The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit [books to read fiction .txt] 📗

another burglary⁠—My cats alive!” she screamed, as she drew up the blind and turned towards the bed; “look at his bed, all crocked with black, and him not there!”

“Oh, Jiminy!” It was a scream this time. Kathleen came running from her room; Jimmy sat up in his bed and rubbed his eyes.

“Whatever is it?” Kathleen cried.

“I dunno when I ’ad such a turn.” Eliza sat down heavily on a box as she spoke. “First thing his bed all empty and black as the chimley back, and him not in it, and then when I looks again he is in it all the time. I must be going silly. I thought as much when I heard them haunting angel voices yesterday morning. But I’ll tell Mamselle of you, my lad, with your tricks, you may rely on that. Blacking yourself all over and crocking up your clean sheets and pillowcases. It’s going back of beyond, this is.”

“Look here,” said Gerald slowly; “I’m going to tell you something.”

Eliza simply snorted, and that was rude of her; but then, she had had a shock and had not got over it.

“Can you keep a secret?” asked Gerald, very earnest through the grey of his partly rubbed-off blacklead.

“Yes,” said Eliza.

“Then keep it and I’ll give you two bob.”

“But what was you going to tell me?”

“That. About the two bob and the secret. And you keep your mouth shut.”

“I didn’t ought to take it,” said Eliza, holding out her hand eagerly. “Now you get up, and mind you wash all the corners, Master Gerald.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re safe,” said Kathleen, when Eliza had gone.

“You didn’t seem to care much last night,” said Gerald coldly.

“I can’t think how I let you go. I didn’t care last night. But when I woke this morning and remembered!”

“There, that’ll do⁠—it’ll come off on you,” said Gerald through the reckless hugging of his sister.

“How did you get visible?” Jimmy asked.

“It just happened when she called me the ring came off.”

“Tell us all about everything,” said Kathleen.

“Not yet,” said Gerald mysteriously.

“Where’s the ring?” Jimmy asked after breakfast. “I want to have a try now.”

“I⁠—I forgot it,” said Gerald; “I expect it’s in the bed somewhere.”

But it wasn’t. Eliza had made the bed.

“I’ll swear there ain’t no ring there,” she said. “I should ’a seen it if there had’a been.”

V

“Search and research proving vain,” said Gerald, when every corner of the bedroom had been turned out and the ring had not been found, “the noble detective hero of our tale remarked that he would have other fish to fry in half a jiff, and if the rest of you want to hear about last night⁠—”

“Let’s keep it till we get to Mabel,” said Kathleen heroically.

“The assignation was ten-thirty, wasn’t it? Why shouldn’t Gerald gas as we go along? I don’t suppose anything very much happened, anyhow.” This, of course, was Jimmy.

“That shows,” remarked Gerald sweetly, “how much you know. The melancholy Mabel will await the tryst without success, as far as this one is concerned. ‘Fish, fish, other fish other fish I fry!’ ” he warbled to the tune of ‘Cherry Ripe,’ till Kathleen could have pinched him.

Jimmy turned coldly away, remarking, “When you’ve quite done.”

But Gerald went on singing⁠—

“Where the lips of Johnson smile,
There’s the land of Cherry Isle.
Other fish, other fish,
Fish I fry.
Stately Johnson, come and buy!”

“How can you,” asked Kathleen, “be so aggravating?”

“I don’t know,” said Gerald, returning to prose.

“Want of sleep or intoxication⁠—of success, I mean. Come where no one can hear us.”

“Oh, come to some island where no one can hear,
And beware of the keyhole that’s glued to an ear,”

he whispered, opened the door suddenly, and there, sure enough, was Eliza, stooping without. She flicked feebly at the wainscot with a duster, but concealment was vain.

“You know what listeners never hear,” said Jimmy severely.

“I didn’t, then⁠—so there!” said Eliza, whose listening ears were crimson. So they passed out, and up the High Street, to sit on the churchyard wall and dangle their legs. And all the way Gerald’s lips were shut into a thin, obstinate line.

“Now,” said Kathleen. “Oh, Jerry, don’t be a goat! I’m simply dying to hear what happened.”

“That’s better,” said Gerald, and he told his story. As he told it some of the white mystery and magic of the moonlit gardens got into his voice and his words, so that when he told of the statues that came alive, and the great beast that was alive through all its stone, Kathleen thrilled responsive, clutching his arm, and even Jimmy ceased to kick the wall with his boot heels, and listened open-mouthed.

Then came the thrilling tale of the burglars, and the warning letter flung into the peaceful company of Mabel, her aunt, and the bread-and-butter pudding. Gerald told the story with the greatest enjoyment and such fullness of detail that the church clock chimed half-past eleven as he said, “Having done all that human agency could do, and further help being despaired of, our gallant young detective⁠—Hullo, there’s Mabel!”

There was. The tailboard of a cart shed her almost at their feet.

“I couldn’t wait any longer,” she explained, “when you didn’t come. And I got a lift. Has anything more happened? The burglars had gone when Bates got to the strongroom.”

“You don’t mean to say all that wheeze is real?” Jimmy asked.

“Of course it’s real,” said Kathleen. “Go on, Jerry. He’s just got to where he threw the stone into your bread-and-butter pudding, Mabel. Go on.”

Mabel climbed on to the wall. “You’ve got visible again quicker than I did,” she said.

Gerald nodded and resumed:

“Our story must be told in as few words as possible, owing to the fish-frying taking place at twelve, and it’s past the half-hour now. Having left his missive to do its warning work, Gerald de Sherlock Holmes sped back, wrapped in invisibility, to the spot where by the light of their dark-lanterns the burglars were still⁠—still burgling with the utmost punctuality and despatch. I