Sweet Danger (19 page)

He came in at the door, glanced round to make sure that they had all finished, and then turned to his aunt deferentially.

‘I wonder if you would mind, dear,' he said in exactly the tone which his father and grandfather must have used before him in their more pompous moments. ‘There is something I would like to discuss with our guests, as I feel it concerns them.'

Aunt Hatt, who was extremely fond of her nephew, withdrew immediately without so much as a smile, beckoning Mary to follow her.

Hal went over to Guffy, who was standing on the hearthrug reflecting that the Fitton family had a charm which made even their quarrelling delightful.

‘Look here, Randall,' – the boy's tone was gravity itself – ‘I've got a confession to make on behalf of my sister Amanda. I'm sorry she's behaved like this, but you know what women are – no manners when it comes to it. I don't think they can help it. Just natural weakness, I imagine. I say,' he went on, suddenly forgetting his head of the family pose, ‘she really has got that money. I've seen it. Three hundred pounds in five-pound notes. It's awfully fishy, isn't it? However, that isn't what I was going to talk to you about. I'd like you all to hear about this, although it's rather disgusting. When I went up to Amanda just now I came on her somewhat unexpectedly. She was reading this letter. I asked her whom it was from, but she wouldn't tell me. And then I saw the envelope lying on the bed. Look, here it is. It's addressed to Campion.'

He stood before them, the envelope which Guffy had seen in the hall held out in front of him. It was considerably crumpled and explained in some measure the noise of five minutes before. Hal was blushing painfully.

‘I can't tell you how sorry I am, and I don't want to make excuses for her. She's behaved atrociously, and I've told her so. I would like to say, though, that she doesn't always do this sort of thing. She's not that kind of girl at all. Perhaps,' he added hopefully, ‘they knocked her on the head rather badly last night. It might be that, you know. Still, I think you ought to read the letter. It's not my affair, I know, but it does seem important. Aunt Hatt and Mary and I can't very well help gathering what you're up to down here, and – well, it seems important.'

He thrust a ragged piece of notepaper into Guffy's hand.

‘I'm afraid Amanda's read it,' he remarked. ‘But she didn't seem particularly interested. I think she took it in a fit of wanton mischievousness.'

He pronounced the last phrase as a single word, and seemed considerably relieved to get it off his chest.

Guffy read the letter carefully. It was a remarkable document, written in a flowing, somewhat affected hand on a large sheet of buff-coloured notepaper, ornamented by a crimson facsimile address stamp.

‘My dear sir: In reply to your civil letter I may say that I was profoundly interested in the question you raise. In my letter to
The Times
of July 4th last year, which you are pleased to quote, I referred to the reprehensible habit of the curators of our lesser-known museums of relegating some of their most interesting exhibits to the more musty and inaccessible corners of the ugly, ill-ventilated mausoleums over which they preside.

‘As it happens, I am able to answer the question which you raise, and let me take this opportunity of assuring you that it is
no
trouble at all, but that I take a very
real
pleasure
in being able to perform what I regard as a public service. I may say that in a long, and, I trust, useful, pursuit of correspondence with the public Press, I have seldom attempted to reply to a question which has interested me more. The Pontisbright drum, which you refer to erroneously as the Malplaquet drum – its generally accepted appellation being the
Pontisbright
drum of Malplaquet – was placed in the parish church at Pontisbright when the ancient mansion was demolished and the tide fell into abeyance.

‘Some years later, in 1913 to be exact, it was loaned, by whose authority I know not (although I should certainly like to have a word with that gentleman!), to the Brome House Museum at Norwich, where it remains to this day, a shocking example of laxity in the preservation of ancient relics. I feel sure you will respect my confidence in this matter and not bruit it to the Press until you, in your position (which is, I trust I am right in assuming, the incumbent of the parish), have been able to secure its return. As I know the curator of the Brome House Museum slightly, I have taken the liberty of dropping him a note by the same mail informing him that his little delinquency has been surprised, and that I fear he must surrender the prize he has held so long. (I am afraid the good people of Norwich have long since ceased to regard the drum as the eighth wonder of the world, as it is now, I hear, in a very inferior position.)

‘My friend Mr Formby (I feel sure he will remember my name, although we are only correspondent acquaintances) held his present post at the time of the original loan, so there should not be any irritating formalities.

‘Thanking you again for the many civilities, and, I fear, flatteries, which you have been kind enough to write about my little hobby, and expressing the hope that I have been of some slight assistance in your estimable quest,

‘I beg to remain, my dear sir,

‘Your obedient servant,

‘R
UDYARD
G
LENCANNON
.'

‘Well, I'm damned!' said Guffy. ‘What a genius Campion was – is, I mean. Well, that settles that, doesn't it?'

Hal coughed discreetly. ‘I don't want to interfere, of course,' he said, ‘but who is Mr Glencannon?'

‘One of the prime busybodies of the world,' said Farquharson, grinning. ‘You're bound to come across his name sooner or later. He's an old boy of independent means who spends his life writing to the newspapers. He must spend half his day reading them and the other half writing to them. He's been going for fifty years or so, and, of course, by this time he's a mine of information. Just the one person in the world to appeal to on a question of this sort. Campion must have written to him as soon as Amanda showed him the oak.'

Hal still hovered and it occurred to Guffy that the boy's position was invidious.

‘Look here,' he said, ‘I don't know how much you've gathered, but I'd like to assure you that we're definitely on the right side and all that sort of thing. I know we can count on you at any time, can't we?'

It was just the right attitude to adopt, and Hal, who was so precocious in some things, and such a child in others, regarded him gratefully.

‘Any time,' he said enthusiastically. ‘Rather! I say, are you going to dress up as parsons and get the drum?'

Guffy was silent for a moment. The call to action contained in the letter had not before occurred to him, and he was somewhat taken aback by this startling suggestion.

‘Why, no,' he said, and laughed. ‘Of course, we can hardly do that.'

Eager-Wright joined him, but Farquharson grimaced.

‘It's rather the sort of thing Campion would do, isn't it?' he said. ‘I mean, after all, we've got to get hold of the drum somehow or other, and in the circumstances the way seems open for us to go right in and ask for it.'

‘There's something in that, you know,' agreed Eager-Wright
quickly. ‘We can't very well dress up as parsons, of course; it's a rather serious, unpleasant offence, to start with, and I don't think any of us could bring it off, for another thing. But, after all, I don't see why we shouldn't turn up as lay-readers or something – zealous parishioners who have called to take the parish property back to its old home.'

Guffy looked profoundly uncomfortable. A naturally law-abiding soul, he was appalled by the illegality of the project.

‘I say, you know, it's stealing,' he objected.

Eager-Wright shrugged his shoulders. ‘We could always call it kleptomania of an usual kind. And, besides, we can put it back in the church when we've finished with it. It belongs there, anyway. Hang it! we should be performing a valuable public service, as old Ramsbottom, or Glencannon, or whatever his name is, points out. Look here, let's do that, Guffy. We'll all go up to Norwich this afternoon and interview the curator. If we mention Glencannon's name I don't see why we shouldn't get away with it. We can explain we've offered our services and our car to save the parish the cost of transport. People often do that sort of thing.'

‘Not a bad idea,' agreed Farquharson. ‘I'm afraid we shall have to leave you in the town, Wright. With your face in its present condition, you hardly look
bona fide
as the Reverend Campion's right-hand man. How about it, Guffy?'

Mr Randall hesitated. ‘It's rather an extraordnary thing to do,' he said cautiously. ‘We shall have to do the thing properly. If we make a hash of the interview we shall never get hold of the drum. Perhaps if we wore dark suits and called about four o'clock in the afternoon just before closing time we might get away with it. We may be getting on the right track at last.'

‘What about defence here?' enquired Farquharson. ‘Lugg will be your only assistant, Hal. Look here, shall we leave Wright behind?'

‘Oh, Lord, no.' The boy was polite but firm in his refusal. ‘We shall be ready for anyone this time. Besides, I imagine they did everything they wanted to do .last night, or else satisfied themselves there was nothing here.'

The inference of the first part of his remark dawned upon Guffy before the others and he glanced up to see the boy staring gloomily out of the window, suspicion and discomfort in his eyes.

As though in answer to their thoughts, there was a whirr and a rustle from without, and the ‘car', every inch of its crimson surface a-quiver, slid out of the coach-house and shot across the drive. Amanda, bolt upright and impudent, sat at the wheel, with Scatty, huddled and a little scared, beside her.

Moved by a sudden impulse, Hal threw open the casement and shouted to her:

‘Amanda! Come back! I want to talk to you.'

His sister waved her hand with blissful disregard, and was gone.

‘Where are you going!' he bellowed.

Very faint, but clear and triumphant, her voice returned to them on the wind.

‘To spend three hundred pounds, you poor fish!'

‘
EVER STOLEN ANYTHING
before, Farquharson?' said Guffy as they pulled up in the market place at Norwich to drop Eager-Wright and enquire of a policeman for the Brome House Museum.

‘Hundreds of things,' said Farquharson. ‘What's a little drum, anyway? If I see anything else I like I shall bring it back as well. If we get away with this we might start on the South Ken. There's a large-sized model of a flea there I've always had my eye on.'

Left to themselves, however, their mood sobered. Neither was particularly keen on the task, and the prospect of misrepresenting themselves to some eagle-eyed guardian of the city's treasures appeared uninviting in the extreme.

Since Mr Campion's mantle had descended upon him, however, Guffy was determined to see the thing through. The only museum he ever remembered visiting was the Victoria and Albert, and he pictured himself being thrown out ignominiously by resplendent officials and delivered to the local police to be brought up on the following day, on a charge of attempted theft, before his old acquaintance Sir Geoffrey Partington, the magistrate for the district.

Farquharson sat quiet and placid, prepared, apparently, to take everything in his stride.

Guffy swung the car into Maple Street, and sought for Number 21. To his surprise this building turned out to be an ordinary house, presenting an even greater problem than an impersonal stone palace. It was not even a particularly
large house, but a pathetic, rather dingy late Georgian edifice with a small brass plate on the front door which announced timidly to the curious that the ‘Brome Grotto and Museum' lay within.

Here was no magnificent
concierge
, no stream of people, no confusion under cover of which they might secure their treasure and depart. Even the door was latched.

Guffy rang the old-fashioned iron bell-pull and waited, his heart thumping ridiculously. So great was his alarm that he almost turned and fled when heavy footsteps on the tiles within warned them that someone was coming to obey their summons. The next moment the door was opened and the two nervous desperadoes were confronted by a somewhat disastrous spectacle.

A man who had once been tall and broad, but who was now both bent and shrunken, stood before them. He was clad in a shiny blue serge suit, which had evidently been made for him in the days of his former pride, and a dull red face, greasy eyes and dusty sandy hair completed his unedifying appearance. He smiled at them hopefully.

‘You've come to see the Grotto?' he enquired. ‘I shan't be half a minute. I'm just getting a letter off to the post, so perhaps you'll go round by yourselves. If you'll just step in I'll give you a ticket. That'll be threepence each – thank you.'

While he spoke he backed, waving his hands in front of him with a curiously enticing movement, and they found themselves in a very ordinary narrow hall adorned with a few cases of stuffed birds and some packets of faded picture postcards spread out on a decrepit table. From among these the unpleasant person produced a roll of tickets, two of which he traded for a sixpence.

‘Well, there you are,' he said, pointing to a room on their left. ‘Go though the museum, down the steps and across the garden to the grotto. I'll just finish my letter and then I'll come and give you the history.'

He had wandered off and disappeared through a small archway at the end of the hall before either of them could speak. The closing of a door seemed to jerk Guffy back to his senses.