‘Well, I was searched, and then I was carried along the little passage by which I had come and I was put into the taxi which had brought me. They removed my woollen, and, though I hit out pretty hard when they took it away, the woman was a lot too quick for me and I only rapped my knuckles on the taxi door, which was sheet-iron. They turned on a little light in the taxi roof and I saw that they had put me a pot of tea and some cold ham and some bread inside the taxi, so I thought, “Well, nothing like keeping one’s pecker up,” and so I made a hearty meal.’
‘Was there any knife with the food?’ Kay asked.
‘No such luck,’ she said. ‘I had to eat it with my fingers. I’d have soon hacked my way out if they had left me a knife.’
‘Weren’t you afraid of the food being drugged?’ Jemima asked.
‘No, that never occurred to me,’ Maria said. ‘I’d been through a good deal of mental strain and had to restore my nervous force.
‘Well then, after I had made a meal I looked about and there on the floor of the taxi was a little bit of pink tissue-paper. I picked this up and it was a bit of one of those coloured papers which floated down after the Punch and Judy man had gone. You remember you, Susan, had one with a bit of your name torn from it. Well, this is the very bit. You see: “. . . san Jones”: it was the one designed for you.’
‘I’ve got the torn cap here,’ Susan said. ‘You see, it does fit. How very, very strange.’
‘Yes,’ Maria said. ‘That Punch and Judy man was one of the gang.’
‘He was nothing of the sort,’ Kay said. ‘He was scrobbled by the gang the morning after his performance, and he was scrobbled in the sort of aeroplane that carried you. But what happened next?’
‘Well, I waited and waited for what seemed like hours: I didn’t hear any sound of men, only from time to time I thought I heard, very, very far away, the noise of water falling; quite a lot of water: a sort of waterfall. Then the light went out and I was in the dark. I suppose, what with fatigue and fear and one thing and another, I fell asleep, and the next thing I knew the taxi was moving. I heard some roller doors clang open, and we scraunched on the gravel, and then we ran upon grass, and then we gave that sort of lurching leap that an aeroplane does and we were away in the air, going higher and higher and making no noise. And then, presently, we were on the ground, running along the road. We stopped. The bottom of the aeroplane quietly opened and dropped me through it and, before I could get on to my feet, it had moved away. And there I was in the churchyard, with the Condicote church clock striking nine and chiming, and the taxi or aeroplane or whatever it was was away. It just lifted up past the church and was gone.’
‘Did you see which way it went?’ Kay asked.
‘It just went behind the church and then I couldn’t see it any further. I haven’t the vaguest notion where I’ve been. I should think we were flying for an hour and a quarter both times and I don’t doubt that we were going at a frightful speed. We might have got to Scotland for all that I know. We might easily have gone three hundred miles.’
‘I say,’ Peter said, ‘you do have all the luck.
‘Well, I’m awfully glad you’ve got out of it. Would you like to go round to tell your story to the Police Inspector?’
‘I’m not going to tell any more story,’ Maria said. ‘What I want is underdone chops and plenty of them. I’m going to build up my nervous system before anything else, and then I’m going to bed.’
‘Well, come along down to the larder,’ Kay said. ‘And, Jemima, you might put on a kettle and we’ll boil her up some cocoa.’
‘I’m not going to drink any poison like cocoa, thank you,’ Maria said. ‘When one’s had a nervous strain such as I have, one wants a posset with three fresh eggs in it and a spoonful of sherry.’ They went into the larder and found a nourishing meal after Maria’s own heart. Then Jemima and Susan took her up to bed and gave her a posset.
Kay and Peter went up to their room. ‘Well, I’m blessed,’ Peter said, ‘we are having a holiday. I wonder what was in the black box that the gang wanted. I shouldn’t wonder if it wouldn’t be the Duchess’s diamonds that were stolen.’
‘I hope they won’t kidnap any more of us,’ Kay said; and with that he slipped the black box under his pyjama coat next to his skin, rolled over and fell asleep.
He hadn’t been long asleep before he woke in a state of perplexity and excitement. He kept thinking of what Maria had told him. He said to himself, ‘She might have been fifty feet underneath the ground, in cold stone walls and cold stone floors: well, she must have been underground. And where was it I was reading about, or heard about, caves underneath the ground? It was that Roman chap last night, talking about Chester Hills: he said, “It’s a limestone country, all honeycombed with caves; and those wolves, as we call them, were all underground.” I wonder whether this gang is at Chester Hills? There would be nothing like a lot of underground caves for the secret quarters of a gang. Get down there with their aeroplanes which can become taxis by pressing a button and the Police might hunt for years and never find them. And then, what if this Theological Missionary College should really be a gang in disguise? It’s just what I should do if I were a gangster: pretend to be a clergyman. And I’m sure that Abner Brown is that man they call Father Boddledale – the Reverend Father Boddledale, D.D. He’s a magician and a gangster of the deepest dye, and now that he’s married to the Pouncer he’s probably five times as bad as he ever was before. And I do wish my guardian were here and then I could ask her advice.’
He fell asleep again, but could dream of nothing but caves, dark and damp, with the noise of dripping water and long stalactites hanging from the roofs. When he would wake up from being, as he thought, a prisoner in one cave he would fall asleep and dream of another, black as a pocket, with water falling into some almost bottomless pit. Now he remembered something that somebody had said to him of the people at Chester Hills in the old days stealing and killing sheep and dropping them down potholes into the underground waters, which would carry the carcasses of the sheep for some miles and bring them out at other potholes where people waited for them. He seemed to remember that in the story somebody had said that once, when the people were waiting for the sheep to appear, the body of the thief appeared. ‘That was at Chester Hills,’ he thought. Then he slept again and seemed to hear the voice of Caroline Louisa calling to him in great distress from a great distance and, in his dream, it seemed that he answered her and asked, ‘Where are you?’ and heard her cry, ‘Here,’ and ran towards the voice and found nothing but stone walls, against which he beat and thrust, but could find no door nor any window. But through the thickness of the stone came the voice, ‘I’m shut up here in the darkness, Kay. I don’t know where it is, but it’s somewhere where I can hear the noise of water falling.’ Then he woke up, but found nothing but the dark night with a little glimmer of moonlight coming through the curtain and the fire in the grate almost out. ‘I’m almost sure that they’ve got her in Chester Hills, somehow,’ he muttered. ‘Though why,’ he wondered, ‘and how? Of course, if they’d got her into one of those taxis they could have flown her to Chester Hills in less than an hour, even from London.’ He fell asleep again, but passed an uneasy night. When he woke again it was time to get up, so he dressed and was down by eight o’clock. By some fortune or freak the post was in, in spite of the Christmas rush, but, as Ellen said, it was probably the post of two days before. There was no letter from Caroline Louisa.
Chapter VIII
While he was looking through the letters Ellen brought in the paper. ‘Oh, Master Kay,’ she said, ‘have you heard the news? The Bishop of Tatchester has disappeared.’
‘What?’ Kay said.
‘The papers are full of it,’ Ellen said. ‘The reverend gentleman went out of the Palace last night for a brisk walk before going to bed according to his custom and he hasn’t come back, Master Kay.’ Kay opened the paper:
‘STARTLING DISAPPEARANCE OF THE BISHOP OF TATCHESTER
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‘Considerable alarm was caused,’ he read, ‘in ecclesiastical circles last night when it was known that His Grace, the Bishop of Tatchester, had failed to return to the Palace and was not heard of at the time of our going to press. The very reverend gentleman had passed the evening at the Palace in making ready for the Christmas season and in dispatching his Christmas cards to the clergy of his Diocese, a duty that His Grace leaves to no hands but his own. On conclusion of this pleasant duty His Grace signified to his sister, Dame Eleanor Chasuble, that he would go for a brisk walk through the Precincts before retiring to rest. According to her nightly custom, Dame Chasuble prepared tea for His Grace on his return. As he had not returned at the accustomed time she proceeded to the Precincts, but could not see him. At first she thought it likely that His Grace had joined some body of carol-singers and might be singing carols in the neighbourhood, but at midnight as he had not returned she became alarmed and telephoned to the Dean, who enquired at once at the Hospital if His Grace had been the victim of some accident, but, receiving a negative response, they communicated with the Police and, although an active search was at once instituted, we regret to announce that no news has been received of His Grace’s whereabouts. It will be remembered that the Palace was the scene of a serious burglary the night before last and it is thought that the Bishop’s disappearance may be connected with that earlier outrage. Dame Chasuble is confident that the Bishop has no enemy who would lay violent hands upon him and flouts the opinion that he may have become subject to some sudden loss of memory. The Police are inclined to the view that the reverend gentleman may have received some shock, as from a passing motor car, which may have caused a temporary aberration. Anyone who may have seen anyone answering to the description of His Grace or any occurrence which may seem to throw light on his disappearance is earnestly asked to communicate with New Scotland Yard, or with the Tatchester Constabulary: Tatchester 7000.
‘Naturally His Grace’s disappearance has cast a gloom upon what would otherwise be a festal city. We would remind our readers that on Christmas Eve at midnight His Grace hoped to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the dedication of the Cathedral, for which great occasion the usual Christmas decorations and expectations have been increased thousand-fold. We are sure that we voice the feelings of thousands of our readers when we extend to Dame Chasuble our heartiest sympathy in her anxiety, and our liveliest hopes that His Grace may soon be restored to the bosom of his household and his Diocese.
‘Few figures in the Church of today are more eminent for piety and the Christian virtues than His Grace, the Very Reverend Michael Chasuble, D.D. Our readers will remember that Dr Chasuble in his young days was a famous oarsman, long-distance runner, cricketer and heavyweight pugilist. In the scholastic field he carried away not only the prize for Greek verse, the Newdigate, the Latin Oration and the Ponsford Laurel Crown for Hebrew, but took first class honours in Natural Science and in what are known as “Greats”. Few people of his time at the University have attained such universal distinction in the provinces of sport and learning.’
‘I say,’ Kay said to himself, when he had read this, ‘now they’ve got the Bishop. I won’t mind betting it’s the same gang, and they’re after this Box of Delights and they think that the Bishop’s got it.’
While he was meditating this in the dining-room, Peter came down. It was about ten minutes past eight, and, being a dark winter morning, was still hardly full daylight. ‘You look pretty gloomy, Kay,’ Peter said.
‘I am pretty gloomy,’ Kay said. ‘They’ve scrobbled the Bishop. I’ll bet it’s the people who scrobbled Maria.’
‘And who d’you think they are?’ Peter said.
‘Well, I’m worried, Peter,’ Kay said. ‘I know you think it’s absurd, but I think they’re the Missionary College people out at Chester Hills. Would you come with me, Peter,’ he said, ‘to Chester Hills, to see what kind of place it is?’
‘Well, I don’t mind,’ Peter said. ‘Shall we go after breakfast?’
‘I was thinking we might get there and back before breakfast,’ Kay said, leading the way to the door. ‘Breakfast won’t be till nine.’ He paused just outside the door. It was a gloomy morning.
‘How on earth could we get about forty miles and back?’ Peter said.
Kay caught hold of Peter’s arm and, with his other hand, twitched the button on the magic box and, instantly, both of them were plucked through the air in a north-westerly direction so swiftly that they saw the fields and the brooks in a kind of blur beneath them. Then, suddenly, they were whirled downwards and there they were, on a hillside, standing on what was the rampart of an old camp. Both the boys were a little out of breath.
‘Now, this is Chester Hills,’ Kay said. ‘Look there: that’s Hope-under-Chesters, the railway station where the curates got into the train who I believe picked my pocket. And you can see that this was once a Roman Camp. This is the Chester.’
‘Well, where d’you want to go now?’ Peter said.
‘I think down there, into that valley,’ Kay said.
Looking down on the valley the boys saw nothing but a great sea of woodland which began a little way below the camp and filled all the valley; but there were folds in the valley and what there was in the folds they could not see.
‘I say, it’s a lovely country,’ Kay said.
‘It looks all right,’ Peter said. ‘I vote we go and explore in the woods.’
Kay looked first at the Roman Camp. The line of the rampart was still firm and sharply cut; the gates were just as they were when the Romans had marched out of them for the last time.
‘Jolly good chaps, the Romans,’ Kay said.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Peter. ‘They were rather a mouldy lot. They were lucky chaps not to have to learn Latin grammar, but to know it naturally.’
‘I don’t know, I admire them enormously,’ Kay said. ‘You see, we are a thousand miles from Rome and they hadn’t any trains and they hadn’t any steam and they walked here, carrying all that they wanted on their backs; and when they came to the sea they made ships and sailed here. And when they were here they made the only roads that we had, that were any good, for the next eighteen hundred years, and the only baths that people took until about fifty years ago. You see there, you can see from the lie of the land that a road ran out of this gateway down the hill. I’ll bet if you had a spade to clear away the turf you’d come upon a pavement underneath.’
He led the way down the hill and presently, the line of the Roman track became more difficult to follow. When they came to the edge of the wood the track was barred with a locked and chained gate. There was a notice nailed to a tree:
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED
and on another tree there was a bigger notice:
DANGER!
MAN-TRAPS AND SPRING-GUNS
The track inside the wood was hardly more than a narrow woodland path. The wood looked curiously forbidding and evil. It contained a great deal of yew and other dark evergreens. The undergrowth was curiously grown and in the darkness and wetness, with its profuse mass of close, sinister growth, it put a chill on to both boys’ hearts.
‘It doesn’t look a very cheery place,’ Peter said. ‘I don’t think we ought to risk those notices.’
‘Oh, rats,’ Kay said. ‘I don’t believe in any of those notices. For years I was scared of a notice that said “Bloodhounds” and there wasn’t a bloodhound within the county. Come along in. But we’d better not talk much and we won’t make more noise than we must.’
He clambered over the gate and Peter followed. They went down the woodland track. It was a still, sinister wood, very thick covert, even for the depths of winter. As they went along it seemed to Kay that somewhere on his left hand there was the noise of water falling, much as he had heard it in his dreams. The little track led down the hill: it wasn’t straight, but bent and twisted; Peter went with a beating heart: Kay went forward boldly.
‘I say, Kay,’ Peter said, �
��I wish you wouldn’t hurry on like this. You ought to go cautiously.’
‘It’s absolutely safe,’ Kay said. ‘Do look; nobody has been on this woodland track for weeks.’
‘But a keeper might come at any minute,’ Peter said.
‘There aren’t keepers,’ Kay said. ‘You can see that this place isn’t preserved. If it were preserved we should have seen pheasants long ago or, if not pheasants, we’d have seen keepers’ vermin boards, or dead stoats and weasels and poor, beautiful owls.’
Presently they passed from the woodland into a rather denser part, that was more like a neglected shrubbery with azaleas and overgrown rhododendrons. In this part of the wood a very great deal of box had once been planted. This had straggled and grown to a great height and made the wood even darker than it would otherwise have been. There the track ended in a double line of box trees. No doubt the trees had once been trimmed into a box walk; now they were all straggled and overgrown and untidy. Between the lines of box trees, however, a path, that seemed to be in considerable use, led to right and left, and through gaps in the dense shrubbery the boys saw the gleam of water just below them.
‘That will be the lake,’ Kay said; ‘it’s marked on the map. Let’s go on down and look at the water.’
They left the path and thrust through the shrubbery where it seemed thinnest and presently were just inside a rhododendron bush on the very lip of the water, which stretched to right and left in a long and very beautiful lake of deep water. It was not much more than a hundred yards across, but it gave to Kay the illusion of great depth and of being very evil, it was so dark, being fringed on both sides by beautiful trees nearly all dark.
‘I say,’ Kay said, ‘what a place!’
‘It gives me the fantods,’ Peter answered. ‘I don’t like this place.’
‘Well, we’ve come here now,’ Kay said; ‘do let’s examine it before we go.’
The Box of Delights Page 14