got him. Tell me, Alf, when those three brok
e up, was the Box still in C.H.’s possession?’
‘Ah, in his pocket,’ Alf said.
‘It was in his pocket?’
‘That’s where he put it.’
‘He didn’t slip it to either of the others?’
‘No, they said, “You keep it.”’
‘He didn’t hide it in the Drop of Dew?’
‘No,’ Alf said. ‘He asked them if he should, but they said “No.”’
‘Now listen,’ Abner said. ‘After this, you followed this C.H. all the way to Seekings House, never letting him out of your sight?’
‘Never once he let him out of his sight,’ the Rat said.
‘Let your nephew answer for himself,’ Abner said. ‘How close did you keep to him, Alf?’
‘I kept him in my sight,’ Alf said.
‘In spite of the Dog?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Could you see if he hid the Box on his way, or before he left the Drop of Dew?’
‘He had it in his pocket; he kept tapping his pocket to make sure it was there; all the way he tap his pocket.’
‘It was snowing hard: did the snow get in your eyes?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You must have very odd eyes,’ Abner growled.
‘And you’re sure,’ the man Joe said, ‘that on the way to Seekings he met nobody to whom he could have given the Box?’
‘I take my oath on Hamlet he didn’t,’ Alf said. ‘Not a soul did we pass, it being all snow, such as I never.’
At this point there was a pause. Kay saw Rat nudge his nephew, then nudge him again. At a third nudge the nephew said,
‘What d’you keep nudging me for?’
‘Tell the gent what I told you to tell him,’ Rat said. ‘There was another thing, if you please, gent, that my nephew had to tell you.’
‘What thing? What is it?’ Abner asked.
‘It was about that Kay Harker, Master Abner,’ Rat said.
‘What about him?’ Abner said. ‘Let your nephew speak for himself. What have you got to say about this Kay Harker?’
‘Well, nothing much, sir,’ the nephew said, ‘except that he ought to have his head sawed off.’
‘What for?’ Abner asked.
‘’Acos he’s going to have a dog give him for Christmas,’ the nephew said.
‘You infernal young lout!’ Abner said. ‘What d’you mean, Rat, by bringing your nephew here to repeat your folly to me? Get out, the two of you! Get back to your sewer and have a bath. You’ve got to bring someone, Nine; show these dolts out as you go. No, not by the way they came. I won’t have them listening behind the skirting-board. Kick them both out of the back door.’
Joe and the foxy-faced man, who seemed to be ‘Nine,’ took the two rats out through the inn.
‘Two infernal fools!’ Abner said. ‘They don’t seem to have a very high opinion of your ancient pupil, my dear,’ he said, turning to the lady.
‘I don’t wonder,’ Sylvia Daisy Pouncer said placidly. ‘He was a child for whom I had the utmost detestation and contempt: a thoroughly morbid, dreamy, idle muff with a low instinct for the turf, which will be his undoing later in life.’
‘Well, now,’ Abner said, ‘the question resolves itself into this: what did that man do with the Box when those fellows let him get past them at Seekings House?’
‘I felt, too late,’ his wife replied, ‘that we ought to have been there and not trusted it to those people. However, it is too late now to cry over the spilt milk.’
‘It’s not too late to make the spillers cry,’ Abner said, angrily. ‘Of all the blithering fools that I have ever had to deal with Joe and those two are the most blithering. He got away right under their noses.’
‘As for Cole,’ Sylvia Pouncer Brown replied sweetly, ‘if he hid the Box he must have done one of two things: either hidden it on one of the bookshelves in the study at Seekings – there are old books there hardly ever disturbed; or, possibly, in the old cupboard in the hall there, underneath the stairs. He did not go upstairs, that I know. I have been over to Seekings in the last twenty minutes and talked to two of the little girls. They told me everything. Cole gave a marvellous conjuring performance and did not leave the library until the Tatchester Choir interrupted the party; then, apparently, he went into the hall and from the hall went out with the Choir. Therefore, if he hid the Box it must have been in the library or in the hall.’
‘Not necessarily, my Brightness,’ Abner said. ‘While the party was singing carols in the hall he could have slipped upstairs and hidden the Box there.’
‘I grant that he could have, my Astuteness,’ Sylvia said, ‘but the little girls said he didn’t.’
‘Whatever they said, my Inspiration, the point will have to be eliminated as a matter of routine,’ Abner said. ‘Besides, he may not have hidden it; he may have handed it to somebody. Who were there? These Jones children and this boy, Kay Harker, your ancient pupil. I think, my Ideal, and hope that you may agree, that he would not have trusted a treasure so great to any child whom he had not seen before that afternoon.’
‘Well then, there remains the guardian,’ Sylvia said: ‘this Caroline Louisa.’
‘Cole would have regarded her as the mistress of the house, certainly,’ Abner said, ‘and as a woman to be trusted. He must have been close to her in the hall. He could have handed it to her and whispered to her to keep it for him.’
‘Your imagination is quite Shakespearean,’ Sylvia Daisy said.
‘Therefore,’ Abner said, ‘we shall have to take steps about Madam Caroline Louisa.’
‘May a weak woman make a suggestion, my starlike Abner?’ Sylvia said. ‘Is it not more likely that he handed it to the Bishop, the Precentor, the Archdeacon or one of the Canons? You see, he was really in luck. There he was, unexpectedly in the midst of the most respectable company in the county, every one of which could be trusted to any amount.’
‘It is only too likely, my Empress,’ Abner said. ‘Those three fools have let us in for a perplexing time. Supposing the Box is not hidden . . . and supposing he didn’t give it to this Caroline Louisa, he’d have handed it, probably, to the Bishop. Whichever of the Cathedral staff had it would have called in all the others. He’d have called in the Dean, the Treasurer, the Seneschal and these other fellows in the Cathedral, and they’d have put the Box in the Cathedral treasure vaults. And you know what kind of vaults those are: Guy Fawkes and his powder wouldn’t get through those, as we know from bitter experience. That’s where the Box is now, depend upon it.’
‘My dear,’ his wife said, ‘I think you look a little too much on the gloomy side of things. I do not doubt that in a normal season the Bishop, or whoever it was, would have acted as you suggest, but this isn’t a normal season. At this time, so near to Christmas-time, the whole Cathedral staff is working overtime, and normal procedures are in abeyance. I think it very likely, my dear, that the Bishop, or whoever it was, when he got home to the Palace or the Deanery or the Canonry, put the Box into a drawer in his dressing-table among his collars and handkerchiefs and thought no more about it.’
Abner shook his head. ‘My priceless Pearl,’ he said, ‘my blue and my yellow Sapphire, if I may call you so, I wish I could think it. But if Cole didn’t hide it, he gave it to someone, that’s sure; that’s the first point to settle, and Our Routine will soon find out which . . .’
‘Will you ask The Boy?’ Sylvia asked, making a sign with her hand.
‘I can’t till I get home,’ he answered. ‘With luck we ought to know before then. Look here, Sylvia, I’m tempted to get rid of Charles, with his infernal “Ha-ha, what.”’
‘Oh no, my Emerald,’ she said. ‘He is one of our most precious workers. Get rid of Charles? Never. Whatever for?’
‘He was in charge of Joe and the other,’ Abner said, ‘specially charged to nobble and scrobble Cole. He knew that Cole had a Punch and Judy show. He let Cole go right past him with the goods on him, with his Toby Dog in his pocket and the Punc
h and Judy show on his shoulder. Could a Prize Imbecile have been blinder or sillier, I ask you?’
‘My Abner,’ Sylvia said, ‘you are unjust to our Charles. The terrier may have been in Cole’s pocket: many terriers are very small. No doubt the show was also folded up very tight and not to be seen. Of course it was. How unjust of you to blame poor Charles. You must never, never think of getting rid of Charles. I repeat, my Emerald, never think of it. He did his duty well in a terrible night of storm and was deceived by a ruse. Get your Routine to work by all means, but then get home and ask The Boy.’
‘The Routine is all at work,’ he said. ‘As to Charles, I shall follow my own judgement.’
‘My Topaz and Diamond,’ Sylvia said, ‘your judgement is necessarily now mine. Can you not see that Charles is our only buffer against the stupidity and the craft of Joe? Can you not see that Charles is the only friend we have? But enough, my Idol, you do see; I see you see. Now as to this child, Maria Jones, whose ways you like. I admit, she sounds most promising. Remember that Cole may have given the Box to her.’
‘I remember that,’ Abner said, ‘but even so, that would be a point in her favour. I think you’ll agree, that she would be an acquisition. She must be here with Nine, now, Nine and Charles. Shall I ring for them to bring her?’
‘Do, my own Abbey,’ Sylvia said.
Kay saw Abner stretch out his left hand and press a button in the middle of the table. An electric bell rang somewhere below in the house. Almost immediately the foxy-faced man and another curate, whom Kay had never before seen, entered with little Maria.
‘Ah, Miss Maria,’ Abner said, ‘good morning. It was most kind of you to come over in answer to our message. Somebody was saying that you were very much interested in stained glass. We were making up a little party to go over to St Griswold’s this morning, lunching there, looking at the glass and being back at Seekings before tea. Would you care to come along? Oh, by the way, you haven’t been introduced: this lady is Mrs Brown.’
‘Oh, thanks very much,’ Maria said, nodding at Mrs Brown, ‘I’ll be delighted. It’s rather a mouldy lot of glass, isn’t it, at St Griswold’s?’
The Box of Delights Page 9