by E. Nesbit
Once inside the room, Gerald turned for another look. The fish-pond lay still and dark, reflecting the moon. Through a gap in the drooping willow the moonlight fell on a statue that stood calm and motionless on its pedestal. Everything was in its place now in the garden. Nothing moved or stirred.
“How extraordinarily rum!” said Gerald. “I shouldn’t have thought you could go to sleep walking through a garden and dream like that.”
He shut the window, lit a match, and closed the shutters. Another match showed him the door. He turned the key, went out, locked the door again, hung the key on its usual nail, and crept to the end of the passage. Here he waited, safe in his invisibility, till the dazzle of the matches should have gone from his eyes, and he be once more able to find his way by the moonlight that fell in bright patches on the floor through the barred, unshuttered windows of the hall.
“Wonder where the kitchen is,” said Gerald. He had quite forgotten that he was a detective. He was only anxious to get home and tell the others about that extraordinarily odd dream that he had had in the gardens. “I suppose it doesn’t matter what doors I open. I’m invisible all right still, I suppose? Yes; can’t see my hand before my face.” He held up a hand for the purpose. “Here goes!”
He opened many doors, wandered into long rooms with furniture dressed in brown holland covers that looked white in that strange light, rooms with chandeliers hanging in big bags from the high ceilings, rooms whose walls were alive with pictures, rooms whose walls were deadened with rows on rows of old books, state bedrooms in whose great plumed four-posters Queen Elizabeth had no doubt slept. (That Queen, by the way, must have been very little at home, for she seems to have slept in every old house in England.) But he could not find the kitchen. At last a door opened on stone steps that went up there was a narrow stone passage—steps that went down a door with a light under it. It was, somehow, difficult to put out one’s hand to that door and open it.
“Nonsense!” Gerald told himself, “don’t be an ass! Are you invisible, or aren’t you?”
Then he opened the door, and someone inside said something in a sudden rough growl.
Gerald stood back, flattened against the wall, as a man sprang to the doorway and flashed a lantern into the passage.
“All right,” said the man, with almost a sob of relief. “It was only the door swung open, it’s that heavy—that’s all.”
“Blow the door!” said another growling voice; “blessed if I didn’t think it was a fair cop that time.”
They closed the door again. Gerald did not mind. In fact, he rather preferred that it should be so. He didn’t like the look of those men. There was an air of threat about them. In their presence even invisibility seemed too thin a disguise. And Gerald had seen as much as he wanted to see. He had seen that he had been right about the gang. By wonderful luck—beginner’s luck, a card-player would have told him—he had discovered a burglary on the very first night of his detective career. The men were taking silver out of two great chests, wrapping it in rags, and packing it in baize sacks. The door of the room was of iron six inches thick. It was, in fact, the strong-room, and these men had picked the lock. The tools they had done it with lay on the floor, on a neat cloth roll, such as wood-carvers keep their chisels in.
“Hurry up!” Gerald heard. “You needn’t take all night over it.”
The silver rattled slightly. “You’re a rattling of them trays like bloomin’ castanets,” said the gruffest voice. Gerald turned and went away, very carefully and very quickly. And it is a most curious thing that, though he couldn’t find the way to the servants wing when he had nothing else to think of, yet now, with his mind full, so to speak, of silver forks and silver cups, and the question of who might be coming after him down those twisting passages, he went straight as an arrow to the door that led from the hall to the place he wanted to get to.
As he went the happenings took words in his mind.
“The fortunate detective,” he told himself, “having succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, himself left the spot in search of assistance.”
But what assistance? There were, no doubt, men in the house, also the aunt; but he could not warn them. He was too hopelessly invisible to carry any weight with strangers. The assistance of Mabel would not be of much value. The police? Before they could be got—and the getting of them presented difficulties—the burglars would have cleared away with their sacks of silver.
Gerald stopped and thought hard; he held his head with both hands to do it. You know the way—the same as you sometimes do for simple equations or the dates of the battles of the Civil War.
Then with pencil, note-book, a window-ledge, and all the cleverness he could find at the moment, he wrote:
“You know the room where the silver is. Burglars are burgling it, the thick door is picked. Send a man for police. I will follow the burglars if they get away ere police arrive on the spot.”
He hesitated a moment, and ended—
“From a Friend this is not a sell.”
This letter, tied tightly round a stone by means of a shoelace, thundered through the window of the room where Mabel and her aunt, in the ardour of reunion, were enjoying a supper of unusual charm stewed plums, cream, sponge-cakes, custard in cups, and cold bread-and-butter pudding.
Gerald, in hungry invisibility, looked wistfully at the supper before he threw the stone. He waited till the shrieks had died away, saw the stone picked up, the warning letter read.
“Nonsense!” said the aunt, growing calmer. “How wicked! Of course it’s a hoax.”
“Oh! Do send for the police, like he says,” wailed Mabel.
“Like who says?” snapped the aunt.
“Whoever it is,” Mabel moaned.
“Send for the police at once,” said Gerald, outside, in the manliest voice he could find. “You’ll only blame yourself if you don’t. I can’t do any more for you.”
“I—I’ll set the dogs on you!” cried the aunt.
“Oh, auntie, don’t!” Mabel was dancing with agitation. “It’s true I know it’s true. Do—do wake Bates!”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said the aunt. No more did Bates when, owing to Mabel’s persistent worryings, he was awakened. But when he had seen the paper, and had to choose whether he’d go to the strong-room and see that there really wasn’t anything to believe or go for the police on his bicycle, he chose the latter course.
When the police arrived the strong-room door stood ajar, and the silver, or as much of it as the three men could carry, was gone.
Gerald’s note-book and pencil came into play again later on that night. It was five in the morning before he crept into bed, tired out and cold as a stone.
* * * *
“Master Gerald!” it was Eliza’s voice in his ears “it’s seven o’clock and another fine day, and there’s been another burglary— My cats alive!” she screamed, as she drew up the blind and turned towards the bed; “look at his bed, all crocked with black, and him not there!”
“Oh, Jiminy!” It was a scream this time. Kathleen came running from her room; Jimmy sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes.
“Whatever is it?” Kathleen cried.
“I dunno when I ’ad such a turn. Eliza sat down heavily on a box as she spoke. “First thing—his bed all empty and black as the chimley back, and him not in it, and then when I looks again he is in it all the time. I must be going silly. I thought as much when I heard them haunting angel voices yesterday morning. But I’ll tell Mamselle of you, my lad, with your tricks, you may rely on that. Blacking yourself all over and crocking up your clean sheets and pillow-cases. It’s going back of beyond, this is.”
“Look here,” said Gerald slowly; “I’m going to tell you something.”
Eliza simply snorted, and that was rude of her; but then, she had had a s
hock and had not got over it.
“Can you keep a secret?” asked Gerald, very earnest through the grey of his partly rubbed-off blacklead.
“Yes,” said Eliza.
“Then keep it and I’ll give you two bob.”
“But what was you going to tell me?”
“That. About the two bob and the secret. And you keep your mouth shut.”
“I didn’t ought to take it,” said Eliza, holding out her hand eagerly. “Now you get up, and mind you wash all the corners, Master Gerald.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe,” said Kathleen, when Eliza had gone.
“You didn’t seem to care much last night,” said Gerald coldly.
“I can’t think how I let you go. I didn’t care last night. But when I woke this morning and remembered!”
“There, that’ll do—it’ll come off on you,” said Gerald through the reckless hugging of his sister.
“How did you get visible?” Jimmy asked.
“It just happened when she called me—the ring came off.”
“Tell us all about everything,” said Kathleen.
“Not yet,” said Gerald mysteriously.
“Where’s the ring?” Jimmy asked after breakfast. “I want to have a try now.”
“I—I forgot it,” said Gerald; “I expect it’s in the bed somewhere.
But it wasn’t. Eliza had made the bed.
“I’ll swear there ain’t no ring there,” she said. “I should ’a seen it if there had ’a’ been.”
CHAPTER V
“Search and research proving vain,” said Gerald, when every corner of the bedroom had been turned out and the ring had not been found, “the noble detective hero of our tale remarked that he would have other fish to fry in half a jiff, and if the rest of you want to hear about last night…”
“Let’s keep it till we get to Mabel,” said Kathleen heroically.
“The assignation was ten-thirty, wasn’t it? Why shouldn’t Gerald gas as we go along? I don’t suppose anything very much happened, anyhow.” This, of course, was Jimmy.
“That shows,” remarked Gerald sweetly, “how much you know. The melancholy Mabel will await the tryst without success, as far as this one is concerned. ‘Fish, fish, other fish other fish I fry!’” he warbled to the tune of ‘Cherry Ripe,’ till Kathleen could have pinched him.
Jimmy turned coldly away, remarking, “When you’ve quite done.”
But Gerald went on singing,
“Where the lips of Johnson smile,
There’s the land of Cherry Isle.
Other fish, other fish, Fish I fry.
Stately Johnson, come and buy!”
“How can you,” asked Kathleen, “be so aggravating?”
“I don’t know,” said Gerald, returning to prose.
“Want of sleep or intoxication—of success, I mean. Come where no one can hear us.
‘Oh, come to some island where no one can hear,
And beware of the keyhole that’s glued to an ear,’”
he whispered, opened the door suddenly, and there, sure enough, was Eliza, stooping without. She flicked feebly at the wainscot with a duster, but concealment was vain.
“You know what listeners never hear,” said Jimmy severely.
“I didn’t, then—so there!” said Eliza, whose listening ears were crimson. So they passed out, and up the High Street, to sit on the churchyard wall and dangle their legs. And all the way Gerald’s lips were shut into a thin, obstinate line.
“Now,” said Kathleen. “Oh, Jerry, don’t be a goat! I’m simply dying to hear what happened.”
“That’s better,” said Gerald, and he told his story. As he told it some of the white mystery and magic of the moonlit gardens got into his voice and his words, so that when he told of the statues that came alive, and the great beast that was alive through all its stone, Kathleen thrilled responsive, clutching his arm, and even Jimmy ceased to kick the wall with his boot heels, and listened open-mouthed.
Then came the thrilling tale of the burglars, and the warning letter flung into the peaceful company of Mabel, her aunt, and the bread-and-butter pudding. Gerald told the story with the greatest enjoyment and such fullness of detail that the church clock chimed half-past eleven as he said, “Having done all that human agency could do, and further help being despaired of, our gallant young detective— Hullo, there’s Mabel!”
There was. The tail-board of a cart shed her almost at their feet.
“I couldn’t wait any longer,” she explained, “when you didn’t come. And I got a lift. Has anything more happened? The burglars had gone when Bates got to the strong-room.”
“You don’t mean to say all that wheeze is real?” Jimmy asked.
“Of course it’s real,” said Kathleen. “Go on, Jerry. He’s just got to where he threw the stone into your bread-and-butter pudding, Mabel. Go on.
Mabel climbed on to the wall. “You’ve got visible again quicker than I did,” she said.
Gerald nodded and resumed:
“Our story must be told in as few words as possible, owing to the fish-frying taking place at twelve, and it’s past the half-hour now. Having left his missive to do its warning work, Gerald de Sherlock Holmes sped back, wrapped in invisibility, to the spot where by the light of their dark-lanterns the burglars were still burgling with the utmost punctuality and despatch. I didn’t see any sense in running into danger, so I just waited outside the passage where the steps are—you know?”
Mabel nodded.
“Presently they came out, very cautiously, of course, and looked about them. They didn’t see me—so deeming themselves unobserved they passed in silent Indian file along the passage—one of the sacks of silver grazed my front part and out into the night.”
“But which way?”
“Through the little looking-glass room where you looked at yourself when you were invisible. The hero followed swiftly on his invisible tennis-shoes. The three miscreants instantly sought the shelter of the groves and passed stealthily among the rhododendrons and across the park and—” his voice dropped and he looked straight before him at the pinky convolvulus netting a heap of stones beyond the white dust of the road “—the stone things that come alive, they kept looking out from between bushes and under trees—and I saw them all right, but they didn’t see me. They saw the burglars though, right enough; but the burglars couldn’t see them. Rum, wasn’t it?”
“The stone things?” Mabel had to have them explained to her.
“I never saw them come alive,” she said, “and I’ve been in the gardens in the evening as often as often.
“I saw them,” said Gerald stiffly.
“I know, I know,” Mabel hastened to put herself right with him; “what I mean to say is I shouldn’t wonder if they’re only visible when you’re invisible—the liveness of them, I mean, not the stoniness.”
Gerald understood, and I’m sure I hope you do.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you’re right,” he said. “The castle garden’s enchanted right enough; but what I should like to know is how and why. I say, come on, I’ve got to catch Johnson before twelve. We’ll walk as far as the market and then we’ll have to run for it.”
“But go on with the adventure,” said Mabel. “You can talk as we go.”
“Oh, do—it is so awfully thrilling!”
This pleased Gerald, of course.
“Well, I just followed, you know, like in a dream, and they got out the cavy way you know, where we got in and I jolly well thought I’d lost them; I had to wait till they’d moved off down the road so that they shouldn’t hear me rattling the stones, and I had to tear to catch them up. I took my shoes off I expect my stockings are done for. And I followed and followed and followed and they we
nt through the place where the poor people live, and right down to the river. And—I say, we must run for it.”
So the story stopped and the running began.
They caught Johnson in his own back-yard washing at a bench against his own back-door.
“Look here, Johnson,” Gerald said, “what’ll you give me if I put you up to winning that fifty pounds reward?”
“Halves,” said Johnson promptly, “and a clout ’long-side your head if you was coming any of your nonsense over me.”
“It’s not nonsense,” said Gerald very impressively. “If you’ll let us in I’ll tell you all about it. And when you’ve caught the burglars and got the swag back, you just give me a quid for luck. I won’t ask for more.”
“Come along in, then,” said Johnson, “if the young ladies’ll excuse the towel. But I bet you do want something more off of me. Else why not claim the reward yourself?”
“Great is the wisdom of Johnson—he speaks winged words.” The children were all in the cottage now, and the door was shut. “I want you never to let on who told you. Let them think it was your own unaided pluck and far-sightedness.”
“Sit you down,” said Johnson, “and if you’re kidding you’d best send the little gells home afore I begin on you.”
“I am not kidding,” replied Gerald loftily, “never less. And anyone but a policeman would see why I don’t want anyone to know it was me. I found it out at dead of night, in a place where I wasn’t supposed to be; and there’d be a beastly row if they found out at home about me being out nearly all night. Now do you see, my bright-eyed daisy?”
Johnson was now too interested, as Jimmy said afterwards, to mind what silly names he was called. He said he did see—and asked to see more.
“Well, don’t you ask any questions, then. I’ll tell you all it’s good for you to know. Last night about eleven I was at Yalding Towers. No—it doesn’t matter how I got there or what I got there for—and there was a window open and I got in, and there was a light. And it was in the strong-room, and there were three men, putting silver in a bag.”
