Hue and Cry (16 page)

“Then I think we'll let Ethan put him in the hutch.”

Bunty displayed a finger with a minute red mark on it.

“I don't mind if he bites me ever so. Ethan said it was brave of me not to mind. I wouldn't mind how fierce he was—not if his whiskers were quite stiff with fierceness, I wouldn't. Ethan said it was very brave of me.”

The rabbit snuffed the air with a trembling nose, moved one foot, and then stiffened again.

“I love Ethan,” said Bunty. “I'm going to marry him when I am old. He says I may have fifty hundred rabbits and a million guinea-pigs if I like. Mummy hates guinea-pigs quite
dreadful.
She
won't
let me have them. An' she hates rabbits too. But I shrieked, an' howled, an' shrieked till she said I could keep Dinks.”

“How awful of you!”

Miss Lennox agreed.

“Yes,
wasn't
it? But I wanted him so as I would have
bit
if they wouldn't of let me have him—an' that's the
very
worst of all.”

“What is?”

Bunty gazed at her with angelic candor; her eyes were like bits of blue sky.

“Biting is—the
very
worst. When I bit the butler, Mummy sent me to bed
all
day. Shall we put Dinks in his hutch?”

“No,” said Mally firmly. “Ethan shall put him in his hutch.”

“Oh! Then shall we play a game? Ethan plays lovely games. What kind of games can you play?”

Mally put her fingers on her lips.

“Ssh! I
am
playing a game—a hiding game. I'm in the middle of it—it's frightfully exciting. Will you help me?”

“U-m-m.” There was no doubt of Bunty's heartfelt agreement. “Let me play, too. Who are you hiding from? Are you hiding from Ethan?”

“No, not from Ethan.”

Bunty jumped up.

“Are you hiding from Paul? I saw him. Are you hiding from him?”

“Ssh! Yes.”

Bunty bobbed up and down.

“Paul is a pig. Mummy says I'm simply not to call him it, but he
is.”

“Bunty,” said Mally quickly, “I want to get away without any one seeing me. When do the men go to their dinner? Could I get away then—out of the back somewhere?”

Bunty nodded emphatically.

“U-m-m, you could. Lane's gone to his dinner now. I saw him. His wife makes a nawful fuss if he's the least bit of a minute late, an' she makes him take off his boots in the scullery an' wash. I don't like her
much,
but I like Lane.”

“And the other man?”

“Jack goes as soon as Lane goes. Shall I go an' look an' come back an' tell you, an' then I can open the gate on to the down—at least I can open it if you hold me up the teeniest scrap of an inch. Shall I?”

She didn't really wait for an answer, but was gone by way of the hay-loft, and in less than no time came clattering back full of importance and mystery.

“There isn't no one there. Shall we play you're a princess an' Paul is a wicked magician, an' shall we play you've got on a cloak of darkness an' I'm the fairy queen what's helping you, an' shall we play that no one can't see us an' that you've got on seven-league boots?”

“Ssh. Not a word!” Mally bent close to the little pink ear. “Not a single word, or the magic will stop.”

Bunty pursed her lips and nodded till all the curls flew. They crossed the loft together.

Paul Craddock meanwhile had had to wait for his interview with the celebrated explorer, who was having a bath and taking an uncommonly long time over it. When he descended at last, he found a fuming host.

“Marrington, I really must apologize—er—this is Mr. Craddock, Sir George Peterson's private secretary—er—he insists—but really I consider the whole thing ridiculous, and, as I say, I apologize.”

Mr. Paul Craddock explained himself. He was really very sorry to trouble Mr. Marrington. The fact was Sir George had missed important papers, and the girl who was suspected of having taken them had been traced to the garage where Mr. Marrington had left his car.

“We thought it just possible that she might have concealed herself in one of the cars there. The missing papers are confidential, and Sir George is very much concerned to recover them.”

This was Mr. Craddock at his most courteous. Could Mr. Marrington give them any assistance? It appeared that Mr. Marrington could. He was, in fact, very pleasantly frank—wished he had known sooner; was distressed lest Sir George should be inconvenienced by any negligence of his.

“As a matter of fact, I took the girl for an absconding typist or cashier, or something of that sort. There was a paragraph—and the description seemed to fit. I suppose I ought to have handed her over to the police. But it didn't seem to be my business, and——”

“You let her go?”

“I'm afraid I did.”

Sir Charles was very properly shocked. He was a J.P. and did not conceive it possible that any guest of his could connive—“Hey, what?” Thought burst into speech:

“My dear sir, you don't mean to say that you let her go?”

“Yes, I'm afraid so.” Marrington's slight gesture expressed a bored amusement.

Sir Charles turned purple.

“My dear Marrington, you can't be aware—hey, what? Did you know that you were rendering yourself liable? Good heavens, Marrington, the girl's a common criminal—and you let her go! Hey, what? You're an accessory after the fact—and I'm on the bench, begad!”

Ethan Messenger left them to it. He walked up through the garden in a heavy mood. “The girl's a common criminal——” The words made his mood the heavier. He had shielded Mally on the impulse of the moment. He began to wonder why he had done it. But even as he wondered he knew that he would probably do it again. He had a constitutional dislike to seeing weak things hurt or frightened. When it led him to the rescue of a harried kitten, it was merely an amiable idiosyncrasy; but when it rushed him into aiding and abetting young criminals—what about it?

Ethan was not sure, but he knew very well that he couldn't give Mally away.

He came into the workshop and found Miss Bunty Lennox there, poking Dinks with a straw. She greeted him with a cry of rapture which made the rabbit quiver from nose to tail.

“Put him in his hutch! She said wait for you, so I waited. I wanted her to put him in, but she wouldn't. She said wait an' let
you
put him in.”

Ethan knelt down by the parrot's cage and transferred Dinks deftly to the hutch.

“Did he bite you? He bited me.”

“That's because you frightened him.”

“She said that too,” said Bunty, hopping on one leg. “Does he like his hutch?”

“Who is ‘she'?”

Bunty came quite close and blew into his ear:

“The hiding princess.”

How reassuring is the atmosphere of fairy tales! Ethan put an arm round Bunty.

“I say, Bun, what d'you mean?”

“She said you knew. She said she was hiding, an' we played she was a princess, an' we played no one could see us, an' no one did, because I looked first to see there wasn't no one there, an' I let her out of the back gate, an' she ran away, an' I won't tell no one, only you, because it's a magic secret an' because of Paul being a pig——Oh!” she screamed. “Look, Ethan, look! Dinks is washing his face!”

CHAPTER XX

In the library Sir Charles Lennox held forth.

“I'll have nothing more to do with the matter. Most irregular—most. No warrant—nothing. If you catch the young woman, what are you going to do with her? You can't lay a finger on her without a warrant—not a finger.”

Paul Craddock kept his temper with an effort.

“Sir George is not vindictive,” he said. “He doesn't wish to prosecute Miss Lee.”

“What's he playing at then? Doesn't wish to prosecute. What does he want?”

“He wants to get his papers back.”

Sir Charles walked up and down irritably. Mr. Marrington read
The Times.

“Papers? What papers? What's the girl doing taking papers?”

“I've no idea. We think she must be unhinged. The papers are of no value except to Sir George. As a matter of fact what she took was a sheet of paper with a cross-word puzzle on it. But I had made some important notes for Sir George on the back of it.”

Mr. Marrington turned a sheet of
The Times

“Never read a worse weather forecast,” he said. “Rain, sleet, snow——”

Paul took no notice.

“May I use the telephone, Sir Charles?”

The instrument was in the library. He had, in fact, to disturb Mr. Marrington to get at it. When the call came through, Sir Charles was still pacing up and down, Lawrence Marrington still reading. Mr. Craddock's conversation was rather limited in its scope. He said:

“Is that you, sir?” And then, “I've traced Miss Lee down here—I am speaking from Peddling Corner—but no one seems to have seen her since the middle of the night.”

He heard Sir George's voice rather faint and thin:

“Dawson has just reported. He says she had been traced in town.”

Paul Craddock whistled.

“She was here last night. She hid in Mr. Marrington's car. He took her for some one else and let her go. That was between two and three
A.M.
”

Sir George again—the line very poor and interrupted by crackling:

“Plenty of time … get back to town.… Come back.”

“What's that, sir? You want me to come back?”

He listened for a moment longer, then hung up the receiver and announced that he was going back to town. Sir Charles did not press him to stay for lunch.

Mally meanwhile had run away over the down. The ground went on rising. The grass was short and coarse and wet from last night's snow, which had thawed upon it. The sky was a dull lead color. The wind had dropped. The air felt heavy and very cold.

When she reached the top of the rise, she saw the down run sloping away into a mist. There were gorse bushes here and there, and a twisted hawthorn or two. She ran down the slope and came on a wood with a litter of last year's bracken underfoot, and a tangle of thorn, holly and oak overhead. It ran for a quarter of a mile downhill and ended in a hedgerow and a tarred road beyond. Mally went back into the wood and sat down under a holly bush.

When Paul Craddock reached town, it was to be sent off again to follow what Mr. Dawson had described as a very promising clue. He stayed only to telephone to a lady who professed herself very angry at his defection.

“You won't be able to come at
all?”

“I'm afraid not.”

“But the Holmes will be a man short.”

“I'm dreadfully sorry.”

“It will put their table out—and no time to get any one else. I'm just starting. You
might
have let me know before.”

“Candida, I couldn't. You must know how disappointed I am.”

“Are you really? Then you won't fail for tomorrow—will you? The dance at Curston—you'll get down to the Holmes' for that?”

“If I possibly can. Candida, you know——”

Miss Candida Long rang off in a temper.

The day went slowly for Mally Lee. She was cold, she was hungry, and she had to struggle hard and hard against the feeling that she could do no more. She began to count up what she might be said to have gained. She was free. She was out of London. No, she wasn't at all sure that this was a gain. London was so full of people, so much easier to lose one's self in. Here in these country lanes, if she passed man, woman, or child, they would remember that they had seen a stranger and wonder who she was. Well, anyhow she was free, and she knew where she was.

She thought of all this country in terms of Curston and the Moorings. Peddling Corner lay on the very edge of what Lady Mooring considered a possible calling distance. She exchanged calls with the Lennoxes, and saw them perhaps once a year. Mally had heard Mrs. Armitage speak of Maud Lennox and Bunty. Well, Curston would not help her, nor any one in the Moorings' circle. They had probably all heard most dreadful things about her by now. Jimmy was the only one who might have helped her, and Jimmy was on the high seas half-way to India.

“Something will turn up,” said Mally to herself.

She made up her mind to wait until it was dusk and then take the road away from Peddling Corner. Meanwhile it was cold, most frightfully cold, and dull, most frightfully dull. She pushed her hand down into her pocket, and felt the bundle that Barbara had given her in the dark bedroom. She pulled it out, curious to see what these treasured drawings would be like.

There was quite a thick pile of them. Mally put it on her knee and unfolded it. Her first thought was what a queer collection of different sorts and sizes of paper—foolscap; Silurian; blue linen; a piece of kitchen paper; and the shiny black-edged note-paper affected by Mrs. Craddock. Barbara must have gone about the house picking up a sheet here and a sheet there and hiding them. Little magpie!

Mally spread out the top sheet and found herself looking at a back view of Sir George Peterson—head, shoulders, hands holding a newspaper, all scrawled very rough and large on a piece of foolscap. She was amazed at the likeness, the few bold lines. “Oh, what a shame not to let her draw!” was the first thought; and then, sharp on that, “No one will ever be able to stop her.”

She picked up the next sheet, and laughed at the inscription which ran across it in big tumble-down letters: “This is Pinko, and I hate him.” It was not a favorable likeness of Mr. Craddock, but it was certainly a likeness. The long neck was made longer, the round cheeks rounder; but no one who had ever seen Mr. Paul Craddock would have had to be told who Pinko was.

Mally went on turning over the loose sheets. She found them quite amusing. Mrs. Craddock, with her knitting all in a tangle and six or seven needles sticking out of it at impossible angles. The pug, Bimbo, with his black lip lifted in a snarl. A less successful attempt at the magnificent orange Persian. Jones, like a ramrod in a tight braided dress. The young footman who had let Mally out. They were all there, on the edge of caricature, but astonishingly recognizable.