But the expression of ecstasy did not fade from Miss Milton"s face.
"Oh, no, it"s not that, dear boy," she said, in a dreamy, far-away voice. "It"s not that. My mother was the seventh child of a seventh child, and, though this is the first manifestation I"ve actually experienced, I"ve always known that it must be there somewhere." She looked about her with a blandly complacent smile, as the voices of Hector and Herbert arose again now in sudden altercation. "Voices everywhere . . . All around me . . ." She patted William"s head. "Be thankful that you do not hear them, dear boy. A gift like that is a great responsibility . . . Well," she drew herself up and spoke in a quick, brisk voice, "one still has to live in the material world of everyday life, has one not? One must not forget that. One must not allow any manifestation of another world to cause one to forget one"s duty in this one, and my next duty is to go to see Mrs Bott about mending the surplices. She always seems to be away from home her week, and I"ve decided to nail her down. Be sure your mother gets my note, won"t you? Well . . ." She drifted into the hall and paused as a loud shout from Hector floated up from the cellar. "They seem to follow me," she said, with a seraphic smile, "to move with me as I move . . . Well," resuming her brisk voice, "as I said, one must not neglect one"s duty . . ."
To William"s relief she had now reached the front door. He watched her drift down the drive, turn round anxiously when she reached the gate, then rea.s.sured by a yell from the twins, pa.s.s happily on her way.
"Corks!" gasped William, when she was safely out of sight. "Corks! I thought she was never goin". I"ll get "em out quick "fore anyone else comes."
He hastened down the cellar steps to find a hilarious potato fight going on. A large King Edward hurled by Hector at Herbert hit him on the nose as he reached the bottom of the stairs. He firmly resisted the temptation to join in the fight.
"We"re havin" a jolly good time," panted Herbert. "It"s a jolly fine place. I wish we"d got a place like this in our house. We"re pretendin" we"re smugglers an" pirates in a cave. We"re having a jolly good fight."
"Listen," said William urgently. "You"ve gotter go home now. This was only a sort of practice. You-"
At that moment the front-door bell rang again.
"Corks!" groaned William. "S"like a bad dream."
Once more he weighed the advantages of answering and not answering the bell, and once more decided in favour of answering. But he must secure the twins" silence. Another visitor might not be ready to ascribe their raucous young voices to psychic origins.
"Look here," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "I"ve gotter go for a minute. You"ve not gotter make a noise. Will you promise to be quiet while I"m away?"
"Is it the enemy?" said Hector, with eager interest. "We"ve been sayin" p"raps the enemy"d come. When will they start droppin" bombs?"
Herbert threw a potato at the small, grimy window, breaking one of the panes, and shrieked excitedly.
"The enemy! The enemy! The enemy! Bomb! Bomb!"
"Shut up," said William fiercely. "It is the enemy, an" they will drop bombs if you start makin" a noise. If you"re quiet they"ll go away. P"raps they"re goin" away now." He listened hopefully, but the only sound that broke the silence was another and more imperious peal of the frontdoor bell. He sighed. "No, they"re not goin" away. Well, it"ll be all right s"long as you"re quiet, but if you start kickin" up a row they"ll start droppin" bombs."
"What"ll we do if they come down here?" said Hector.
"Pelt "em with potatoes," shouted Herbert gleefully.
"Shut up!" said William.
Another peal of the front-door bell told him that the visitor was of the sort that never owns defeat, so, with another stern admonition to the twins not to speak till he returned, he hastened again up the cellar steps to the front door. Mrs Monks, the vicar"s wife, stood there with a small grocer"s paper bag in her hand. The scowl with which William greeted her was more repellent than ever.
""Fraid my mother"s out," he muttered gruffly.
Mrs Monks pushed him on to one side and sailed placidly into the hall.
"I want to leave this for the Pound Day," she said, "and write her an apology for not having left it this morning, as she asked us to."
"You needn"t stay"n write her a note," said William with a note almost of pleading in his voice. At present there was silence below, but at any moment, he felt, pandemonium might break out again. "I"ll tell her. I"ll "splain. You can go right away now. I"ll "splain all right."
"My dear William," said Mrs Monks, "I never believe in leaving explanations to a third party. In any case, I owe her an apology, and I must make it as nearly in person as possible. I certainly can"t send it verbally, even by you. Indeed, I know how often children of your age either forget to give messages, or give them in a completely garbled form."
She laid down her paper bag and handbag on the hall chest side by side, and sailed into the drawing-room taking her place at Mrs Brown"s writing table.
"I didn"t forget to bring my pound of rice this morning," she went on, "but my housemaid was taken ill, and I haven"t had a moment till now. Not a moment. I got rice, by the way, because I thought that probably no one else would think of it." Her pen moved rapidly over the paper as she spoke. William stood by her, tense and rigid, listening with every nerve for sounds from below. But all was still and silent. Evidently Hector and Herbert had taken his words to heart. Once he thought he heard someone moving in the hall, but the sound ceased almost at once, and it was plain that Mrs Monks heard nothing.
"There!" she said, signing her name with a flourish. "See she gets that, won"t you? Well, I must hurry off now." She collected her handbag from the hall chest and sailed to the front door. "Be sure you give her my note . . . Goodbye."
William heaved a sigh of relief as she sailed down the drive and disappeared into the road. The danger was over. He could now dispose of the twins before his mother came back, and- His heart sank again. Another figure was coming up the drive, carrying a grocer"s paper bag. Too late even to pretend that there was no one in the house, as he had decided to in case of future interruptions, for she had seen him and was waving to him gaily. It was Miss Thompson, who lived with her aunt at The Larches. She was small and fluttery, like a bird, and she wore a hat with a perky little feather sticking up in front like a bird"s top-knot.
"Is your mother in?" she said breathlessly, as she reached the front door. "Aren"t I naughty? I quite forgot about bringing my pound this morning. I"ve no excuse at all. I just forgot! I bought a new hat in Hadley this morning, and I"m afraid it drove everything else out of my mind." She fluttered into the hall and looked at herself in the mirror. "It"s rather nice, isn"t it?" she said. "I thought it was a bit too young at first, but the woman persisted that it wasn"t. She said everyone was wearing them, and that it was quite suitable. It"s just a leetle on the small side. It gave me a headache even in the shop, and it"s coming on again now. I must take it back to be stretched. I"ll just slip it off now while I write my note of apology to your mother. It will give my head a rest."
"I"ll tell her," said William desperately. "You needn"t write. You can go home an" rest your head prop"ly . . ."
But she wasn"t listening to him. She was putting her hat and grocer"s bag on the hall chest, side by side, and chattering away in her birdlike inconsequential fashion.
"I see I"m not the only naughty one. I do hope your mother will forgive me. Such a little scatter-brain, I always am! I got rice. I thought that probably no one else would think of it. And it"s so wholesome. Whole tribes live on it in India. Now may I just go into the drawing-room, and write my little note? I do hope she won"t be cross with me. I thought of it first thing this morning and then, as I said, the hat drove it clean out of my mind. May I sit here and use a piece of her notepaper? "Dear Mrs Brown . . ." "
William watched her helplessly, his body rigid, his ears strained. Once he thought again that he heard stealthy sounds outside the room, but decided it must be his imagination.
" "Please forgive-" " said Miss Thompson, slowly ending her note, " "your scatter-brained friend Louisa Thompson." There!" She fastened up the envelope. "Now I must fly. Literally fly. My aunt wanted to have tea early today and-" She glanced at the clock. "My goodness! I"m late already. I shouldn"t have come till after tea. What a scatter-brain I am! Forgive me, dear. I can"t stop to hear all your news, though I"d love to." She fluttered into the hall, s.n.a.t.c.hed up her hat without looking at it, perched it on her head, said, "Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye! Give my love to your dear mother," and fluttered off down the drive.
William closed the door and drew a long, deep breath.
"Crumbs!" he said, in a tone of heartfelt relief.
The next step was plain. Now that the coast was clear all he had to do was to bring the twins from their hiding-place and speed them on their homeward way. But, before he"d had time even to reach the cellar door, there was the sound of a key in the lock, and his mother entered.
"h.e.l.lo, dear!" she said. "I never thought you"d get back before me. I came back earlier than I intended, anyway . . . Oh, dear! Rice again. No one seems to be able to think of anything else but rice. Still, the grocer says he"ll change it . . . Now there"s only you and me, dear, so we"ll have a nice cosy tea together. And you"ll help me get it ready, won"t you? You can be such a help when you like."
Despairingly, he watched Mrs Brown hang her hat and coat on the hatstand, then read the three notes that were on the hall chest with the three bags of rice. He could hear faint sounds from the cellar below. They began to increase in volume.
"Mother," he said, speaking in a loud, booming voice, in order to drown them, "wouldn"t you like to go an" lie down for a bit while I get tea? Jus" about five minutes." (He could easily get rid of the twins in five minutes.) "You you look a bit tired to me. You look "s if it"d do you good to have a bit of a lie-down while I get tea."
Mrs Brown gazed at him tenderly, deeply touched by this proof of his affection and considerateness, storing up the incident in her mind in order to tell her husband when he came home from work. ("I"m always telling you that you don"t do William justice, dear. Now just listen to what he said to me when I came in this afternoon . . .") "That"s a very kind thought, dear," she said, "but I"m not feeling at all tired, and I certainly won"t let you get the tea all alone. Many hands make light work, you know. Now I"ll put the kettle on, and you get out the tablecloth and-"
"Mother," said William with the urgency of desperation (again his ears, strained to attention, had caught those faint sounds from below), "it seemed to me someone"d stole a lot of tools from our tool shed this afternoon. Seemed to me quite a lot of them"d gone when I came in." (If only he could get her out of the house as long as it would take to go to the tool shed and back, it would give him time to drag the twins up from their retreat and hustle them off home.) "What had gone, dear?" Mrs Brown said placidly.
"Well," temporised William, "I can"t say quite what"d gone. I didn"t count "xactly. I only saw that some"d gone. I thought I"d better tell you . . ."
"I expect you"re mistaken, dear," said Mrs Brown, bustling about the kitchen, quite unmoved by the news. "You"re always imagining things. I"ll look after tea but I"m certainly going to have a cup of tea before I do anything else. Anyway, if they"re gone, they"re gone, and a few minutes won"t matter here or there . . . Have you got the cloth out, dear?"
"Mother . . ." said William. (He was going to tell her that he thought he"d heard the boiler burst just before she came in. That should get her up to the loft at any rate.) But at that moment there came another ring at the front-door bell.
"See who it is, dear," called his mother.
William went to the door. Miss Milton entered. There was a tense, keyed-up look on her face.
"I"m so sorry," she said in a tense, keyed-up voice to Mrs Brown, who had come out of the kitchen to see who it was. "I"m terribly sorry, but I must make sure."
"Make sure?" said Mrs Brown.
"Yes," said Miss Milton. "It was here I heard them. They seemed to follow me to the gate, then stopped. I"ve not heard them since. I had to come back here and make sure. Can I still hear them here? I know I did before. Often that extra sense, shall we call it? functions erratically, but one must do what one can to understand it, to regularise it . . . I felt that I must make sure whether I could still hear them here . . ."
"Them?" faltered Mrs Brown.
She"d always known that Miss Milton was a little eccentric, but well, really, eccentric was almost too mild a word for this.
"The voices," said Miss Milton.
"The voices?"
"Yes."
Miss Milton had stridden into the drawing-room, and was standing there in the middle of the room, every muscle taut as if poised for flight.
"I heard them here," she said dreamily, "only a few minutes ago. Voices. All round me."
She listened, but there was no sound. The twins had evidently discovered some silent occupation for the moment. Mrs Brown was too much bewildered for speech, and William realised the uselessness of it.
"Strange!" said Miss Milton. "Either the gift has deserted me or-"
At that moment came another interruption. It was Mrs Monks. Admitted by William, she sailed into the drawing-room, her face set and stern, and, opening the small handbag she carried, drew out three or four carrots.
"What"s the meaning of this?" she said severely.
Mrs Brown sat down upon the nearest chair.
"What on earth is happening?" she said helplessly.
"I came here a few minutes ago," said Mrs Monks, "to leave my rice and write a note of apology-"
"Fancy you thinking of rice!" put in Miss Milton, who had now decided that the gift had deserted her.
"I laid my handbag on the hall chest while I came in to write my note," continued Mrs Monks, ignoring Miss Milton. "I had met the organist just before I reached your gate and had opened my bag to consult my diary because we were discussing the most suitable day for the choir treat. The bag then held its usual contents my purse, stamp book, engagement diary and er a small powder compact. As I said, I laid it down on your hall chest for a matter of say five minutes and when I got home I found that it contained these!" She held out the carrots dramatically.
Mrs Brown looked at William. William looked at the carrots and understood now only too well those faint sounds he had heard in the hall while Mrs Monks was writing her note . . .
"William!" said Mrs Brown reproachfully.
With obvious reluctance, Mrs Monks exonerated William.
"Well, it couldn"t have been William," she said. "Not actually William, at least. William was in here with me all the time."
"But who could have done it, then?" said Mrs Brown. "William, you didn"t bring any of your friends home with you, did you?"
"No, Mother," said William, a.s.suring himself that neither Hector nor Herbert came under that category. "No, Mother, I didn"t bring any of my friends home."
"But I can"t think-" began Mrs Brown, when Miss Thompson entered. She entered in her usual birdlike, fluttering manner, but she suggested now a bird in deep distress. She wore perched on her head a little plain, untrimmed hat.
"I found the front door open, and so I just came in," she said. "Mrs Brown, I don"t know what to do. I can"t think what"s happened . . ."
"Happened?" said Mrs Brown, in a faint voice.
"To my hat," said Miss Thompson. "I only bought it this morning. I came in it when I came to bring my rice." ("Rice!" put in Mrs Monk, and Miss Milton in indignant surprise.) "It had a band of ribbon round it and a little feather in the front. William knows it had. He saw it. I showed it him. I looked at it in the gla.s.s. I took it off because it was making my head ache, and put it on the chest while I came in here to write my note, and then I put it on again Oh, very carelessly and without looking because I"m such a scatter-brain, you know but when I got home and took it off I found that the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g had gone."
The room spun round Mrs Brown. She caught hold of the table next to her to keep it still.
William"s face wore a fixed and gla.s.sy look of horror. Gosh! They"d been up both times. They"d taken the things out of Mrs Monks"s handbag and the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g from Miss Thompson"s hat.
"The tr.i.m.m.i.n.g gone?" repeated Mrs Brown feebly.
"Yes," said Miss Thompson. "The tr.i.m.m.i.n.g gone. It was quite untrimmed when I got home. It couldn"t have fallen off. A band of ribbon and a feather can"t fall off a hat while it"s on the head. I know I"m a scatter-brain, but I"m quite sure of that. It must have been taken off, and it must have been taken off here while I was writing my note . . . And it couldn"t have been William, because he was with me all the time."
Mrs Brown raised a hand to her head. She looked from the carrots that Mrs Monks was still holding out accusingly, to the plain, straw hat in Miss Thompson"s small, clawlike hand.
"I I don"t understand," she said. "I mean who could it have been?"
THE ROOM SPUN ROUND MRS BROWN. SHE CAUGHT HOLD OF THE TABLE NEXT TO HER TO KEEP IT STILL.
"A poltergeist," said Miss Milton, in a tone of deep satisfaction. "I"ve read about them in psychic papers. That was what I heard, and that was what put carrots in Mrs Monks"s bag and took the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g off Miss Thompson"s hat."
WILLIAM"S FACE WORE A FIXED AND GLa.s.sY LOOK OF HORROR.
"Stuff and nonsense!" said Mrs Monks rudely. "Anyway, what I want to know is, where my purse and engagement diary have got to, and where Miss Thompson"s feather is? That"s the question."
Mrs Brown made a supreme effort to recover her faculties.
"William," she said, "do you know anything at all about this?"
William was saved from answering by a loud noise from below. It sounded like and probably was someone sliding down a heap of coal.
They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, then Mrs Brown went from the room to the cellar door and stood there listening. The others followed slowly.
"There"s someone in the cellar," she said at last, her face paling as she turned to them. "I can hear them moving about quite plainly."
A thief in the cellar was something definite, something one could, to a certain extent at any rate, deal with, and Mrs Brown"s usual matter-of-fact manner returned to her. With a quick movement she twisted the key in the lock, then turned to William.
"William, go round to the police station at once and fetch Sergeant Perkins. It"s no use ringing them up," she went on to the others, "because, if you do, the stupid one always answers and he"s deaf as well. Run as fast as you can, William. Tell Sergeant Perkins that I"ve got a man say a dangerous man locked in the cellar, and that he"d better bring help in case he"s violent. I was saying only the other day that that cellar"s not safe. A thief could so easily remove the grating and force the window and then conceal himself there till everyone was in bed. Hurry up, William! Don"t stand dawdling there. Run all the way . . ."
William went out of the front door, his face set like the face of a sleepwalker. Long ago he had given up all hope of being able to control the situation. He was now the blind tool of Fate . . .
The three women stood by the cellar door, watching the keyhole anxiously, as though it might unlock itself if not kept under close observation.
"You did lock it, didn"t you?" said Miss Milton apprehensively. "It would be rather a catastrophe if it had been locked and you"d unlocked it."
"No," said Mrs Brown. "It"s all right." She tried the key again. "It"s quite safe."
"I wonder if he knows we know," said Mrs Monks. "I hope he isn"t planning anything." Then a sudden thought struck her and she said: "But, Mrs Brown, that doesn"t explain the carrots."
"Nor my feather," said Miss Thompson.
Then suddenly there came from the cellar another sound of falling coal, followed by a peal of unmistakably childish laughter.