THE SERVICE WILL BE HELD.
‘You see that, Chief, and the heading “Church Defies Bandits”. They mean business.’
‘So do I, Joe,’ Abner said.
‘Is it your game to stop that service?’ Joe asked.
‘I’ll stop that service if they don’t deliver the Box or tell me where it is.’
Kay saw looks of anger, bewilderment, contempt and mutiny cross Joe’s face in quick succession; he noticed, too, that none of these looks was missed by Abner, who was watching Joe intently. Joe rose from his chair and walked the room for a moment.
‘Chief,’ Joe said, ‘I don’t like what you’re doing. While you were just a fair and square burglar, like the rest of us, I respected you; but this dabbling in magic and scrobbling up the clergy will come to no good. You’ll find it so, when it’s too late. The Press respects burglars like us who only burgle the very rich; but you’re going now against children, women and the clergy, and you’ve turned the Press dead against you. Of course, I’ve got no intellect; don’t go by what I say . . .’
‘I congratulate you on your knowledge of yourself,’ Abner said sweetly. ‘You’re not employed for your intellect, but for your nerve. Are you losing your nerve?’
‘No,’ Joe said sulkily.
‘Good,’ Abner said.
‘I take it, Chief,’ Joe said, ‘that you’re not keen on going dead against your own interests in this?’
‘No,’ Abner said, ‘why?’
‘Of course,’ Joe said, ‘the profits are too small for you to bother about. A thousand quid is nothing to you, but to us poor chaps, who do the work, they’re a thousand quid.’
‘Come to the point; what is it?’ Abner asked.
‘Well, Chief,’ Joe said, ‘now would be the time to stop this clergy business. The Archbishop is offering a reward of a thousand pounds for the return of the Bishop or Dean, with reduced sums for the rest; it’s twenty-five quid even for a choirboy. It would be quite a profitable little haul if you chose to take it. Tomorrow, or even today, you’ll have the Yard poking about.’
‘The Yard! The Yard could be in this room, and those clergy could shout, “O Come, all ye Faithful” at the tops of their voices, yet not be heard. Come to breakfast.’
‘All right,’ Joe said. ‘But there is another thing. There is a boy at Seekings; Kay Harker. He was here with that boy Peter whom we scrobbled; and I don’t see why Cole Hawlings shouldn’t have given the Box to him, if it comes to that.’
‘You don’t see a good many things,’ Abner said.
‘I dare say I’m as blind as a bat,’ Joe said, ‘and as for intellect I never claimed any, but blind and balmy as I am I never talked such tosh as you’ve talked since I came into this room; nor I never sold my soul to the devil. What with that and going to the films you’ve got bats in your belfry. I thought so before and now I know it. You’ll come to a bad end, let me tell you, and it won’t be long hence . . .’
Kay saw Abner’s pale face turn a little whiter; he was plainly very angry and about to answer savagely. At that moment, the door opened. In came Sylvia Daisy Pouncer Brown, who had no doubt been listening at the keyhole. On seeing her, Joe muttered what sounded like ‘Crikey, now here’s his Missus.’ Sylvia D. P. Brown looked at Joe and drew her own conclusions.
‘Abner, my dear,’ she said, ‘you’ve talked and talked. Do come to breakfast before it’s all cold. Remember, you’ve got to speak a Christmas talk at Tatchester Alms Houses at half-past ten.’
‘Certainly, my dear,’ he said. ‘We’ve said all that we had to say.’
Kay could not be sure, but thought that Joe muttered, ‘Oh, have we? You’ll see.’
‘I was forgetting the Alms Houses,’ Abner said. ‘Those poor deserving old men and women, we mustn’t forget them, must we? Well, Joe, that will delay our business till half-past two, in my room. Do you get that?’
‘Half-past two, in your room; very well, Chief,’ Joe said.
Abner walked past him to the door, ‘Come along to breakfast, Joe,’ he said. ‘We’re both half-starved.’
They walked out of the room together. After a moment Kay pressed his Box, resumed his shape and slipped into the corridor after them.
To his right, the corridor led to the hall and main staircase. To his left, it led to a closed door where breakfast was now in progress: cups, knives and forks were clicking; there were strong smells of bacon and of coffee; Abner’s voice said, ‘May I beg you to pass the butter?’
Almost in front of Kay, a second corridor led towards the kitchen or pantry; there, coming from the kitchen, was the old man who had swept in the hall, carrying a dish on which his eyes were fixed. He was muttering aloud to himself:
‘Chop small with best green bacon. Add a pinch of powdered cheese. Add chopped mushroom or, as some prefer, chopped sardine. Serve hot with melted butter.’
He tapped at the door and entered.
Abner said, ‘You anticipate my every wish, David. You bring us more when hope was failing.’
As David closed the breakfast-room door, Kay slipped towards the kitchen and pantry. To his right was the pantry with a chafing-dish from which a savoury smell came; to the left was a big kitchen where a man’s voice called:
‘Jim, haven’t you done the scullery floor yet? They’ll be inspecting in a minute.’
‘Danger here,’ Kay thought. He turned swiftly back on tiptoe and ran up the main staircase. At the top of the stairs was a long, broad corridor with doors and passages opening to right and left. All the doors were shut and labelled: ‘Dean’, ‘Sub-Dean’, ‘Prior’, ‘Sub-Prior’, ‘Bursar’. Kay opened the Bursar’s door very cautiously and peeped in.
A preoccupied voice said, ‘No, no; you must wait just a minute longer. I haven’t finished the accounts.’
He slipped back into the passage and shut the door.
‘Nearly caught there,’ he said. ‘I’m much more likely to be caught than to discover anything.’
Then, as he walked along, a door opened down below and there came a clatter of voices and a rush of feet coming up the back stairs. It came upon him in a flash that these were the younger members of the brotherhood who had finished breakfast and were running upstairs to tidy their rooms for inspection. They were shouting together like schoolboys, evidently chasing each other and, as they were coming very fast, he hadn’t an instant to lose.
‘I’ll come back at half-past two,’ he thought, ‘and hear what those two are up to.’
He turned the knob of the Box, so that he might go swiftly. At once, he was sped away from those shouting collegiates, yet not before he was seen. He heard one young man cry out, ‘I say, look . . . a swallow,’ and a second answered, ‘Rats. Swallows come in April.’ But now he was borne away upon unseen wings back to his late breakfast at Seekings, with the three girls, each sure that Peter would be all right, and all thrilled at the disappearance of Mr Charity and Dr Dogma.
‘Now,’ Maria said, ‘they have scrobbled every single clergyman attached to the Cathedral. The Thriller has got a name for them now: the Red-Hot Atheists: “Red-Hot Atheists at it again. Wholesale Murder Feared. Shrieks heard from Shuttered House. Bloodstains in the Snow.”’
‘The gang has put the clergy’s backs up now,’ Susan said. ‘I’m simply thrilled to think that Maria and Peter have been scrobbled as though they were clergymen. But the whole English Church is resolved now, to hold that service tonight. You see what the Archbishops say, “That they are happy to state that five clergy from the diocese have proceeded to Tatchester to supply the Christmas services if by any unhappy occurrence the rightful Ministers be unable to officiate.”’
‘They ought not to have mentioned that,’ Maria said. ‘Now the gang will scrobble those, too, you’ll see.’
‘I expect they will,’ Kay said, ‘but all the same, they had to let people know that the services will be held.’
‘What makes my blood boil,’ Maria said, ‘is the cheek of the gang, thinking they can p
revent the services.’
Kay did not answer this, he was thinking how very powerful the gang was, and how miserable the beautiful Caroline Louisa must be shut up in the rock with two women like she-wolves as guards.
After breakfast, he went round to the Inspector.
‘If you please,’ Kay said, ‘would you like to win the Archbishop’s reward of a thousand pounds? If you would go to the Tatchester Barracks and fall out the Tatshire Blues and raid the Chester Hills College, you’d find the clergy there, I’m sure you would.’
‘Why, how you run on about the College, Master Kay,’ the Inspector said. ‘This is what in Medical Circles is spoken of as a Hobsession. No, no, believe me, the College is all full of young Reverends. However would young men like that go scrobbling the very men who’ll ordain them?’
‘By an aeroplane that can turn into a motor car and then back into an aeroplane. And it can hover just like a sparrowhawk and settle down in through the roof.’
‘Ah no, Master Kay, no aeroplane can do that; none. And the roof isn’t that kind, I do assure you. I’ve been all over that College, time and again, at some of their jinkses, concerts and that; believe me. And as for falling out the Tatshires, Master Kay, that’s un-English.
‘We in the Law, Master Kay, represent the Civil Power. There in the Barracks they represent Armed Force, which is what Foreigners use.’
‘But I saw the aeroplane settle through the roof . . . I did.’
At this moment, a car dashed up to the door. The Chief Constable of Tatshire was there. ‘Are you there, Drew?’ he called. ‘Come along, will you, we need every man we can get: we’re to give Police protection to the clergy detailed for duty in the Cathedral. Bring a truncheon, you may need it.’
The Inspector unhooked a truncheon and hurried away in the car.
‘He simply will not believe me,’ Kay said. ‘And in a few hours it will be too late.’
He went back in deep distress to his room at Seekings.
Chapter X
‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘if I look into the Box, I may meet with Herne the Hunter again, and oh, if I do, I’ll ask about Arnold of Todi, for he’s the cause of all this trouble: it’s his Box, and if he had it again then perhaps all this hunt for it and scrobbling folk would stop. So, here goes.’
This time, as he opened the Box, it seemed to him that he was looking between two columns, on which the snow lay thick. Here and there on the stone the snow had partly melted and had again frozen, so that little icicles dangled from the ledges. Kay passed between these columns into a wintry wood, full of snow, where even the rabbits had turned white. In front of him was what seemed like the bole of a ruined tree, but it was Herne the Hunter, clad in some pelt, powdered with snow.
‘I know what you want, Kay,’ he said. ‘You want to know about Arnold of Todi. He went back into the Past, looking at it, and was caught in it somewhere and is lost, never able to get back.
‘And the Past, Kay,’ he added, ‘is a big book with many, many pages; if you go looking for Arnold in the Past, who knows if you will ever find him?’
‘I have this Box. Won’t this Box help me to find him?’
‘No,’ Herne said. ‘Arnold left that Box behind him, because he made another way of getting back, which he liked better. The Box is good for Europe, but Arnold wanted the East.’
‘Could you take me to Arnold, please?’
‘No,’ Herne said. ‘We do not know where he is. He is somewhere in the Past; that is all we know.’
‘Well, what part of the Past d’you think he went back to?’ Kay said.
‘Well, as to that,’ Herne answered; ‘there’s one part that everybody goes to and that’s the Trojan War.’
‘Could I get down to the Trojan War to ask about him?’ Kay asked.
‘You could,’ Herne said. ‘There are generally people there, and one of them may have noticed Arnold, or heard where he went; he didn’t stay there probably, people don’t: and if he had stayed there he wouldn’t be lost, would he, and we know that he is lost.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The word got about,’ Herne said.
‘How could I get to the Trojan War to ask?’ Kay asked.
‘I could get you there,’ Herne said, ‘but you must leave the Box behind you, and I strongly advise you to do no such thing. You may never get back, if you once get there. I can’t be sure that I can get you back.’
‘I expect I could get back,’ Kay said.
‘I’m not so sure of it. You’re bent on going?’
‘Yes, please,’ Kay said.
‘Well, in a way, it won’t be you that goes, it will only be a shadow of you: the rest will be asleep. The you that goes will cast no shadow. People won’t like that, you’ll find.’
‘I shan’t mind,’ Kay said.
‘They may,’ Herne said, ‘and they’re a pretty rough crowd in parts of the Past.’
‘I’ll chance it,’ Kay said.
‘It’s a dangerous thing to get mixed up in the Past,’ Herne said, ‘but if you must, you must.’
He beckoned to Kay, and Kay felt that he became two Kays, one asleep at Seekings, the other beside Herne.
He noticed then that the sea had come almost up to where they stood. There, running into the sand at his feet, was a strange black ship, looking rather like a dolphin. She had one mast and one big sail and a lot of men sitting on benches with the oars. The captain of this ship was a fierce-looking man with long yellow hair. He had a curious breastplate of some blue metal on which a wolf had been inlaid in gold.
‘If you are for Troy, step on board,’ this captain said.
Kay stepped on board, and, instantly, the rowers began to row and the sail filled and the ship leaped like a dolphin. The men sang as they rowed. They went past island after island, all bright in the sun and, presently, they were beached on the sandy shingle between two rivers. All the beach was lined with ships of different sorts, all rather like the ship in which he had travelled. There were lanes between the lines of ships and in these lanes there were huts, where men were cleaning their armour, cooking, or washing their wounds.
Beyond the lines and huts and ships was a stockade. Going through the gate of this and crossing the beach Kay saw on a little hill beyond them the wall of some castle from which a dense smoke was rising. As he went towards this, he saw more soldiers, wearing those blue breastplates with the inlaid wolves. These were driving down parties of unhappy men, women and children, laden with packages of booty.
‘Goodness,’ Kay said. ‘This is really Troy. There are the walls and that’s the Tower over the Skaian Gate, and I have come just too late: the city has been sacked.’
He came presently to the river, but he saw at once that, as a road led from it on the other side, it could be easily forded. There it was very shallow and did not do much more than cover his ankles. There were plenty of little fish in the clear water.
Beyond the river there were marks of frequent fighting: the graves of men marked by broken spears with helmets on them, fragments of broken weapons or chariots and some dead horses. The ground rose from this point, and out of the Skaian Gate, coming towards him, were the last of the Trojans being beaten forward by the butt-ends of the spears of their conquerors.
‘Oh dear,’ Kay said. ‘There are all the poor Trojans driven into captivity and the beautiful walls all racked and ruined.’
After the party had gone past with the wailing captives and cursing guards, Kay went into the Skaian Gate and looked about him at the desolation. The doors of all the houses were open; the things which had not been worth carrying away lay smashed or torn in the ways. There was nobody left in the city except a stray cat or two, mewing in misery. The pigeons which had once nested in the temples were flying about in the smoke. As Kay went up towards the temples a gust of wind caught the fire; it burst out with a savage crackle and fierce flame.
He noticed then that an old, old crone was sitting at the corner of the ways. She looked
as though she had been too old to be taken away.
‘You are looking for Arnold of Todi?’ she said. ‘He was here, but he has gone.’
‘Where did he go?’ Kay asked.
‘He went with the Wolves,’ she said.
‘Has he gone long?’ Kay asked.
‘A matter of five hundred years ago,’ she said.
It did not seem very hopeful to Kay, but he went back down the hill and across the ford to the beach, but the beach now was deserted. The ditch had fallen in, the stockade was gone and all the space where the ships had lain now seemed ruined by floods from the two rivers.
But there, drawing near to the shore, was a boat manned by long-haired, dirty men, most of whom wore earrings. The boat had a name painted on her bows in clumsy red letters. Presently, as she drew near, Kay read this as Seawolf. As the boat touched the shore the man who was steering hailed him and said:
‘Are you sick of the Mediterranean? We are.’
Kay said he did not know very much about it, but the man said, ‘You will, if you stay. Come on board.’
Now that he could see their faces, Kay was not very eager to come on board. He remembered to have seen, in an old print, by Hogarth, of the ‘Idle Apprentice,’ a representation of a boat-load of evil-looking men. It seemed to him that the men in this boat might have been the brothers of those whom Hogarth drew. There was a pale and toothless look about them that was very awful. They looked at him slantwise, and spat sideways in a very crooked manner. Perhaps he would not have gone aboard their cutter, had he not seen that a party of spearmen, wearing breastplates stamped with the images of wolves, were slinking down the beach as though to seize him. They were coming down the sands behind and on both sides of him; they were closing in on him. Though they all made a pretence of looking for shells, or watching the sky, it was quite plain that he was their mark. He did not like the looks of the cutter’s crew, but these Wolf-men terrified him, so he climbed aboard the cutter, which at once shoved off into the sea. The Wolf-men at once turned back: plainly, they had been after him.
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