"I know!" she exclaimed. "Let"s get into the bed! It"s quite dark now. If it"s foggy enough, no one will see us."
They went up the steps again and crossed the pavement. Ah! It was good to crawl under the blankets and to pull up the eiderdown. Above them the sky looked grayish between the steep black roofs. The stars had disappeared.
"I honestly don"t call this much of an adventure," whispered Charles.
"I know," Carey replied. "But it"s the first time. We"ll get better at it."
Between them, Paul breathed deeply, exuding a pleasant warmth.
Carey must have been asleep for some time when the shock came. At first, shaken out of a dream, she lay quite still. Damp darkness . . . her legs felt pinioned. Where was she. Then she remembered.
"Please!" she cried, with an agonized squeak. The fog had deepened. She could see nothing.
There was a hoa.r.s.e gasp. "Well, I"ll be-"
"Please," cried Carey again, interrupting. "Please get off my foot."
A light flashed on, a terrifying dazzling circle; shining straight in their eyes as it did, it felt like a searchlight.
The gruff voice said again, "Well, I"ll be blowed-kids!"
The weight lifted itself, and thankfully Carey curled back her legs, blinking at the glare. She knew suddenly, without being able to see a thing, that behind that light was a policeman. She felt a policeman, large and tall and fat and creaking.
He switched off his flashlight. "Kids!" he said again in a surprised voice. Then he became stern. "Can"t "ave this, you know." He breathed heavily. "Can"t "ave beds, like this, in the street. Danger to the public. Caught me on the shin, this bed did. A street"s no place for beds. Where"s your mother?"
"I don"t know," said Carey in a low voice.
"Speak up," said the policeman. "What"s your name?"
"Carey Wilson."
On went the light again and out came a notebook. Again the policeman sat down. The bed creaked, but Carey"s toes were out of reach.
"Address?"
Charles sat up sleepily. "What?" he said.
Carey had a sudden vision of Aunt Beatrice"s face, the tight lips, the pink-rimmed eyes. She thought of her mother, worried, upset. Letters, policemen, complaints, fines, prison.
"Look," said Carey, "I"m terribly sorry we hurt your shin. If you just move, we"ll take the bed away, and then you won"t be troubled any more. We"ll take it right away. Really."
"This "ere"s an iron bed," said the policeman. "This "ere bed"s good and heavy."
"We can take it," urged Carey. "We brought it here. We have a way of taking it."
"I don"t see no way of-taking this bed anywhere-not in this fog."
"If you"d just move a moment," said Carey, "we"ll show you."
"Not so fast, miss." The policeman was getting into his stride. "I"m not moving anywhere, just at present. Where did you bring this "ere bed from?"
Carey hesitated. Trouble-that was what they were heading for. She thought again of Aunt Beatrice. And of Miss Price-oh, Miss Price, that was almost the worst of all; to tell about Miss Price would be the end of everything-yet no good ever came of lying.
"Well," said Carey, trying to think quickly.
"We brought it from my room," put in Paul suddenly.
"Oh," said the policeman heavily. He had adopted a slightly sarcastic tone to hide his bewilderment. "And where might your room be?"
"Next to Carey"s," said Paul. "At the end of the pa.s.sage."
The policeman, who had switched off his light, switched it on again right into Paul"s eyes. Carey and Charles, who up to that moment had thought little or nothing of Paul"s looks, suddenly realized that he had a face like an angel. Two little wings could have been tied to his back and they would not have looked out of place. Even a halo would have suited Paul.
The policeman switched out his light. "Poor little shaver," he muttered, "dragging "im round London at this time o" night."
This was more than Carey could stand. "Why," she cried indignantly, "it"s all his fault. It was all his idea-"
"Now, now," said the policeman. "That"s enough. What I want to know is, where did you get this "ere bed? What part o" London, to be exact?"
"It didn"t come from London at all," said Charles.
"Then WHERE did it come from?" thundered the policeman.
"From Bedfordshire," said Carey.
The policeman stood up. Carey heard him catch his breath angrily.
"Joke, eh?"
"Not at all," said Carey.
"You mean to tell me you brought this "ere bed all the way up from Bedfordshke?"
"Yes," said Carey.
The policeman sighed. Carey felt him trying to be patient. "By train?"
"No," said Carey.
"Then how, may I ask?"
"Well-" said Carey. She thought again of Miss Price. "Well, we can"t really tell you."
"You tell me how you brought this bed up from Bedfordshire or you come along with me to the police station-where you"re coming anyway," he added.
"All right," said Carey, feeling the tears sting into her eyes. "I"ll tell you. If you want to know, we brought it up by magic."
There was a silence. A terrific silence. Carey wondered if the policeman was going to hit her with his truncheon, but when at last he spoke, he spoke very quietly. "Oh, you did, did you? By magic. Now I"ll tell you something. You"ve "card of the law, "aven"t you? Well, the law is just and, in a manner of speaking, the law is kind, but there"s one thing the law can"t be-" He took a deep breath. "The law can"t be made fun of. Now, all three of you, get out of that there bed and come along with me to the station!"
With a sinking heart Carey drew her legs from under the blankets.
"I haven"t any shoes on," said Charles.
There was no reply. The policeman seemed drawn away from them in spirit, wrapped in lofty silence.
"Nor has Paul," pointed out Carey. "You"ll have to carry him," she added.
THE POLICE STATION.
It was not a long walk, but it was a trying one for Charles in his stocking feet. Never before had he realized quite how many different kinds of surface go to make a London street. Paul rode majestically in the policeman"s arms, sharing the policeman"s vast aloofness. Carey walked in dark depression. Every step they took away from the bed decreased their chances of escape. Prison! "Oh," she thought in desperation, "why didn"t I tell Paul to wish the bed away with us, policeman and all?" But that might have been even more complicated; arriving back at Aunt Beatrice"s with a policeman; trying to smuggle a policeman out of Paul"s bedroom, to smuggle a policeman out of the house . . . and he wasn"t at all the kind of policeman who would lend himself to being smuggled anywhere. There was, Carey realized unhappily, practically no reliable method of getting rid of unwanted policemen. No, bad as it was,-this possibly was the lesser of the two evils.
They were in the police station almost before they knew it. There was a long counter, a green-shaded light, and a gray-haired policeman without a hat. He had a tired, thin face, a soldier"s face. Carey felt herself trembling.
"Well, Sergeant?" said the gray-haired officer wearily. "I thought we were through for tonight."
"Well, sir, these "ere children, sir. Thought I"d better bring "em along. Out in the street, with a bed, sir. Obstructing traffic-public nuisance as it were."
The inspector was reaching for his cap, which hung on a peg.
"Well, take their names and addresses and get hold of the parents." He paused and turned slowly. "Out in the street with a what?"
"With a bed, sir."
"A BED!".
"Yes, sir, an iron bed like, with bra.s.s k.n.o.bs on."
The inspector looked wonderingly at Carey. Suddenly Carey knew she liked his face. She liked the screwed-up look of his eyes and the tired lines of his mouth. She wished terribly that she had not been brought before him as a criminal. He looked at all three of them for a moment longer, then he addressed the sergeant.
"Where is the bed now?"
"There in the street, sir. Markham Square."
"Better send the van to collect the bed." He sighed. "And hand these children over to Mrs. Watkins till you get hold of the parents. I"m dead beat, Sergeant. Court at nine-thirty, don"t forget. I"ll need you and Sergeant Coles."
"Yes, sir. Good night, sir."
As the inspector pa.s.sed, on his way to the door, he glanced again at the children. "He would have talked to us," Carey thought, "if he hadn"t been so tired." She felt very frightened. If only someone had scolded them, she would have felt less frightened. She felt as if something bigger than a person had got hold of them, something enormous, something of which the policemen themselves stood in awe. She guessed it was the "law"-the law that "could not be made fun of."
The sergeant was speaking into a telephone, which hung from a bracket on the wall.
"Yes, three of "em. . . . No-just overnight. . . . No, "e"s gone off. Dead beat, "e was. . . . Cup o" tea? Not if you got it made, I wouldn"t. . . . Righty oh."
He brought out his notebook and wrote down their mother"s address. "Why," he said, after some minutes of silent and ponderous calculation. "You was right by your own "ouse."
"Mother"s away," said Carey quickly, hoping to stop him ringing up.
"Did you say you brought the bed up from Bedfordshire?"
"We did," said Carey. "The house is locked up."
The policeman was busy writing. "Right by your own "ouse," he murmured. "That"s different."
"Well," he said, closing his notebook. "Come along with me for the time being."
He took the children down a pa.s.sage, out of a back door into a pitch-dark, courtyard. "Mind where you tread," he told them.
Paul took Carey"s hand. "Are we going to prison?" he whispered.
"I don"t know," Carey whispered back. "I think so."
"How many years," asked Paul, "will they keep us in prison?"
"I don"t know," said Carey, "not many."
"Come on," said the sergeant. They felt he was holding a door open. They squeezed past his stomach into another pa.s.sage. They were indoors again. The sergeant switched on a light. "Mrs. Watkins," he called.
Mrs. Watkins was a bustling kind of woman, a cross- Carey thought-between a cloakroom attendant and a nurse. She wore a white ap.r.o.n and a red woolen cardigan over it. She took them into a room in which there was a bed-like a hospital bed, thought Carey-two imitation-leather armchairs, a table, and an aspidistra in a pot. She bustled Paul onto the bed and covered him with a blanket. Then she turned to Charles and Carey. "Cocoa or tea?" she asked them.
Carey hesitated. "Whichever"s easiest for you," she said politely.
"The sergeant"s having tea."
"Well, tea if you"ve got it made," said Carey timidly. "Thank you very much," she added.
Mrs. Watkins stared at Carey for a minute. "Lost, are you?" she asked curiously.
Carey, sitting on the edge of the imitation-leather armchair, smiled uneasily. "Not exactly."
"Up to mischief?" asked Mrs. Watkins.
Carey blushed, and tears came into her eyes. "Not exactly," she stammered.
"Well," said Mrs. Watkins kindly, "you sit there quiet and be good children and you"ll have a nice cup o" tea."
"Thank you," murmured Carey indistinctly.
As the door closed behind Mrs. Watkins and the key turned in the lock, Carey burst into tears. Charles stared at her miserably, and Paul, sitting up in bed with interest, asked, "What are you crying for, Carey?"
"This is all so awful," wept Carey, trying at the same time to staunch her tears with her handkerchief.
"I don"t think it"s so awful," said Paul. "I like this prison."
Charles glared at him. "Only because you"re going to have a cup of tea, and you know you"re not allowed tea at home."
"No," said Paul rather vaguely, "I like prisons like this."
"Well, it isn"t even a prison. It"s a police station."