The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

‘What did you say?’

‘I wasn’t asked,’ said Charlotte demurely. ‘But I’ll tell you what I did say. You lie mouse-still, Rupert; it’s all right. I’m glad you’re buried, though.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said,’ Charlotte answered, glowing with the pride of a successful strategist – ‘I said we’d help them to search! Come on, the three C.’s. Round the back way! We’ll help them to search for their runaway boy – so we will! And when they’ve gone we’ll bring you something to eat – something really nice – not just biscuits. Don’t you worry. The three C.’s are yours to the death.’

CHAPTER VII

BEING DETECTIVES

If you are Jack Delamere, the Boy Detective who can find out all secrets by himself, pretending to be a French count, a young lady from the provinces, or a Lincolnshire labourer with a cold in his head, and in those disguises pass unrecognised by his nearest relations and by those coiners and smugglers to whom in his ordinary clothes he is only too familiar, – if you can so alter your voice that your old school-fellows believe you to be, when dressed for the part, an Italian organ-grinder or a performing bear —

I am sorry, this sentence is too much for me. I give it up. What I was going to say was that persons accustomed to the detective trade, or, on the other hand, persons who are used to keeping out of the way of detectives, no doubt find it easy to play a part and to look innocent when they are guilty, and ignorant when of course all is known to them. But when you are not accustomed to playing a part in a really serious adventure – not just a pretending one – you will find your work cut out for you. This was what Charles and Caroline felt.

It was all very well for Charlotte to have arranged that they should help the Police to look for Rupert, and the other two said cordially that it was very clever of her to have thought of it, and they all started together for the side door where the policeman was still talking to Mrs. Wilmington. But their feet seemed somehow not to want to go that way; they went more and more slowly, and when they were half-way to the house, Caroline said:

‘I don’t think I will. I don’t know how. I should do something silly and give the show away. I shall say I’m too tired.’

‘You are too bad,’ said Charlotte, exasperated. ‘I go and lay all the plans and then you funk.’

‘I don’t,’ said Caroline. And so anxious was she not to have to play the part of pretending to look for Rupert when all the time she knew where he was, that she added humbly, ‘Don’t be snarky. I’m only saying I’m not clever enough. I’m not so clever as you, that’s all.’

I am sorry to say that Charlotte only answered ‘Rats!’ and added, ‘I suppose Charles is going to cry off next?’ She did not think he was: she just said it. And Charles most unexpectedly answered:

‘I think I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.’

Charlotte stamped her foot. ‘Oh, all right!’ she said; ‘but for goodness’ sake come on. They’ll think there’s something up.’ And they walked on.

‘Look here,’ said Caroline suddenly, ‘I will pretend to help. It was only that I was so awfully afraid they’d find him. Only if I disappear, you’ll understand it’s just because I felt sillier than I could bear. You help too, Charles. I’m sure you can – only don’t pretend too much. I shouldn’t talk much except asking questions, if I were you.’

‘Right O!’ said Charlotte.

And Charles said, ‘Oh, well, only if I give it away without meaning to, don’t blame me.’

And by this time they were quite near the house, by whose side door of many-coloured glass the group of talking grown-ups awaited them. Mrs. Wilmington was there with her handkerchief over her head. And William and the gardener’s boy and the gardener, and a tall stout young man with fat red hands who was the Police.

‘I can’t and won’t,’ Mrs. Wilmington was saying. ‘The Master’s orders is – are – that he’s not to be disturbed in the mornings on any pretence – not if the house was on fire. I couldn’t face him with this vulgar tale of runaway boys. I give you leave to search for him,’ she said in proud refined accents. ‘I’m quate competent to take that upon me; quate.’

The Police turned from her to the children, who said ‘Good morning!’ – all but Charlotte, who had said it before.

‘Good morning to you,’ said the Police, ‘and so you young ladies and gents is going to join the search-party?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Caroline.

‘What’ll you do with him if you catch him?’ Caroline asked abruptly.

‘Send him to gaol, in course,’ said the Police, winking at William. ‘An’ you’re all going to help the law in the execution of its duty. And very useful I daresay you’ll be,’ he added affably, ‘knowing the place and what not. Now see here,’ he went on, condescending to them in a way which, it was remarked later, was like his cheek; ‘let’s have a game of play, make-believe, you know. Let’s pretend this runaway lad is a friend of yours’ (a cold shiver ran down three youthful backs; for a moment it seemed that all was discovered, but the Police went on, still playfully) – ‘a friend of yours, and you and him has settled to play a little game of hide-and-seek. And he’s He. Now where,’ he ended, more affably almost than they could bear, – ‘where would you look first?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Charles miserably.

‘Oh! just anywhere,’ said Charlotte.

But Caroline said slowly, ‘I should look in the wood over there,’ and pointed straight to the spot where Rupert lay buried in fern and leaves.

‘Right you are,’ said the Police, delighted to have got a suggestion. ‘Then here goes.’

Charlotte dared not look at her sister lest her face should show her detestation of this traitorous act. Charles put his hands in his pockets to express indifference, and decided not to whistle for fear of overdoing his part. He told himself that he never would have believed it of Caro – never.

And now Caroline was speaking again, looking confidingly up into the large patronising face of the Police.

‘That’s where I should look,’ she was saying, ‘if we were playing hide-and-seek. But as it is – You see we’ve been there all the morning, and he couldn’t have come into the wood without our hearing him, you know. Have you tried the other wood, beyond the garden? And the thatched summer-house? And the lodge that isn’t used? Over by the other gates, you know.’

‘The old lodge,’ the Police echoed. ‘A very likely spot, I shouldn’t wonder. You lead the way, young gentleman,’ he said to Charles.

‘Good old Caro – oh, good old Caro!’ Charlotte was saying to herself as the party started.

‘I’ll dispose my search-party proper later on,’ said the Police importantly, and turned to say, ‘Ain’t you coming, Miss?’ to Caroline, who was stooping down, doing something to her foot.

‘I can’t,’ she said; ‘I’ve got a stone in my shoe. And it hurts,’ she added, standing up firmly on it.

Caroline went indoors, and the search-party threaded the woods and converged at last on the empty lodge. Its lattice-paned windows were dusty, its door hung on a broken hinge, and little black balls of hard moss were dotted between the flagstones of its yard. Its thatch was loose in places, ruffled like the plumage of an old stuffed bird, and its garden had been so long untilled that it had ceased to be the weed-grown earth patch that a neglected garden first becomes, and had grown green all over, covered itself with grass and fern and bramble and baby oak-trees, and become just a fenced-in patch of the wood beyond.

‘Halt!’ said the Police; ‘just the place. I’ll warrant we’ve run the young gentleman to earth this time.’

But they hadn’t. There was nothing in the lodge but an old hamper with a hole in it, a litter of straw and old damp paper, some cold ashes in the grate, and in the upper rooms two last year’s birds’-nests, and a chair with three legs and half a back.

The Police stooped his helmeted head to the low door lintel, and came out into the sunshine a disappointed man.

‘Thought we’d got him,’ he said; and that was what he said at the thatched summer-house and in the larch wood, and at various other parts of the park and grounds where Rupert was not.

‘Isn’t it nearly dinner-time?’ Charles asked, as the search-party pushed through a very brambly brake and came out once more at the back of the deserted lodge.

‘Your kind governess, she put back dinner an hour for you to assist in the search,’ said the Police reassuringly.

‘Best try the other side, Mr. Poad,’ said William; ‘you’ve drawed this blank.’

‘I will now whistle to the gentleman as owns the runaway,’ said the Police suddenly and terribly, and whistled.

‘Where is he?’ Charlotte asked, with a sudden vision of the Murdstone gentleman seeing everything with half an eye, capturing Rupert and carrying him off in half a minute. Charles was wondering ‘what they do to you for helping runaway boys.’

‘Along the road,’ the Police answered, ‘with Mr. Binskin from the Peal of Bells. Keeping watch. I’d best report to him.’

‘Will he come with us?’ Charles could not help asking.

‘I’m of opinion he’s best where he is,’ said the Police. ‘I’m just a-going to tell him to keep on up and down outside. The ostler from the Peal is over the other side, case he gets out that way. Unless he’s had to get back to his work already.’

‘Let’s go and have another look at those birds’-nests while we’re waiting,’ said Charlotte, with great presence of mind. And so it was through the little diamond panes of the lodge that they saw again the Murdstone gentleman, in evening dress and an overcoat, with his tie in a crumpled state under one ear, and his face, as Charlotte said, exactly like the face of a baffled executioner.