Sweet Danger (22 page)

He sat up in bed and clasped his knees. After the disappearance of the drumhead on the previous evening he had
been so sure on this point, especially when an exhaustive search of the house and mill had revealed nothing.

Amanda, of course, had hardly been helpful. Her airy account of walking out of the granary on discovering that the door had been unbolted had not been convincing, and her absorption in her new radio apparatus had proved frankly exasperating. Even the good-natured Eager-Wright was finding it hard to champion her.

With the end of the search had come the certainty that the under-head had vanished, and whatever the drum might have contained was in enemy hands. Complete failure had seemed obvious until Aunt Hatt had returned from the church with her extraordinary tale of the camp on the heath.

In the chill morning light, Guffy turned the story over in his mind. A party of hikers, quite twenty of them the good lady was convinced, had descended upon the village, and put up in tents on the heath. Mrs Bull, who had been distributing hassocks in the church at the same time as Aunt Hatt had been attending to the flowers, had volunteered the information that they were the same archaeological students that her husband had refused to accommodate the day before. Aunt Hatt, her suspicions aroused, had walked boldly home across the heath and taken in as much of the scene as her sharp eyes could see of the strangers.

She had come back with the information that they were criminals, every man of them: most suspicious.

Guffy and Eager-Wright had walked down to the village later in the evening, ostensibly to visit the ‘Gauntlett', but they had seen nothing of the archaeologists save the little white tents grouped together like the sails of a schooner on the dark sea of the heath.

Guffy stirred restlessly. The faint air of inaction and the impression that they were waiting for some storm to break he found unnerving.

Finally, he rose to lean out of the window and inspect the morning. It was barely five o'clock. A ground mist levelled
the contours of the valley, although he could just see the course of the narrow river winding down through the low meadows on the southern side of the heath, picked out by the high brambles and pollard willows which lined its banks, and grew so thickly that in most places the stream was obscured.

The rest of the household still appeared to be asleep, and he returned to his bed cursing himself for his helplessness.

Had he stayed at the window a moment or so longer, the events of the day might have been considerably precipitated, for almost at the instant that he threw himself disconsolately on to his bed the coach-house doors in the yard below were swung cautiously open, and the nose of Amanda's new Morris emerged.

Scatty Williams sat at the wheel while Lugg, exerting his full strength for one of the rare times in his life, pushed the car silently into the yard. Scatty dismounted and together they disappeared into the mill, to return some minutes later, bearing most of Amanda's new radio equipment and a coil of rope. These were loaded carefully into the back of the car, and the vehicle was then steered silently down the lane.

Some minutes later, when the two conspirators judged they were out of earshot. they started the engine and drove off, turning down the lower road to avoid the heath.

For some hours after this secret departure the house and mill were perfectly silent. Even the water in the race was barely flowing, and behind the shuts the sluggish river mounted slowly.

As with many country mills where the local river boards are lax, there was not sufficient water power to move the wheel at all times, so that Amanda was accustomed to raise the shuts before a bout of work in order that the necessary force could accumulate for her purpose. It seemed that she had a special programme on hand to-day.

At seven o'clock Mary came down and the kitchen quarters sprang to life, and it was to the pleasant clatter of
delf and the sizzle of bacon that Guffy arose and went down, missing for the second time that day a phenomenon which might have given him food for thought.

He had just passed the landing window when a dishevelled figure barely recognizable as Amanda crept out from among some shrubs in the garden and sprinted the last few steps to the side door. She slipped into the house and gained her own room without being seen. Her costume, which consisted of a bathing dress and a pair of ragged flannel trousers lifted from Hal's cupboard, was covered with green lichen, and her hair was wild and full of twigs. But there was a gleam of triumph in her eyes and her cheeks were red with excitement.

She washed and changed with the speed of a revue star, and trotted downstairs, demure and downy, to find Hal and Guffy conferring in the hall. Oblivious of the thought that they might not want her assistance, she joined them, and peered over her brother's shoulder at the note he held.

The boy glanced at Guffy enquiringly and, receiving his shrug of acquiescence, handed her the paper.

‘Found on Lugg's pillow this morning,' he said. ‘His bed hasn't been slept in either, or else he made it before he went.'

Amanda read the message aloud. ‘To whom it may concern. I am bunging off. Yours respectfully, Magersfontein Lugg.'

‘Poor dear,' said Amanda.

‘Poor dear, my foot!' said Hal contemptuously. ‘Clearing out just when things are getting exciting. Look here, Amanda, your behaviour up till now has been very bad, but we're going to give you one more chance. We've been talking to the postman this morning, and he tells us that these so-called hikers on the heath have got five fast cars and about a dozen motor-bikes in that white barn on the Sweethearting Road. He's seen 'em.'

As Amanda did not seem particularly impressed, he went on:

‘There's more to it than that. When Perry went round with the letters he was naturally curious, so he rode over the heath quite near the tents, and he says he saw a man sitting outside one of them cleaning a revolver. Now what do you say? Archaeologists don't carry guns in England.'

‘Who said they were archaeologists? Come in to breakfast. By the way, Aunt Hatt says old Galley wants everyone to put on clean linen to go to his party. I hope you remembered this morning.'

It was not until noon, and the heat which the early mist had promised had become a sweltering reality, boding thunder to come, that the second surprise of that amazing day burst upon the people of the mill.

Guffy was pacing up and down the dining-room in an agony of indecision, struggling with the premonition that something was about to happen, and the sober reflection that hardly anything else could when the car containing a self-conscious policeman and a bluff but didactic inspector arrived.

Mary, who had spent the morning devoted to household affairs with the sweet womanly abstraction which Mr Randall admired, was the first to interview them. She came bursting into the dining-room a few minutes later, her face pale and her eyes starting.

‘It's the police from Ipswich. They want Farquharson and Eager-Wright.'

The two young men, who had been lounging in the window-seat, sprang up in astonishment and, followed by Guffy, clucking and anxious as a hen with a brood, hurried into the hall. Hal was already there pressing, with unerring instinct, beer on the perspiring but adamant inspector.

Amanda, too, had lounged over from the mill, and now stood draped against the doorpost, surveying the scene with calm, childlike eyes.

‘Mr Jonathan Eager-Wright?' enquired the inspector, consulting his notebook, as the young men appeared.

Eager-Wright nodded. ‘Anything I can do?'

The official regarded him mournfully. ‘Yes, sir,' he said. ‘Just stand on one side, will you? That's right. Now, Mr Richard Montgomery Farquharson? Oh, that's you, sir, is it? Well, Jonathan Eager-Wright and Richard Montgomery Farquharson, I arrest you both and severally on a joint charge of attempting to obtain under false pretences valuable exhibits from the Brome House Museum, Norwich, on Friday, the 3rd last. I have to warn you that anything you may say will be taken down as evidence against you. Now, gentlemen, I must ask you to come with me. Here are the warrants if you'd care to see them.'

Guffy was the first to break the frozen silence which followed this announcement.

‘Really!' he exploded. ‘I say, Inspector, this is ridiculous. In the first place Eager-Wright never went near the place, and . . .'

He broke off in some confusion as he caught Farquharson's startled glance.

‘Anyhow, it's absurd,' he finished lamely.

The inspector thrust his notebook back into his coat-tails and sighed.

‘If you've anything to say, sir, germane to the issue as they say, then you come back to the station and say it there. I'm sorry, but I must take these gentlemen along.'

‘I'll certainly come.' Guffy was crimson with indignation and guilty alarm. ‘I'll phone my friend the County Commissioner, too. This is damnable, officer, frankly damnable.' He advanced upon his hat on the stand as if it had been an enemy, and Amanda leapt forward.

‘Don't leave us,' she whispered, with just enough dramatic effect to flatter Mr Randall's mood. ‘Don't forget we haven't even got Lugg now.'

Guffy stopped in his tracks, and Farquharson, who had heard the appeal, spoke hastily.

‘She's quite right, Randall. You can't leave the house.
Don't worry, my dear old boy. We'll be back during the day. These fellows only want a satisfactory explanation. Don't you, Inspector?' he added, turning the full force of his lazy, charming smile on the policeman.

‘I'm sure I hope you'll be able to give one, sir,' said that worthy without much enthusiasm, while his attendant sprite in the helmet smirked irritatingly.

Eager-Wright joined in the discussion. ‘We're all right, Guffy,' he said. ‘I'll phone my old boy if necessary. Don't get alarmed. You hold the fort until we return – probably about tea-time. I hope nothing exciting happens until we do get back.'

‘You come along, my lad,' said the inspector, suddenly growing tired of the conversation. ‘You'll get all the excitement you want.'

A stricken group stood in the doorway and watched the departure of the police car. Eager-Wright and Farquharson were wedged in the back, the plump inspector between them.

Guffy passed a trembling hand over his brow. A long line of law-abiding squires had produced in him a subconscious horror of the police and their ways which no hardened criminal could equal.

‘I ought to go and phone about those fellows,' he said. ‘Where's the nearest place?'

‘Sweethearting,' said Amanda promptly. ‘And I don't think you ought to leave Mary and Aunt Hatt alone. After all, Hal and I aren't much good in a scrap. It was all right yesterday when we had Lugg and no one was about, but now all those people have arrived on the heath . . .'

She broke off. Mary frowned at her.

‘Nonsense. We're perfectly all right,' she said. ‘Amanda, you're simply behaving ridiculously.'

Guffy became thoughtful, and his round, good-natured face was troubled.

‘She's right,' he said at last. ‘Of course, I must stay here.
Those fellows can look after themselves. I imagine it's only a case of a phone call or two, establishing identity or arranging bail. It's infernally awkward, however. I mean to say, in a sense Farquharson and I are guilty. I wonder how they got hold of our names?'

No one volunteered any reply to this problem, but Mary sniffed the air suspiciously.

‘My cakes,' she said. ‘They're in the oven.'

‘I – er – I'll come and help you,' Guffy offered, following her precipitate flight into the kitchen. ‘It may clear the air a bit,' he added inanely.

Hal and Amanda exchanged glances and it seemed to Hal that his sister was definitely more amenable. The sudden depletion in their numbers made for friendliness.

‘Come over to the mill,' she suggested. ‘I've something to show you.'

He followed her dubiously. ‘I didn't smell burning,' he said. ‘Did you?'

‘No,' said Amanda. ‘It was camphor. The policemen's clothes, I think. Didn't you notice something about those men?'

‘What?' he enquired cautiously.

‘That they weren't real policemen, of course,' said his sister.

‘Not real . . .?' Hal stared at her, his jaw falling open. ‘But why didn't you say? We might have stopped them. Good Lord, Amanda, why on earth didn't you mention it?'

‘Because,' she said darkly, ‘I had my reasons. Come along and I'll tell you.'

‘
WHAT DO YOU
think of it?' enquired Amanda.

Her brother, who was squatting among the reeds that fringed the millpool, peered down at the boat hidden so cunningly among the bushes before replying.

‘It's not at all bad,' he admitted. ‘Who fixed it up?'

‘Scatty and I. It's all part of the scheme. I'm afraid you've got to trust me for an hour or two longer, though.'

‘I haven't trusted you for a minute yet,' he observed drily, his eyes still fixed upon the boat.

In many ways it was an extraordinary craft. In foundation it consisted of the old ferry punt in which Amanda and Scatty got about in flood time, but its appearance had been considerably changed by a superstructure of light leafy branches and gorse, so that its real character was completely hidden, and while there was sufficient room for four or five people to crouch inside, to the casual observer it resembled nothing so much as a floating bush or a tangle of brushwood which had come adrift from some pile on the bank.

Amanda pointed downstream to the leafy tunnel ahead.

‘In the dusk,' she said softly, ‘no one from the road would notice that going down, would they? Once I lower the shuts there'll be enough water to send us downstream with a rush.'

The boy straightened himself, and eyed her dubiously. ‘I hope for your sake that you're not playing the fool, Amanda,' he said.