Hue and Cry (14 page)

“How dare you?”

“Oh, easily enough, my dear. But it would be a bit of a bore.” He yawned. “I believe I'm too sleepy to be bothered with you.”

He lowered the torch, took a couple of steps forward, and dropped a sudden hand on Mally's shoulder.

“Like to kiss me good-night?” he said.

An uncontrollable panic took hold of Mally. Afterwards she had a good deal to say to herself on the subject. There were things she might have said to him, and things she might have done; but at the moment all that she wanted was to get away. With a little gasp of rage and fright she wrenched free and ran away into the darkness.

CHAPTER XVII

Mally ran blindly into the dark. First there were cobblestones underfoot, then she was out of the yard and on gravel. She ran full tilt into a large bush or shrub that sent out an aromatic smell and scratched her outstretched hands with its sharp twigs and hard foliage. With a little gasping cry she stopped, and then pushed her way in between the branches until she felt the trunk and could hold on to it. She wanted something to hold on to because, now that she had stopped running, she was trembling very much.

She stood there in the dark and called herself names:

“Idiot! What are you afraid of?”

She really had not the slightest idea. The panic fear had come pouring down on her like a douche of ice-cold water. She felt drenched with it to the very marrow; but she did not know why. She heard the garage door shut with a bang. And then, whistling to himself and flashing an idle torch here and there, Lawrence Marrington went by.

The white light danced like a malicious Jack-o'-lanthorn. She saw snow-sprinkled gravel just for a second, and then scarlet holly berries amongst prickly leaves. The light went by. Lawrence Marrington went by. The sound of his footsteps died away. He turned a corner and the last dancing spark went too. Mally felt the black dark close round her with a comforting sense of safety. Her bush smelled strong and sweet. She leaned back against its resilient branches, and stopped shaking.

What on earth was she going to do? It must be somewhere about two o'clock she thought—two, or perhaps three in the morning; and it was really frightfully cold. The sprinkled snow on the gravel had been white and crisp; the earth under her foot was as hard as stone; and all the trees in the garden moved restlessly under a steady wind from the north.

Mally came out of her bush and made her way back to the yard. The garage door was locked of course—that went without saying. But there might be some outhouse, empty loose box, or loft.

Mally was certainly not going to freeze in the open if there was shelter to be had. She began to feel her way about the yard. Now that Marrington was gone, a sense of adventure buoyed her up. After all, she had done pretty well; she had got out of London, and she still had three and ninepence farthing in cash and four ginger biscuits in kind.

She felt a gate with an iron hasp, and narrowly escaped coming down over a staple driven into the ground. Then there was a length of fence which ran down to a corner and met a brick wall. Mally felt along the bricks and collided with a ladder. From the fact that it did not move when she hit it rather hard with her shoulder, she deduced that the upper end of it was fixed. A fixed upper end meant a loft door or hatch. She began to climb hopefully, and found what she had hoped for.

At the top of the ladder was a loft with an open hatch, and—joys of joys—the loft was half full of hay. It was only when the hay closed round her and she felt its warmth that she realized how cold she was. Hay was beautifully warm, if rather tickly. She snuggled down into it and went to sleep.

It was broad daylight when she woke to a clattering, swishing noise. The sound of men's voices came in through the open hatch.

The chauffeur was washing the car, and another man came and went. Mally could not hear what they said; but she thought it was a good thing that motors didn't eat hay. As it was, she hoped that she was safe. She sat up, ate her four ginger biscuits, and wondered what next.

She could stay where she was for a bit. But in the long run what in the world was she going to do? Mally looked at the question, tossed her head at it, and looked away. And just at that moment she heard a voice upraised in song.

It may be said at once that the voice was not a tuneful one. It was, however, hearty, and burst upon Mally with the loud suddenness of a base trombone.

“Just a song at twilight,” bellowed the voice. There was a loud hammering sound and a pause. Mally suspected that the singer's mouth was performing the more useful office of holding nails. After a moment music again held sway.

“Just a song at twilight,

When the lights are low—Oh damn!

And the whispering shadows

Softly come and go.

When the heart is weary, (this very robustly)

Sad the day and long,

Then to us at twilight (bang, bang, thud)

Comes love's sweet song—Blast that nail!—

Love's old swee-ee-eet song.”

The hammer dropped with a crash.

Mally jumped up and began to shake the hay off her. The open hatch lay on the right. The sound certainly did not come from there. Half the loft was full of hay, but the rest lay bare and dusty and rather dark.

She crossed into the darkest corner, and saw a door in the long wall facing the hatch. Behind the door there arose the sound of sawing and the sound of song:

“Once in the dear dead days beyond recall

(crunch, creak, buzz)—

When on the—'m—the umpty-umpty-um

Out of the—'m—that umpty-umpty throng,

Low to my heart love sang his old sweet

song—Oh, drat!”

Mally turned the handle and pushed very gently. She began doing this whilst the singer was rendering the “umpty-umpty-ums” fortissimo and with a good deal of soulful expression.

Three steps led down from the door into a bright, bare garret with two windows. The room itself contained a carpenter's bench, a heap of scrap iron, a pile of wire netting, a great many odds and ends of wood, tools, shavings, and a very large young man engaged in making something that might have been either a hen-coop or a rabbit-hutch.

Mally surveyed him with interest. She had an entirely irrational feeling that a young man who sang out-of-date sentimental ditties so very loudly, cheerfully, and unmelodiously must be absolutely chockfull of the solid qualities which make you feel that you can trust people even if you have never seen them before.

The young man was very large; the hands that held the saw were an outsize in hands. His hair was black and inclined to stand on end. He had his back to Mally, so that all she saw of him was feet, hands, sunburned neck, black hair, and very old tweeds. A wisp of a furry gray kitten sat on his left shoulder and rubbed its head up and down against his ear. It was doubtless purring, but the tiny sound was swamped by “Love's old sweet song.”

Mally came through the door, shut it behind her, stood on the top step, and said, “Who are you?”

The young man stopped sawing, turned slowly, and disclosed a cheerful, ugly, bewildered face. Mally saw that his skin would have been very white if it hadn't been so burned; also that he had gray eyes, a turned-up nose, and a perfectly enormous mouth. He gazed at her, and Mally repeated her question, whilst the kitten stopped purring and arched its back.

“Who are you?”

The young man went on staring. When he saw Mally's foot begin to tap the step, he said hastily:

“Ethan Messenger.”

“What?”

“Messenger—Ethan. It gives every one the pip at first, but they get used to it. Er—won't you come in?”

“I am in.”

“I mean down—won't you come down?”

Mally came down as though reluctantly. He was so very large. Being three steps up gave one a sort of moral advantage. She understood exactly why the kitten preferred his shoulder to the floor.

Ethan Messenger was not stupid. It had really occurred to him at once that it was he who should have asked, “Who are you?” He looked at Mally and saw her crumpled clothes and the hay that stuck to them. In one hand she held a little black felt hat. Her short brown hair was wildly ruffled and had authentic straws in it. Her eyes reminded him of the kitten on his shoulder before he had made friends with it; they were bright, wary, alert. The kitten at his first advances had spat, scratched, and fled.

He wasn't quite sure whether he dared ask his question. Then it struck him that, under its defiance, this little crumpled creature was most forlornly pale.

“I say, what can I do for you?” he said, and got up.

“I don't know.”

The kitten rubbed its head against his ear again. Mally could hear it purring now; and as the kitten rubbed, she saw the big young man with the queer name put up one of those outsized hands and ruffle the little creature's gray fur with an enormous, gentle finger. She had an impulse, and followed it without an instant's hesitation.

“I'm running away from the police,” she said. “My name is Mally Lee.”

Then she did a thing which it enraged her to think about afterwards. She saw his lips pursed up to whistle; she saw his look of blank dismay—and she burst into tears.

“How dare you!” she said, and sat down on the bottom step.

“I—I didn't do anything.”

“You did!” said Mally, groping for a handkerchief.

“Oh, I say, for the Lord's sake don't cry.”

“I'm not c-crying.” The tears rushed down her cheeks. “I'm not. I never do.”

Ethan produced a clean, folded handkerchief, approached cautiously, laid it on Mally's knee, and withdrew to a safe distance.

Mally dried her eyes, pinched herself, dried them again with angry determination, and said:

“Why don't you go and find the police—and give me up—and take me to prison—and——”

“Why should I? I say, how on earth did you get here?”

Mally relaxed a little.

“I came in a car.”

“When?”

“In the night. I went to sleep in the back of it—in the garage—in London. And he drove all the way down and never knew I was there.” She gave a little laugh, and the wet eyes twinkled. “I don't know who he is, and I don't know where I am. I got into the hay-loft because I was so cold. Who is he, and where am I?”

“You're at Peddling Corner, in Surrey. This is Sir Charles Lennox's place. You must have come down in Marrington's car.”

“Who's Marrington?”

“Lawrence Marrington—no end of a big bug—explorer—Aztecs and things. He's staying here. He dined in town last night—some function or another.”

“Lennox? But your name isn't Lennox.”

He laughed, a loud jolly laugh.

“I'm only a visitor. Lady Lennox is a sort of umpteenth cousin. I'm on leave.”

“You don't live here?”

“I don't live anywhere. I say, do you mean that about the police?”

She gave a queer little decided nod; a bright belated tear fell on her dark sleeve.

“I say, why on earth——”

“I d-don't know.”

“What on earth have you done?”

Mally's chin came up about an inch. She looked, and said nothing.

“Look here, that's all very well, but what do they think you've done?”

Mally put her chin in her hand. Her expression changed. She said, in quite a different voice, “I don't know—I don't.” Then quite suddenly she smiled; her lashes flickered; an imp danced in her eyes. “I'm so frightfully hungry.”

“Hungry?”

“I've only had ginger biscuits since yesterday at lunch. I ate the last four when I woke up. I feel dreadfully thin. I expect you'd better go for the police.”

Ethan took a banana out of his pocket.

“I've got this. We were going to give it to the rabbit.”

“We?”

“Bunty Lennox and I. She got the rabbit yesterday at an awful bazaar, and I said I'd make it a hutch. Why do people have bazaars? D'you know, we were there for two solid hours. And everybody was selling things to everybody else, and then raffling 'em and selling 'em all over again. The rabbit was sold eight times. But when it came to Bunty she howled and froze on it, and went on howling till her mother took her home. And I promised to make it a hutch. She'll be up here as soon as she's done her lessons. The rabbit's in the parrot's cage till I get the hutch done.”

Mally finished the banana and laid the skin neatly on the floor, and at that moment somebody laughed outside. The sound floated in through the open window.

Mally gave a gasp. It was impossible. It was quite impossible. But she got to her feet.

“Who's that?” in a breathless undertone.

Ethan Messenger did not answer. He went over to the window and stood there blocking it.

Mally, one hand on his arm, pushed him an inch aside and peeped. He felt, rather than heard her catch her breath.

The window looked out on the vegetable garden. There was a path running up the middle. There were two men walking up the path.

One of them was Mr. Paul Craddock.

CHAPTER XVIII

The appearance of Mr. Craddock was due neither to coincidence nor miracle. It must be conceded that Paul was efficient, and that not only was he efficient, but that he had the capacity for taking pains which amounts to genius.

Mr. Alfred Dawson had had orders to report at dawn. He found Mr. Craddock extremely disinclined to accept his account of Miss Lee's disappearance. Before he knew where he was, he was being conveyed swiftly to the spot where he had last seen her; and the moment Mr. Craddock set eyes on the red garage door he lost his temper and used language very injurious to Alfred Dawson's self-esteem. Most of what he said was unprintable. And he continued to say it with remarkable fluency and ease during the interval which elapsed whilst the manager of the garage was sending for the young man who had been on duty the night before.