Mr. Jessyp gave a short, barking laugh. “I imagine they must be as worried about us as we are about them—but with far less reason, of course,” he added hastily. “Perhaps they’ll be so busy guarding their own fire tonight they’ll have no time even to think of tampering with ours ...”
“Perhaps,” replied Sir George. Once again, the echo did not ring with much conviction; there was more on his mind than just the likely machinations of Murreystone. Still no word about the little woman—either of them. Mayhem up and down The Street tomorrow night would be the final straw ...
“Straw,” he muttered, gazing at Guy Fawkes on the summit of the bonfire, his giant arms and legs akimbo, his sacking belly bulging. Well away from the pavilion, of course; safe enough for the houses, the hedge, the fence. Unlikely to be a serious accident even if—
“About tonight,” said Sir George, bringing himself back to the present with a start. “How many men, d’you think?”
And the conversation thereafter became technical in the extreme.
Although the bonfire was, in the nature of things, the likely focus of any attack, the Night Watch Men were instructed to patrol the whole village. Should Murreystone employ even half the cunning attributed to them by their ancient foes they could well—while attention was focused at one end of the village—try something sneaky at the other. There was the church: never, by tradition, locked, for the healing power of prayer was not to be denied to any man, at any hour of the day or night. There were the bells, which could be stolen; there was the clock, on which sabotage could be wrought. There were, outside the church, hedges and gardens and topiary trees, garden gnomes and gatepost statuettes ...
But it was around the bonfire that the keenest eyes and the fastest reflexes were set on guard.
The keenest eyes—and the sharpest ears. At midnight on the dot, Nigel Colveden sat up. He nudged Jack Crabbe, the best mechanic in the village. A car was approaching: a car whose engine-note Nigel didn’t think he recognised ...
And Jack Crabbe, flexing his muscles, confirmed that to him, likewise, the approaching engine was unknown.
chapter
~ 22 ~
THE ENGINE RUMBLED closer. No hint of headlamps could be seen in the moonless dark: whoever was inside the car was clearly up to no good.
With a judder, the engine died. By the faint, flickering light of the stars, Jack and Nigel exchanged urgent looks with Len Hosigg, the third man sharing their bonfire vigil.
“Don’t like the thound o’ that,” muttered Jack, lisping with slow deliberation. Youthful acquaintance with poachers had long since taught him that sibilance carries farther, by night or day, than almost anything else.
“Came from the north,” murmured Nigel. Murreystone lies to the east of Plummergen; the most likely road across the marsh enters the rival village from the south, between the high brick walls which bound Miss Seeton’s garden and that of the vicarage opposite. “Could be a trick, though.”
“Th’right,” chimed in Len, a quick learner. The three young men, united in suspicion, strained their ears to hear, their eyes to see ...
“Over by the gate.” Jack Crabbe was pointing; staring. The other two followed his gaze. Something was moving near the hedge: something dark, swift, bulky—too bulky for a fox, a badger, any other creature of the night. Any other creature save a human ...
“Blimey!”
“Barmy!”
Definitely human. Foxes and badgers do not, as a rule, carry torches. Nor do they emit eldritch cackles as they leap up and down in full view of an audience ...
“After him!” Jack was ready to roar off in pursuit, but Nigel grabbed him by the arm.
“No, wait! While he’s over there, he can’t be here, can he? Maybe he’s not so barmy, after all.”
“S’right!” At once, Len spun round to survey the bonfire behind the three whose attention had been so cunningly diverted. Beside him, Jack and Nigel did the same.
Nothing. No movement, no sound—save for the eldritch cackling on the far side of the field. Warily, they glanced back over their shoulders. The torch was still leaping—
Was extinguished.
Silence.
“Could be the Nuts,” suggested Nigel, as they peered into the starlit gloom for further signs of movement. “Gone off their heads at last, I mean. You know how oddly they’ve been carrying on these past few weeks. The way they blew a fuse, or whatever it was, last night—maybe this is some kind of crazy light-bringing ceremony ...”
“Could’ve bin a woman,” conceded Jack, rubbing his chin and frowning. “A racket like that’s hard to tell one way or t’other. What you reckon, Len?”
Young Hosigg was seldom given to speech when a gesture would do. He nodded, his eyes never leaving the distant hedge; then shrugged. Nigel—for whose father Len worked as farm foreman—was used to his idiosyncratic methods of communication. “Len agrees—but where does that leave us? It hardly helps, whichever it turns out to be. If it’s a Murreystone male, we either jump him or let him go—and if it’s a Lilikot female we’ve got no choice, have we? We have to let her go—imagine the fuss ...”
Len and Jack, shuddering, imagined it. Jack said:
“But we don’t have to let ’em go if they’re Murreystone. Capering about like madmen—one man, anyhow—they’re up to summat, and t’wouldn’t hurt to find out what—”
“And why,” said Nigel. “If it isn’t just a Nutty fire-festival, I mean. Whoever it is—”
He broke off. The cackling had begun again, the torch was being waved—but in the opposite corner of the field this time.
“Heading our way, or making a dash for it?” demanded Jack, not seriously expecting a reply. The whole proceeding made so little sense that any reply he received could only confuse things even more.
“Could be either,” said Nigel, slowly.“Suppose we—”
He never finished. With a yelp and a muffled oath, Len Hosigg was sprinting back to the bonfire, fists flailing as he ran. With a whoop and a yell, Jack and Nigel charged in his wake—charged towards the three dark figures around the base of the bonfire, who appeared to be struggling with a fourth ...
“The guy!” As Len waded wordlessly into the mêlée, Jack emitted a roar of rage. “Steal our guy, would you? Damned if we let you, you buggers!”
And then, with Nigel, he joined the fray.
Three against three were reasonable odds, on paper: and the six were reasonably matched. Len, though the slightest of the combatants in build, was stronger than his appearance would suggest. Years of farm work had toughened him: he was no longer the town-bred boy who had needed a stout stave in his hand before he could face the enemy. He was everywhere now: leaping, dodging, punching, parrying.
Nigel and Jack were not to be outdone. They likewise leaped, dodged, punched, and parried; they were themselves punched, and even kicked: but no weapons were used by either side, and slowly it became clear that the Plummergen trio was beginning to prevail. The Murreystoners gasped, and wheezed, and faltered as they were wrestled farther and farther from the bonfire; it seemed that the rival village had not, on this occasion, sent a handpicked team of the fittest men to do its dirty work—whatever that work might have been. The attempt to kidnap the guy had, after all, been thwarted—
Or had it? The same thought occurred to each of the Plummergenites at the same time. The odds hadn’t been three against three, but three against four: the fourth being that mysterious torch-waving cackler whose purpose in drawing so much attention to himself—
They did not stop to think. Their punches flew thick and fast as they realised they hadn’t so much buffeted their opponents away from the bonfire as been led by them out of range of whatever mischief had been planned—
Was probably being done right now! “Let ’em run, lads!” commanded Jack, as the vanquished foe took suddenly to its heels and began making for the gate, nearer now than the bonfire and guy which had been the target of its attentions. “We’ll see what the
y’ve been up to, the varmints!”
Seeing was easier said than done. While combat seethed below, the stars above had been covered in cloud: only the faintest prickle of light now shone through the few wispy patches which, even as Jack led the rush to the rescue, grew ever more faint until, with a final flicker, it vanished. The whole world now was wide and dark and shadowed grey, a world where shapes were illusion and senses confused ...
But at last they found the guy. It lay some yards farther from the fire than when they’d seen it in the hands of the invaders; and it was almost unharmed, though its mask was a little more lopsided, its hat jammed even lower over its painted eyes. Apart from such minor damage, the kidnap attempt had failed. Tomorrow’s celebration was safe.
With groans of relief as their sore hands and aching muscles came into play, the Plummergen three hoisted the straw-stuffed figure—still heavy with its internal burden of squibs and crackers—back into the old armchair on top of the bonfire. They rubbed their stiffening shoulders, and let their arms fall to their sides, and permitted themselves the luxury of a few minutes’ ritual grumbling and comparing notes about how much damage each had sustained.
“Could a-bin worse,” said Jack, whose left eye was, like Mr. Weller’s turkey, swelling visibly. Nor was Mr. Crabbe’s the only black eye; Len’s right was rapidly closing, and it was doubtful whether Mr. Colveden would be as handsome next morning as he’d been the night before.
“But no serious hurt, thanks be,” said Jack, a sentiment echoed by the other two. “So long’s them varmints don’t think of coming back, or sending their friends, that is, for I’m not so sure we could chastise ’em as well a second time, are you, boys?”
Nigel, on whom delayed reaction was starting to work, shivered as he shook his head. “We should be getting a few reinforcements before much longer, though.” Tenderly, he massaged his knuckles. “I wonder why nobody heard all the kerfuffle while it was going on?”
“Why we never heard the car drive away, neither,” Jack was quick to point out. “Though that’s what it must have done, surely, the way they took off—and it’s not as if we can’ve bin skirmishing for so very long, if the truth be told. Time’s a queer, misleading thing, on occasion—and so’re the senses, most of all at night. You’d’ve thought they’d light up their houses, wouldn’t you?” with a jerk of his thumb in the direction of the black squares against the steel-grey sky. “Yet I disremember there was that much shouting, after the first, and all over in minutes, if you stop and consider the matter careful-like.”
“You can’t,” said Nigel, grimly, “be too careful, where Murreystone’s concerned ...”
And the other two agreed with him at once.
* * *
It was not until day had well and truly dawned that the Bonfire Watch was at last suspended. Even Murreystone would never dare to invade enemy territory when witnesses by the several hundred might observe the invasion: coming from the south, they must pass the post office; from the north, the council houses. The final group of Night Watch Men returned to their homes conscious of a job well done, for the bonfire—and the guy, untroubled on its armchair high above them—remained, as it had done since that one thwarted attack, unassailed.
It was breakfast-time when the Night Watch Men finally went home; it was almost lunch-time when a small female figure, limping on weary feet, leaning for support on a gold-handled umbrella, found its way to an isolated house, and rapped with the brolly on the knockerless door.
Nobody answered. After a pause, during which she looked over her shoulder more than once, the small female rapped again, more loudly.
There came an irritated clattering from above, and a gaunt, red-haired man in his forties peered out of an upstairs window. “I’m busy,” he informed the small one, waving at her to go away. “No tradesmen, no hawkers, no pedlars. Good morning!”
He was about to slam the window shut when a crisp voice enquired from below:
“No princesses?”
John Douglas stayed his hand. He leaned at an acute angle out of the window, and gazed thoughtfully down at the dainty young woman beneath—and blinked as she gazed quite as thoughtfully up at him.
“I think,” she said, “you look friendly—I do hope you are. I must have walked miles, and these shoes just weren’t designed for hiking—but I simply couldn’t risk going to any of the nearer houses, in case they were in league. You wouldn’t want to live too far from where you were holding someone hostage, would you?”
“I suppose I wouldn’t.” Her tone was so reasonable that Mr. Douglas found himself giving serious consideration to the possibility that a harmless bookseller such as himself might at some time hold someone hostage. Then he came to his senses. “Princesses?” He leaned at an even more acute angle out of the window. Once more he gazed down at his pint-sized visitor: at the pale, heart-shaped face—the aristocratic features and the tip-tilted nose—the sapphire eyes—the bouncing blonde curls ...
“Hostage?” said John Douglas, with a gulp.
“Captive, if you prefer,” said the pint-sized blonde. “Or prisoner—I don’t really mind, now I’ve stopped being one. But I do rather feel it would be a good idea to let someone in authority know that I have—stopped, I mean. They’re bound to be interested, I would have said. And yours is the nicest-looking house for miles—and I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I used your telephone, would you?”
“Your Royal Highness!” Mr. Douglas slammed the window shut, pelted down the stairs, paused in front of the hall mirror to smooth his ruddy locks, and, breathing heavily, rushed to the door to open it, and to usher Georgina inside.
“It was all,” explained Georgina, to an enthralled audience of officials, “thanks to Miss Seeton’s umbrella, you know.” She patted the gold handle as she spoke, and smiled. “When they took her away, poor thing—I don’t know when, but it was after they’d taken us out of the sacks and given us both some perfectly frightful tea or something, which they said was only herbs, though I have my doubts—anyway,” as at the mention of herbs Delphick and Brinton exchanged glances—“whatever it was, we both fell asleep. We were pretty tired anyway, with the disappointment and everything of having tried to get away and—and not managing it.”
For a moment, the sapphire eyes lost their sparkle, and the perfect mouth quivered as Georgina recalled the fright and disappointment of her recent escape attempt. But royal nerves are among the strongest, royal emotions under better control than most; the princess was very soon able to go on with her recital.
“We were so hot and dusty in those beastly sacks, being dragged halfway across Kent in the back of that horrible car or van or whatever it was, and we were frightfully thirsty, of course, so we drank the tea because they told us that was all there was ... And when I woke up, I was ... alone. Miss Seeton had gone. And so had one of the sacks—they’d put the other one over me as a sort of counterpane, because this new house wasn’t anything like as well equipped as the first place they’d—they’d kept me locked up.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought that was why they’d moved us, you see—because there weren’t the facilities for two people. Just one bed, and one chair—and if they meant to keep us both for any length of time ...”
She wrinkled her dainty nose. “At least we had decent loos in both places, thank goodness. I mean, I dare say I could have coped, but Miss Seeton—so undignified, at her age. Or it would have been, except that it wasn’t, either time—but in the end it didn’t matter, because—oh, I do hope you find her soon! I’m so worried—I thought she was positively the dearest old duck, and if it hadn’t been for her umbrella I’d never have got away ...”
“The umbrella, you said, Ma’am?” prompted Delphick, as Her Royal Highness sniffled discreetly, and weakened just enough to reach into her pocket for a handkerchief.
Georgina blinked once or twice, then smiled. “Gosh, yes—such luck for me they left it behind, even if they took her bag. She might,” she said, contemplati
ng her aching feet with a whimsical grin, “have had enough in her purse for me to ring for a taxi, or something, once I’d found a phone—but they didn’t leave it, so I never had the chance to try.” She looked up. Her eyes were twinkling. “Which is probably just as well, because I expect I’d have made a mess of it.” Now the grin was the old, high-powered Georgy Girl beam. “You know how Royalty’s, um, not used to handling money ...”
Her audience laughed along with her. Members of the Royal Family have attendants who habitually carry all cash for day-to-day transactions, while expenses of a more exotic nature are dealt with on account, settled by the Comptroller of the Household at the end of each calendar month.
Georgina soon sobered. “Anyway, once I’d woken up and seen Miss Seeton wasn’t there, I started to feel a little—a little twitchy. I wanted to know she was all right—but the horrid man who brought my breakfast wouldn’t answer any of my questions. He was in a frightful temper. There was only one man this time—if I’d only known before, I could have worked out some scheme for hooking the beast off his feet and hitting him again, but I didn’t ...” She sighed. “I’d hidden the umbrella under the mattress, you see. Miss Seeton had told me it was her very best, and I knew she was so proud of—oh!”
The blue eyes widened. “Mr. Delphick! You’re the one who gave it to her! Miss Seeton told me all about it—how absolutely thrilling to meet you!”
“Er—thank you, Ma’am.” Delphick inclined his head. “Most kind of you to say so.” He made up his mind. The rest of Georgina’s narrative could be—must be—postponed to a later date. Now that she seemed to have talked the worst of the experience out of her system, it was high time to ask her what else Miss Seeton might have told her: what else she might have said that could be a clue, no matter how unlikely, to rescuing her from wherever the kidnappers had chosen to confine her ...
Miss Seeton Rules (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 18) Page 21