‘All right,’ said John. ‘And thank you for the rock cakes.’
‘And the chocolate and everything,’ added Rosemary.
Mrs Bodkin gave her sudden smile and a flip of the duster in dismissal, and turned to her polishing and hymn singing. John and Rosemary went to collect the leaflets from Uncle Zack.
He was tall and thin, as John had described, dressed in the most shapeless tweeds that Rosemary had ever seen. He was in one of the showrooms, sitting in front of a small desk, pulling out each of the drawers and sliding it back again.
‘Uncle Zack ...’ began John, but his uncle held up a warning hand.
‘Sh!’ he said. ‘Listen!’ and slid the top drawer in and out again.
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said John after a pause.
‘Neither can I,’ said Rosemary.
‘That’s the point!’ said Uncle Zack triumphantly. ‘The drawers move like silk, without a sound! Made by a top-notch craftsman!’ He patted the rosewood surface of the desk affectionately, as though it was a favourite horse or a dog. ‘Isn’t she a beauty? But of course, you want the leaflets. They’re in a satchel on the table in the sitting-room.’
‘On the Cromwellian table?’ asked Rosemary.
Uncle Zack’s large mouth widened still further in a smile.
‘Good girl, you’re learning!’ he said. ‘Have you got plenty of sandwiches? A leaflet through every letter-box, mind, and don’t forget Tucket Towers. I don’t suppose Mrs Witherspoon will spend much, but you never know. She’s a strange old thing. Pedals about on a tricycle now she’s sold her car.’
‘Where is Tucket Towers?’ asked John.
‘Go down Sheepshank Lane. That’s the road that leads from the other side of the Market Place, then over the cross-roads and the old railway bridge, and you’ll see the tower sticking up behind a clump of trees. Old Colonel Witherspoon built it fifty years ago, to be near the railway station. And now, of course, the station is closed. But that’s life. Now away with you, and thank you very much.’
John and Rosemary closed the front door behind them and started up the road in thoughtful silence.
‘It’s a funny thing,’ said John. ‘I’d forgotten about Miss Dibdin, and the purple cracker and everything, ever since we came to Highdown, until Uncle Zack mentioned the old railway station.’
‘So had I,’ said Rosemary. ‘Have you got the ring safely?’
John patted his pocket, and the ring made a dull rattling sound inside the tin.
‘Do you remember Carbonel said he would give us twenty-four hours to get in touch with Calidor before he came to Highdown? Well, we’ve been here for several days and he hasn’t turned up. I wonder why?’ Rosemary said thoughtfully. ‘It’s not like him not to keep his word.’
‘Just as well he hasn’t,’ said John. ‘We haven’t met Miss Dibdin, or seen so much as a whisker of Calidor. I tell you what. When we’ve finished delivering leaflets, let’s go and have a peek at the old railway station.’
They pushed leaflets through every letter-box they could find on the way to the village, each of them going to alternate houses.
‘I’m ringing all the bells, and knocking all the knockers as well, to make sure everyone notices!’ shouted John, as they passed one another, shuttling backwards and forwards.
‘So am I!’ Rosemary called over her shoulder. ‘I like to hear what sort of door-bell each house has. Some go “ping”, some go “ping-pong”, and some just “tinkle”.’
‘And some go “squawk”!’ shouted John as he passed her again.
When they reached the Market Square they handed in a leaflet over every counter. Rosemary liked shops. By the time they had worked their way round they were getting rather tired, and very hungry.
‘I’m simply starving,’ said John. He looked at the rows of cars parked in the Square. ‘But we can’t eat our sandwiches here. Let’s go down Sheepshanks Lane and find somewhere there. We can go on to Tucket Towers afterwards.’
After running beside the road for some way down Sheepshanks Lane, the footpath was swallowed up by a grassy verge.
‘Let’s stop here,’ said Rosemary. ‘Under that bit of hedge with the catkins ... What are you staring at?’ she asked.
‘That great pile of chunky earth. It must have come out of a huge great hole. I expect they are mending the road. Let’s go and see.’
Just as Rosemary liked shops, John liked holes, so they went to inspect it. A little way away was one of those cheerful-looking stripy tents, put up by men who mend roads.
‘I say, what a smashing hole!’ said John, as they looked down into its murky depths. They neither of them noticed the road-man come out of the tent and walk towards them.
‘Oy!’ he shouted. ‘Now then you two! How long ’ave you been messing about ’ere?’
‘We aren’t messing. Only looking,’ said John.
‘Well, what have you done with my cones?’
‘Cones?’ said John. ‘Do you mean those red and white pointed things for warning people the road is up?’ The man nodded.
‘We haven’t done anything with them.’
‘Six there were this morning. I put them there myself. And I’m blowed if someone didn’t nick the lot while I was having my cuppa back there.’ He pointed with a grimy thumb to the little tent. ‘About ten o’clock it must have been, and me not away above five minutes.’
‘Well, it wasn’t us!’ said John indignantly.
‘We’ve only just come,’ went on Rosemary. ‘And whatever should we want the cones for, anyway?’
‘You never know with kids,’ said the man darkly.
‘Well, you can see we haven’t got them,’ said John. ‘They aren’t the sort of thing you can put in your pocket.’
‘All right, all right, I believe you,’ said the man reluctantly. ‘But there’s some as ’ld pinch their grannie’s back hair, given half a chance ... ’Allo, ’allo! It’s coming on to rain! Looks like being heavy. You’d best run for it. Turn left there at the crossroads and there’s a shed you can shelter in before you come to the old railway station.’
They thanked him and said they hoped he would find his missing cones, and turned to go; but not before Rosemary had pressed a leaflet into his hand. They left him looking at it in a puzzled way.
‘Come on!’ said John, and broke into a jog-trot, for it was beginning to rain quite hard; but of course they did not stop at the shed. They ran straight on till they came to the railway station.
It stood by itself, with no houses in sight. The entrance was locked, so they crawled through a hole in the hedge at one side and climbed up on to the deserted platform.
‘Food first, explore later,’ said John, and Rosemary agreed.
They sat down on a rickety old seat which was propped against a wall beneath a torn and mildewed poster, urging them to ‘Come to Sunny Southport’.
‘Good old Mother Boddles!’ said John as he unpacked the sandwiches. ‘Sardine and hard-boiled egg. She isn’t so bad really.’
At first they were too busy eating to talk, but they looked about them as they munched. The railway lines had been taken up. Only two long parallel smudges of darker green on the weedy track, stretching away into the distance in both directions, showed where they had once been. The rain pattered steadily on the glass roof above them, and dripped through a few broken panes on the discoloured platform below. Little pillows of green moss bulged here and there between the boards where once the impatient feet of passengers had paced up and down. A clump of nettles grew by the seat on which they were sitting.
‘I think it’s the most alone place I’ve ever been in,’ said Rosemary. ‘It’s a bit creepy,’ she added, looking at the fields, now misty with rain, on the other side of what had been the railway line.
‘I suppose it’s because you expect stations to be busy,’ said John with his mouth full of sandwich. He looked at the door leading to the small booking hall beside him. It hung awkwardly on a single hinge.
‘That’s queer. Two empty milk bottles by the door!’
‘What’s so funny about that?’ said Rosemary. ‘I expect a porter left them behind ages ago and nobody bothered to collect them.’
John got up from the bench and picked up one of the bottles. There was a dribble of milk at the bottom. He put his nose to the neck and sniffed.
‘If they’d been left ages ago the milk would be all mouldy. It doesn’t even smell sour! It looks as though someone has been here not so long ago. I’m going to explore.’
Rosemary didn’t much want to be left by herself on the deserted platform, so she went with him.
‘I expect it was somebody like us, just sheltering,’ she said, but she looked uneasily over her shoulder as she followed him into the booking hall. The door of the Station Master’s office on the left was locked. There was a shutter over the little window where tickets had once been sold, but the waiting-room opposite was open. There was nothing there but dust and cobwebs, and a scattering of soot on the floor round the old-fashioned fireplace.
‘There was another door, outside, further up the platform,’ said John. ‘Let’s have a look at that.’
6. Miss Dibdin Makes Do
JOHN led the way, with Rosemary close behind. LADIES’ WAITING ROOM was written in fat, frosted letters on the glass which filled the upper half of the door.
‘I don’t suppose anyone ...’ he began, as he pushed the door open. Then he stopped.
The remains of a small fire were burning in the grate and a large, red fire-bucket stood in the hearth, with a wooden spoon resting across the top. A battered bench, like the one on the platform, was drawn up to the fireplace. An attempt had been made to sweep the dusty floor, and in a corner someone had propped a broom. It was not the usual household kind, but the sort that gardeners use, with a bunch of twigs tied to one end, instead of bristles.
‘I say!’ said John. ‘Look over there!’ Rosemary looked.
‘The road-man’s cones, all six of them, and somebody’s painted one of them black!’
They stood in a row, with an open tin in front with ‘Perkin’s Ebony Gloss’ printed in large letters on the label.
‘Well, whoever did it isn’t very good at painting,’ said John. ‘Just look at the splodges all over the floor. But who can have done it, and whatever for?’
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Rosemary. She walked over to the corner, picked up the broom, and began to examine the narrow band that secured the twigs to the handle. ‘I believe I know who did it, but not why.’
‘Oh, lay off it, Rosie! How could you know?’ said John.
‘Well, I do, so there!’ said Rosemary. ‘The twigs are tied on with a piece of plastic ribbon with printing on it.’
‘So what!’ said John scornfully.
‘You needn’t be so squashing,’ said Rosemary. ‘The printing says “NOSTRADAMUS LTD. Fancy Goods”. The same as the tape that tied up Miss Dibdin’s box of crackers for the party. Now do you understand?’
‘You mean, Miss Dibdin ...?’
Rosemary interrupted. ‘When I went into her bedroom that evening there was a stick just like this one, leaning against the mantelpiece, and there was a pile of twigs on the hearth-rug. She must have tied them on with the tape from the parcel, to make the broom.’
‘Then it must have been Miss Dibdin who pinched the road-man’s cones as well!’ said John. ‘Good heavens!’ He knelt, and touched the cone that had been painted black. ‘And the paint’s still wet, so she can’t have been gone very long.’
‘And now,’ said an acid voice from the doorway, ‘she’s come back.’
John and Rosemary whipped round. Miss Dibdin, with Crumpet peering round her ankles, was standing in the opening. There was a long uncomfortable pause. Miss Dibdin stood tapping one foot on the floor. Her grey hair straggled in wet rats’ tails from a scarlet headscarf. Rain trickled from the long folds of her black mackintosh, and even dripped from the end of her nose, which looked even more beaky than ever. Crumpet stalked towards the fireplace, shaking each wet paw in turn as he went.
Miss Dibdin broke the uneasy silence.
‘What are you doing here?’ she snapped. ‘Snooping and interfering!’
‘We didn’t mean to snoop,’ said John.
‘We only came to the station to shelter from the rain,’ went on Rosemary. There was another pause, at the end of which Miss Dibdin took a deep breath, as though she had made up her mind about something.
‘Well,’ she began, almost amiably. ‘Since you’ve stumbled on my secret, you had better sit down, and we can have a little chat. But first you must promise to tell nobody about it. Not a human soul!’
‘Promise!’ said John. ‘Not a human soul!’
‘Promise!’ said Rosemary.
Miss Dibdin motioned them to the bench, and they perched themselves uneasily on the edge.
‘First of all we must make up the fire for Crumpet. He wants to dry his wet paws, don’t you, my pussididdlums!’ she cooed. ‘Such a wet afternoon.’ She added a few sticks to the smouldering embers, and coaxed them into life, before seating herself on a broken packing case. Crumpet sat down by the hearth and began to lick his paws, from time to time flashing a quick, green glance at John and Rosemary.
‘Well,’ said Miss Dibdin at last. ‘What do you think of my little den, dears? Cosy, isn’t it?’
Rosemary looked round, and thought that ‘cosy’ was one thing it was not.
‘You see,’ said Miss Dibdin, ‘I have taken rooms at Tucket Towers. So very kind of Mrs Witherspoon. I think she likes the company, and we have both started on the same ... hobby. Quite rivals we are becoming! So of course I wanted somewhere private where I could get on with things. Make messes with no one interfering, you know. After all, you can’t boil a cauldron in a bed-sitting-room, can you?’ She waved airily at the fire bucket which stood in the hearth, its red sides smudged with soot.
‘Do you mean you cook things in the fire-bucket?’ asked John.
Miss Dibdin nodded. ‘A sort of cooking, you might call it,’ she replied, pushing out her underlip. ‘You can imagine how pleased I was when I discovered this place that nobody seems to want! That was a couple of weeks ago, when I came to Highdown for the day to look round. There’s even a short cut to the station, through the fields from Tucket Towers. I didn’t tell Katie about it, at first. She’s so inclined to interfere.’
‘I remember you telling Mrs Cantrip you were going to be met by a friend at Highdown Station,’ said John.
Miss Dibdin smothered a laugh behind her hand.
‘That was rather naughty of me!’ she said coyly. ‘But I didn’t say what kind, did I? It was a furry, four-footed friend. A beautiful smooth-haired pussy! It belongs to Mrs Witherspoon. She told me it seemed to take a fancy to her, just as Crumpet did to me. Her cat met her first when she was coming home from church one Sunday morning. What with that, and the fact that it was a beautiful smoky grey, just the colour of the suit the vicar always wears, she called it Mattins. Mattins and Crumpet are such friends! Aren’t you, my precious?’
Crumpet, now warm and dry once more, was purring furiously as Miss Dibdin rubbed him behind his ears.
‘You see, at first Mrs Witherspoon wanted time to decide whether to take me in, not being used to letting rooms, and that was to be the sign. If, when I arrived at Highdown I found Mattins sitting in the Ladies’ Waiting Room, it would mean she would have me. And he was. So fortunate! But you remember that parcel I was expecting, with the Do-It-Yourself Kit? It never came, after all. I can’t think what went wrong!’
Rosemary flashed a look at John and began uncomfortably: ‘Miss Dibdin ...’
But Miss Dibdin snapped: ‘Don’t interrupt! I am telling you! Without it I am just having to make do. Why, I had to come to Highdown by bus and taxi, and carry my broom, instead of ...’ She looked up, and broke off as she saw the children’s fascinated gaze.
The windows of the little room were so clouded with dirt that not muc
h light filtered through. The firelight flickered on her frowning face.
‘Well, anyway, here I am,’ she ended lamely. ‘But it is surprising the number of ways it is possible to make the best of things.’ She nodded towards the cones standing on the newspaper.
‘Did you really take them from the hole in the road?’ asked John. ‘The cones, I mean.’
Miss Dibdin shuffled her feet in their sensible flat-heeled shoes.
‘Well, I’ve just been telling you, I have to make do,’ she said irritably. ‘They were the right shape, though perhaps they aren’t very comfortable. The human head is oval, and the hollow inside the cones is round. I know, because I tried one on before I, er, borrowed them. The colour is soon put right. Oh, I shall put them all back when Katie sends my parcel on. I shan’t need them when it arrives. I told her where I was staying in the end. Tucket Towers sounds such a respectable address, don’t you think? I’m sure the parcel will come at last, and when it does, when it does ...!’ She threw back her head and laughed shrilly with wide-flung arms. ‘There will be nothing I cannot have and nothing I cannot do!’
‘But do you mean you are going to wear that cone thing on your head, like a witch’s hat?’ said John.
Miss Dibdin clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I’ve said too much!’
‘Then your hobby really is magic?’ said Rosemary.
Miss Dibdin nodded slowly. ‘If you’ve guessed so much it’s no use pretending. But don’t forget, you promised not to tell!’ she added quickly.
‘Is there a witch’s hat in this — this parcel you’re expecting?’ asked John.
Again Miss Dibdin nodded, and he exchanged a quick glance with Rosemary. Miss Dibdin’s eyes glittered strangely in the firelight, as she stared into the dancing flames. Her voice dropped to a whisper, almost as though she was talking to herself.
‘And that’s not all,’ she muttered. ‘There is something else in the parcel besides the hat. Something more precious than the Bank of England. Something that would give me power; such power that ...’
Carbonel and Calidor Page 4
