The Picts and the Martyrs

by Arthur Ransome

  “The next thing was …”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “This morning,” said Nancy. “She rang up the police in the middle of the night, but there was no one they could send. This morning Sammy turned up as soon as we’d finished breakfast. I suppose they sent him because he knows Beckfoot, with his mother living close by and being our mother’s old nurse.”

  “I hope he knows you,” said Timothy.

  “Oh yes,” said Nancy. “And that was simply splendid. Because he said at once that probably it was us up to some game. And then the Great Aunt fairly blew up. She asked him if he thought she was a nincompoop. She told him she’d seen us both in bed before she went downstairs and again when she came up after closing the study window. She told him that we were in bed when she heard the burglar come in the second time, and that we were in her bedroom when she saw him rushing away. And Sammy listened as solemn as an owl, and scribbled in his notebook, and said he would like to be clear about that. Had the man got in twice? And the G.A. said that of course he had and she could prove it. She jawed away about the wooden box with Uncle Jim’s name on it that was lying on the study table when she closed the window and was gone when she came down the second time after the burglar had bolted. And Sammy was first rate again. He asked her what was in it, and she didn’t know. She asked us, and we didn’t know. Lucky we’ve never been interested in stinks, except of course fireworks. Actually we didn’t even know the box was there. What is in it?”

  “Chemical scales,” said Dick. “For weighing things.”

  “Well, the G.A. didn’t know. And then he asked her to give him a list of the articles stolen. And that fairly stumped her. ‘Silver?’ asked Sammy. ‘Coops and moogs? That’s the stoof what they generally go for.’ And we all crowded into the study and hunted around, and nobody could see anything missing. We began to be a bit afraid Dick and Dot hadn’t got away with it. And the G.A. went on about that box. And Sammy had written ‘Articles missing’ in his notebook. We saw it. And under it he wrote, ‘Small wooden box, contents unknown.’ ‘With Mr James Turner’s name on it,’ said the G.A. And he wrote that down too. …”

  “Botheration,” said Timothy. “I’ll have to keep that out of the way.”

  “Perhaps you’d better,” said Nancy. “The G.A. did give a pretty full description of you. But, of course, they won’t come looking here.”

  “You never know,” said Timothy, handling the box as if it had suddenly become dangerous. “Look here. Does she know Jim’s lent me his houseboat?”

  “She’s never said anything about it,” said Nancy. “Why should she know? Uncle Jim won’t have written to tell her, and we haven’t given you away. It’s all right. And she doesn’t know you by sight, except as a tramp. And anyhow, let me finish about Sammy.”

  “Go ahead,” said Timothy.

  “We saw him searching in the garden,” said Dorothea.

  “I know,” said Nancy. “And weren’t we glad when we saw you slipping out in Scarab. That was the first thing that let us think that perhaps you’d got the things after all. We were almost resigned to thinking you’d failed. Well, Sammy looked at the window from the inside and asked her if she had latched it and she said she had. Then Sammy smelt round the latch, and opened the window and looked as hard as he could, and said there were no marks of anybody forcing the latch from outside. ‘But I tell you the room was empty,’ snapped the G.A. ‘I shut the window and locked the door. I had to unlock it again to get in. It only shows the man was a professional. When there are suspicious characters about, why don’t the police lock them up before they have a chance to break into people’s houses? A clever, cunning rascal like that. I could see at a glance he was up to no good.”

  “It won’t be safe for me to go ashore,” said Timothy.

  “Keep out of her way, that’s all,” said Nancy. “You’ll be all right with Sammy. Wait till you hear what happened next. We went into the garden, and Sammy stared at the path, but it’s all hard gravel and there weren’t any marks. Then he found a whole lot of footprints just off the path, under the trees. We thought everything was up.”

  “That was me,” said Dorothea.

  “Let’s have a look at your hoof,” said Nancy. “Yes. It’s just the same. Tremendous piece of luck. The moment old Sammy found those hoofmarks he went charging back to his first idea. He looked at me as if he was a judge and asked me to put my foot in one of the marks. And of course my hoof was too big. ‘But I tell you they were both in bed,’ said the G.A. Sammy didn’t answer her. He asked Peggy to try her hoof and it fitted. It fitted exactly. Jolly lucky Dot’s got biggish hoofs for her size. And jolly lucky we all wear the same sort of sandshoes with a criss-cross pattern on the soles. That settled Sammy. The G.A. could tell him we were in bed till she was blue in the face, but Sammy thought he knew better. He was very polite and that made her madder than ever. He said that anybody might make a mistake in moonlight but he thought that perhaps there had been no burglary at all. And the G.A. asked if that was all we got by paying income tax and generally things were pretty hot and lively. Old Sammy was grand. He said he would report all the details and they would keep a look out for suspicious characters and he hoped that as soon as she had been able to make out a list of the things stolen she would send it to the police sergeant. And I gave him privately one tremendous wink, just to make him more sure than ever it was us. And Sammy just glared at me, but he didn’t say anything. And off he went. We spent the rest of the morning with the G.A. rummaging in the study trying to find what was missing, but, of course, she never thought of anybody taking beastly chemicals, and the cups Uncle Jim got rowing were all there, and a medal or two, and the G.A. got madder and madder, but not with us, and poor old Cook kept saying she was sure the study window had never been left open, and at last we had a silent lunch and the G.A. said she had a headache and took an aspirin and went to bed. We thought it was safe to ask if we might go for a sail and she said we might if we felt up to it, but not to be late for tea. So we came here full tilt. We didn’t even wait to change these loathsome frocks. And now we’ve got to race back and go on being angels for all we are worth. Look here. Is it all right about the day after tomorrow?”

  “We forgot to ask him,” said Dorothea.

  “Us coming here for the day?” said Nancy. “It’s the one thing planned we haven’t done. I’ve been putting out feelers about our going out for the whole day, and she said we’d been remarkably good and we could take the day before she departs if it turns out fine because she’ll be packing and won’t be able to help us with holiday tasks. Of course, that was before the burglary. She may change her mind now, but I don’t see why. I’ll ask her again to make sure.”

  “You can come all right,” said Timothy. “So long as you don’t bring the police on your trail. Dick and I ought to get our job done by tomorrow night.”

  “Good,” said Nancy. ‘I’ll ask her again, and we’ll get a note out to Dick and Dot, so that they can tell you when they’re here tomorrow.” Nancy was already going out of the cabin door.

  “Won’t you have a lemonade or something?” said Timothy.

  “No time,” said Nancy.

  “Are you going back now?” said Dorothea.

  “Got to,” said Nancy.

  “We’re just going to start that work,” said Dick.

  “Well, why not? You can’t come with us. Supper’s at half-past seven. Don’t try slipping up the river till then. Safe enough while she’s ladling out soup or telling us not to talk with our mouths full. But if she saw anybody near the house today she might want to stop them and ask questions. Aspirin and all, I bet she’s still in a bate when she wakes up. That doesn’t matter, so long as she doesn’t change her mind about letting us have a day off.”

  In a few minutes Amazon’s sail was set, and Peggy and Nancy pushed off from the houseboat and began tacking out of the bay.

  “Nothing for Timothy to worry about,” Nancy called out. “Everything
’s been a great success.”

  “It’s my own fault,” said Timothy, watching the little white sail going further away. “Jim warned me to look out for squalls, and I ought never to have given that young woman a chance of raising them.”

  “But don’t you see?” said Dorothea. “What she’s been doing all the time is trying to keep Miss Turner happy and not to have any squalls at all.”

  “Well, partner,” said Timothy to Dick. “Let’s get down to it. We’ve got to begin by weighing out equal quantities of all those samples.”

  “I’ll just get our plates out of the way,” said Dorothea.

  CHAPTER XXII

  PLANS AND CHANGE OF PLANS

  FOR the rest of that day and all the next the Picts had no news from Beckfoot except a short note from the Martyrs that they found in the letter-box in the wall by the road. Dick and Timothy had worked all afternoon, while Dorothea looked at books, tried to clean up a bit in the kitchen, made tea for them, and hurried Dick away in time to get back to the mouth of the river by half-past seven. They brought Scarab up the river without seeing anybody, left her in her secret harbour and went home, finding the note from the Martyrs in the letter-box. “The day after tomorrow. We can come. Tell Timothy. With any luck we’ll be able to start first thing.” They half expected a visit from Cook that night, but were rather glad she did not come, because she would have talked about the burglary and the actual burglars would have found it difficult to listen to her without giving something away. Next day, after pinning a note to the door of the hut to tell Jacky to leave the milk and to take the empty bottle, they sailed down to the houseboat after an early breakfast. All that day was spent aboard. Dick and Timothy worked in the cabin in such a powerful smell of chemicals that Dorothea left them to it and read a book on deck. Soon after tea the work was done, or at least the part in which Dick could help, and Timothy cleared them out.

  WORK IN THE HOUSEBOAT

  “Are you sure I can’t help any more?” said Dick, who had forgotten burglary, the Great Aunt and everything else in the pleasure of using test-tubes and spirit lamp, dissolving this, evaporating that, and weighing minute deposits with scales delicate enough to show the weight of a feather.

  “No,” said Timothy. “You’ve been very useful and we’ve got through in half the time it would have taken if I’d been alone. What I’ve got to do now is to work out all our results, and put them into a report ready for Jim. And if I can get the job done tonight I’ll be free tomorrow. Not much hope of working then with Nancy and Peggy skirmishing round.”

  Dick and Dorothea got home again without being seen, had supper and went to bed with easy minds. No news was good news. Nancy had been right. The police had made up their minds that there had been no burglary at all. The Great Aunt had never guessed at the existence of the Picts and she must be very pleased with the Martyrs, or she would never have given them leave to have a whole day to themselves. Tomorrow, they would all be sailing together, capturing the houseboat perhaps, or even going to Wild Cat Island. And the day after that the Great Aunt would be gone. Nothing could go wrong now.

  *

  Next morning, the third after the burglary, they woke to a day on which nothing happened as it had been planned, except that Jacky brought the milk as usual. For one thing, there was not a breath of wind. That meant that Scarab and Amazon would not be able to race to the houseboat. There could be no sailing at all. Dick looked round the sky but there was not even the smallest cloud to promise that wind was coming. Dorothea sent him down to the road in time to catch the postman on his way to Beckfoot, but there were no letters for Picts. He came back to the hut to find that she had hurried through the washing up, and had made up her mind to leave everything tidy before starting. She told him to bring some more wood in, ready to light the fire when they came home in the evening.

  “But Dot,” said Dick, “we ought to be getting Scarab out of the river.”

  “They’ll never be ready as soon as this,” said Dorothea.

  “They said ‘First thing”,” said Dick.

  “That was when they thought we were going to be able to sail,” said Dorothea. “Besides, she’s sure to want them to dust something, or pick flowers for the drawing-room.”

  “Here they are,” said Dick. “I told you so. They’ve been waiting for us. They’ve come up to find why we’re not ready.”

  But it was neither Nancy nor Peggy who was at the door of the hut.

  “Can you get hold of those two?” asked Timothy, shrugging his shoulders out of the straps of a heavy knapsack.

  “They’ll have started,” said Dick. “They’re probably out on the lake.”

  “I’m sure they’re not,” said Dorothea.

  “I want to stop them if I possibly can,” said Timothy.

  “Has something awful happened?” asked Dorothea. For a moment she saw policemen searching the houseboat and Timothy in flight.

  “No, no,” said Timothy. “Nothing’s happened. But two of the results we got yesterday seem to me a bit odd and I want to go to the mine to get some more samples. Would you mind if we went there instead of your coming to the houseboat?”

  “Good,” said Dick.

  “We’d love to go,” said Dorothea. “And they won’t mind either. There isn’t any wind for sailing.”

  “I’ll go and see if I can catch them,” said Dick.

  *

  He climbed up to the look-out place on the top of the promontory just in time. Nancy and Peggy were already crossing the lawn towards the boathouse. They were not wearing their white frocks but were in their ordinary rig of shorts, shirts and red caps. The Great Aunt, thought Dick, must be ill and in bed, but surely it was taking rather a risk to cross the lawn like that when she might be looking from a window.

  For that same reason, that the Great Aunt might be at a window, he did not dare to wave to them. What was the best way of making them look up: He remembered that owls were barred in daylight. He dared not risk a curlew without practice. Nothing for it but a duck, even though rock and heather were not a likely background. He quacked, not very loudly. He quacked again. Nancy looked up, hesitated a moment, and then walked straight on towards the boathouse.

  Dick left his look-out place and ran down to the edge of the river, to catch them on their way out, where he could not be seen from the house.

  He had hardly got down to the reeds when he heard them working the boat out. Then he heard a quack, much better than his own, and there was the boat coming close along the edge of the reeds, Nancy rowing and Peggy standing in the stern.

  “Ahoy!” he said quietly, and the boat’s nose came pushing through towards him.

  “Couldn’t answer,” said Nancy. “She was standing at the drawing-room window. Where have you left Scarab? We never saw you pass.”

  “The plan’s all changed,” said Dick. “Timothy’s at our hut. We’re not going to the houseboat. He’s got to get some more samples from the mine. We’re all going up to High Topps.”

  “That’s all right,” said Nancy. “It was going to be awful waste mucking about in a dead calm. And it’s no fun rowing a boat that’s meant to sail.”

  “Those sandwiches’ll come in handy after all,” said Peggy.

  Nancy laughed. “The G.A. told Cook to make us sandwiches and we couldn’t say we didn’t want them. She’d have wanted to know where we were going to get any grub.”

  “Timothy’s got an enormous knapsack,” said Dick.

  “We’ll be pretty hungry if we’re going up to the mine,” said Nancy. “But look here. What are we going to do about Amazon? We can’t take her back to the boathouse or she might see us coming away. The boathouse door’s in full view of the house. We’ll have to haul her up here.”

  Dick, eager to see the mine again, and thankful that the others did not mind the change of plan, helped them to haul her up. They made a wary crossing of the road, and instead of passing Beckfoot and going up the path, they cut straight up into the wood and worked t
heir way round to the hut. Dick ran in first.

  “I’ve got them all right,” he said. “And they don’t mind a bit, because of it’s being a calm.”

  “Good work,” said Timothy. “Hullo, you two. The old lady didn’t change her mind about letting you go?”

  “That’s the rum thing,” said Nancy. “I thought she’d be humming and hawing at the last minute, but she wasn’t. She was full of beans because we were clearing out. Anybody could see it. You might have thought she was up to something on her own and wanted us out of the way. But she can’t be, of course. Only packing.”

  “Any more trouble with the police?” asked Timothy.

  “Oh no,” said Nancy. “It’s quite all right with the police. Sammy came yesterday morning and asked her if she had made up a list of the things missing, and of course she hadn’t, so she just bit his head off and described you all over again.”

  “I shall be jolly glad when tomorrow’s over and she’s gone,” said Timothy.

  “She’s started a new idea now,” said Peggy.

  “Good,” said Timothy.

  “She started being a detective herself,” said Nancy. “No. It’s all right. She doesn’t know anything about the Picts. She spent all yesterday morning snooping round for clues. With us to help. We helped like anything. She’s been through Uncle Jim’s den like a tornado. And she was booming away about the police and what asses they were for thinking we had anything to do with it when she’d told them she’d seen us both in bed. Then in the afternoon she went out and had another look at those footprints.”

  “She’ll find out about us,” said Dorothea.

  “Not she,” said Nancy. “But she’s a wee bit warmer than she was. You remember I told you she’d got it into her head that the Swallows were about and that we were meeting them? Well, she’s at the same idea again. It’s a bit awkward for her when she had made up her mind she’d seen the burglar and even described him to Sammy, but it came out good and clear after tea. She thinks now that the Swallows are somewhere near and that John and Susan did the burglary. We couldn’t think why she kept harking back to them after we’d had a bit of a row about them already. …”