Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  So we let them. But they didn’t. I could see them with one eye through the curtain and I noticed that when they got to the gate the men came up the garden path very quickly and into the porch — but they didn’t knock or ring or kick or thump. No, with silent secretness they took other means to get in. Clifford heard the jingle of what he was certain were skeleton keys. And in one flash he saw it all. These men were not visitors. They were Burglars!

  They shut the door very gently, and with noiseless tread advanced into the house. Clifford had often thought of what he should do if there ever were burglars. He now acted with great firmness. He put his hand suddenly over his young brother’s mouth and whispered, “Don’t scream, and I’ll tell you something. No — don’t wriggle, you duffer — I’m not playing. Those men are burglars. Don’t make a sound. We will circumnavigate them somehow.”

  Clifford dragged his brother kindly but firmly into one of the bedrooms: fortunately there were carpets. He breathed more freely when the bedroom door was shut and locked — the locks in that house were well oiled, I will say — because if the burglars had come upstairs a locked door would have been some protection. Then he said:

  “We must take our boots in our hands and creep down and out by the front door and go and tell the police — or the people next door. Off with your boots.”

  So Martin offed. Of course his bootlace got in a knot, but Clifford was ready with the knife, as a detective should be when required.

  Still no sound came from below. “The burglars are busy with their fell work,” Clifford whispered; “don’t be frightened, Martin,” he added nobly, “I’ll take care of you.”

  “I’m not,” said Martin; “but what will you do if we meet them going out?”

  “We shan’t,” said Clifford, though he felt none too jolly sure of this. “They won’t be in the passage. There’s nothing to burgle there, but the hat pegs and the umbrella-stand. Anyway if we do meet them it will be them to bolt, not us. We’re in our own house.”

  So spoke our hero, and I am sure you will agree that it was bravely said. But inside his mind what he was feeling most was that he wanted to get out of that house.

  We undid the bedroom door and went on to the landing holding our boots. We crept to the top of the stairs and listened. I could hear the voices of the burglars in the kitchen, but to make sure I lay at full length on the landing, very sleuthlike, and looked down. The hall was empty.

  “I’ll go first,” said our hero; and he did. He got to the bottom of the stairs and stood holding his breath, quite close to the kitchen where the burglars were, and making all the signs he could to Martin to come on; but Martin seemed as if he did not like to.

  “Come on, you silly cuckoo,” said Clifford, moving his lips but without sound.

  Martin understood and began to come down slowly. It’s no use his saying he wasn’t frightened; he must simply have been shaking all over with it. For before he had come down four steps his boots slipped from his trembling, nerveless fingers and came bounding down the stairs like thunderbolts.

  “Whatever’s that?” cried a voice in the kitchen — and there was a moment’s pause while the burglars listened. You know how people do, to see if the noise will go on.

  That moment, short as it was, was enough for our young detective. In that moment the great idea came to him. He saw that the burglars had not opened the shutters — being the Persian kind they let in quite enough light of a soft green sort.

  Quick as thought our hero banged the kitchen door and locked it. He had noticed that the key was on the outside. See what it is to have a sleuth-hound’s eye!

  “There,” I said, “that’s done it. Put your boots on, quick — here’s the other — never mind if the lace is broken — tie it anyhow.”

  The imprisoned burglars were now hammering at the door and shouting. But all was in vain. They were nabbed and they knew it. And our hero knew it too!

  I don’t think I ever had a prouder moment than when I tapped at the kitchen door and said in deep, growling tones:

  “Quiet, sir; down, dog, down.” I did not mean to say it; it just came to me. It is what is called genius. They stopped their hammering and called out:

  “Who’s there?” they shouted.

  “Detectives,” I said, and turned coldly away. How glad we were that we had fastened all the outside shutters again, so as to “leave things as we found them.” Always do what you are told; it quite often turns up trumps in ways you don’t expect.

  Our next act was to go to the village to try to find someone to surprise and delight them with the wonderful story of our detective act.

  We got on to the road and went towards the village — and by a strange fate the first people we met were our uncle and his bride.

  “Hullo,” said our uncle, “you’re a nice lot!” and “What train did you come by?” asked the new aunt.

  “The one you said in the letter, Aunt Kitty,” said Clifford, always polite to ladies. “The five o’clock. But, Uncle John—”

  “I said seven,” said Aunt Kitty. (It turned out later that she had, but it looked just like a five, and she had to own it.)

  “But where have you been all this time? Aren’t you starving?” said our kind aunt.

  “We’ve had some chicken and ginger-beer,” said Martin.

  “Pon my word, you’ve done yourselves well,” said Uncle John, and he kept going on like that.

  “Yes, thank you, we have,” said Martin; and if you’ll believe me Clifford couldn’t get a word in for his uncle’s silly chaff. It is rude to interrupt, but he had to do it. Heroes are always allowed to.

  “Stop,” he said suddenly. “Listen, Uncle — I’ve something to tell you. While you’ve been away your house had been burgled.

  “Nonsense,” said Uncle.

  “You don’t know everything,” said Martin, which was rude of the boy, but Clifford felt it was excusable in the circs., though he wouldn’t have done it himself.

  “No — you really don’t,” said Clifford, earnestly, in order to cover up the rudeness. “Your house was burgled, but we were on the spot. Nothing has been taken. We stalked the burglars barefooted and we’ve got them safe locked up in the kitchen. And now, please, what about fetching the police?”

  “But.. said Aunt Kitty.

  “I don’t wonder you’re surprised,” said our hero, “but it’s true. Alone we did it.”

  I own I did think there might have been a word or two of praise here for our gallant presence of mind (though it was all Clifford’s really, but of course he would not have explained this for the world). But no! Not a word of praise. Only more questions. “Burglars — where?”

  “What do you mean — burglars?”

  “Burglars — there in your house. Locked up. In the kitchen,” said Clifford very slowly and carefully and very loud, like you speak to deaf people. “In your house, over there,” and he pointed to The Beeches which we had just left.

  “There?” cried our uncle. “Great Scott, boy! That’s not our house. What on earth have you done? Our house is The Birches.” (Aunt Kitty’s handwriting again. What a lesson for her! )

  Uncle John said afterwards that it ought to be a lesson to me not to be too jolly clever by half — but I don’t agree.

  I wish to draw a veil over our return to The Beeches. It is no use my telling you what the gallant young detective felt when he found himself covered with contempt instead of the glory he deserved. I think I could have borne it all bravely if Martin hadn’t put his tongue out at me when the others weren’t looking and whispered “Clever!”

  We went back to The Beeches and unlocked the kitchen door and set free the now raging burglars. Only it happened that they weren’t burglars but only the people the house belonged to. Of course I had to apologize and own up about the chicken and the ginger-beer. They were quite decent about it. But they never forgot it, and every time they met us they rubbed it in. Our month at Lymchurch would have been quite spoiled if Clifford had not taken
the bull by the horns and spoken to one of them, man to man, and asked him to drop it. And then they did.

  The whole thing turned out wrong, but Clifford cannot see, to this day, and never will see, that any of it was his fault.

  If they had been burglars, and by his brave act he had saved his aunt’s jewels (which might easily have been the case), he would have been acclaimed a hero by everyone and congratulated on his perspicatiousness; and just through an unfortunate accident it was quite the other way. But I cannot see myself that he was any the less a hero for that. Life is often very unfair and enough to stop anyone trying to do a noble action.

  CHAPTER THREE. TAMMY LEE’S JACK

  After Clifford had fixed it up with the two false burglars not to chaff us any more about that painful incident, Martin and I had a perfectly ripping time at Lymchurch. Aunt Kitty turned out to be a really first-class sort of aunt. There was no fussing about clothes — Martin and I went about in shorts and tennis shirts and with bare legs all the time, even on Sundays. All that luggage Miss Knox had made us take proved to be quite unnecessary, as Clifford had felt at the time: only it is never any use saying so. Grown-ups seem to hate you to be right, and it never makes any difference to anything if you point it out. Clifford has learnt not to do this.

  We were allowed to roam about entirely on our own, and no questions about “Where had we been?” or “Were we enjoying ourselves?” and things like that. It is a curious thing that people only ask you if you are enjoying yourselves when you aren’t, but you know you are expected to answer “Yes,” and that makes you enjoy yourselves even less, if possible.

  We found it strange that our uncle and his newly-won bride did not seem to want us to go about with them at all, though, of course, we always politely offered to accompany them everywhere.

  As long as we were not more than half an hour late for meals nobody said a word, and if we wanted to go on a long expedition to the hills there were always hard-boiled eggs and lettuce and bread-and-butter and shrimps. Bathing was allowed as many times a day as we liked, even right up to bedtime, which is most unusual. If you have never had a holiday like this I don’t think you can imagine it. Martin and I felt jolly sorry for the others, cooped up in Aunt Emma’s bandbox of a house with Miss Knox. At least, we thought they were. But they weren’t. You’ll see about that in another story.

  Aunt Kitty never once said after breakfast: “Now, what are you two going to do to-day?” Not even on the first morning. Everybody just got up and drifted naturally apart, and did what they wanted. I heard that before our uncle married Aunt Kitty she was once a member of the Women’s Freedom League. If it means letting people do as they like and not fussing, it is a pity more ladies don’t join it.

  There was always heaps to do in Lymchurch on fine days, and when it was wet, there was Captain Cargill.

  Captain Cargill lives in the cottage at the very end of the village on the road to New Romney. His garden-beds are bordered with whitewashed stones, his house is whitewashed, his gate and palings are painted green, and he has a tall flagstaff in his yard with a tin ship on the top that turns round in the wind.

  Inside, his house is as neat as a ship’s cabin. There is a lacquered tray with some Chinese teacups on the side-table, and woolwork pictures of sailing-ships in frames on the walls, and the Union Jack all done with little different coloured shells, and a glass rolling-pin from France, and mats made out of ropes, all sorts of jolly patterns.

  And over the mantelpiece there is a big glass case with a stuffed dog in it, and a label with gold letters that says “Jack Thomas Lee, 1870.”

  If you are the rampaging kind of boy who breaks everything he looks at you will never be allowed inside Captain Cargill’s cottage. But if you are the kind of boy who likes to look and listen, like Clifford and Martin were, Captain Cargill will tell you tales about everything.

  Shells and mats and feathers and wool work. Whenever you ask a question about anything he has an interesting story to tell.

  Martin and I used to go in on wet days, and we always got a story, and some jolly good ones, too. But the best of all was the one about the stuffed dog. So if you ever have the luck to be asked in to the cottage I advise you to point to the glass case and say:

  “What dog was that?” And then Captain Cargill will tell you this.

  “That was a dog, a real dog, not a china dog, a dog that needed feeding with a spoon, not a dog that buries bones and forgets where he’s put them, but a dog that always knew what tack he was on, and knew a shift of wind without being told.

  “That dog sailed with me on the Thomas Lee for eight years.

  “The Thomas Lee was a bit of a wonder in her time; though her sort is common enough now. She was one of the first iron steamboats built to carry coals to London. She steamed between Sunderland and London, and whether she unloaded her cargo at Wapping, Deadman’s Rock, Greenwich, or the Regent’s Canal, she was the one every one wanted to look at.

  “For being iron, she was a novelty. All the other colliers then were brigs and schooners — wooden sailing-ships, you know. She was something to be proud of. The crew knew it. And that dog Jack knew it.

  “It’s my belief he knew everything. He knew the north side of the Thames, and he knew the south side of the Thames. And he knew his way home. What’s that?

  Every dog knows his way home? Ay, maybe, but most dog’s homes are built on dry land, and stays where they’re put. But Jack’s home was a shifting home.

  “When the ship was berthed in London, Jack used to go off for a day or two on his own affairs, but he always came back to the Thomas Lee before the time of sailing — but sometimes it happened that we sailed before our time, and more than once when that happened Jack got left behind.

  “What does he do? Sit down and pipe his eye and make a fuss so that people will notice him and perhaps find him a nice home where he don’t want to be, with a kennel and a chain and a collar and all? Not him! He just keeps quiet and gets on board the next ship that’s going to Sunderland, and turns up on the Thomas Lee, a tide or two after she’s made Sunderland.

  “I’ve known him to do it time and again. And once when there wasn’t a ship bound for Sunderland he got on board a Newcastle collier, and cut across and found his home all right. A ten-mile run across country, and he’d never been there before!

  “How did he know his way? Ah, if I could tell you that I could tell you something. Perhaps he asked the other dogs he met. Anyhow he found his way back to the Thomas Lee right enough. Often we thought we’d lost him, but we never had.

  “Many a landsman would have been glad to have our Jack for a watchdog, but he was a regular sea-dog and loved his ship.

  “Now I’ll tell you an odd thing about that Jack. You must know that when we got to Sunderland the men used to smarten themselves up with paper collars to go ashore, because their homes were there. And one day, just for a bit of fun, the mate put a paper collar on Jack. And after that do you think that dog would go ashore without his paper collar? Not him! In London he didn’t mind about how he looked, and no more did we. But in Sunderland he must be smart, the same as the rest of the crew.

  “And what’s more, the minute we was moored he’d whine and wag his tail, and give no one any peace until he got his paper collar on, and then he’d jump ashore and off like the wind.

  “Where did he go to? I’ll tell you where he went to. He went to all the men’s houses to tell the women their husbands were back. Dogs can’t tell things? That’s all you know. Jack used to tear up to the mate’s house and scratch till the door was opened. Then the mate’s missis would say: ‘Hallo, Jack! So the Thomas Lee’s in, eh?’

  “And then he’d off to the engineer’s house, or one of the stoker’s, and so on till he’d told every one that the Thomas Lee was in.

  “Jack and his collar were the sign that the Thomas Lee was in, so when the men got home everything would be comfortable and ready for them.

  “‘I knew you were in,’ the wives u
sed to say. ‘Jack was here three hours ago.’

  “But why did he do it? I can’t tell you. Did they give him nice things to eat to pay him for bringing the news? Well, they weren’t skinflints. I daresay he got a snack or two, but I’ll never believe he did it for that. He just did it out of pure cleverness.

  “Whose dog was he? Well, that was never properly settled. I don’t think myself he was anybody’s dog. He was just the ship’s dog. It was the cook brought him aboard, at least he came aboard the same time as the cook — but that may have been on account of the smell of dinner hanging about the cook. The Captain thought Jack was his dog, because he bought him a collar, though he never wore it. And the mate thought the dog was his, because Jack always went first to his house when he began his paper-collar visits. But then the mate’s house was nearest.

  “What did Jack think? Whose dog did Jack think he was? I’ll tell you all I know and then you can see what you think about it.

  “Sometimes he’d climb on to the bridge and be with the Captain. Sometimes he’d keep the engineers and stokers company below. Sometimes he’d be with the look-out man, or in the galley. Was he ever with me? Well, yes — on the bridge. I was the Captain, you see. The question of who he belonged to was never settled in his lifetime, but when he was dead.... Well I’ve got all that is left of the old dog.

  “The end of the Thomas Lee came one wild November night, wet and bitter cold, with a strong north-easter and squalls of snow cutting across your eyes. The weather was too bad to make Sunderland. We were going to the Tyne, the nearest port of refuge. We had picked up our pilot at Flamborough; we could hardly get him out of his coble, the seas were so heavy.

  “This was the night that all seafaring men remember, when one ship after another missed the piers and found themselves on the sand to the south of the Tyne. The wind and the snow was like a whiplash across your eyes. I don’t blame the pilot; I don’t blame anybody. But the Thomas Lee went on the sands and we lost her.