Mystery mine, p.19
Mystery Mine, page 19
It was dusk when the cars pulled up outside Venton's. Sharman was the first to get out and the others watched him run across the road to Amy Wildblood's cottage. There was no light in the windows and the door was locked and he was back just as the others were crowding into Venton's and switching on the lights. There was nobody there. No message on the mat. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed.
Mr. Sparrow looked a very old man when they saw him under the electric light. He was stern and angry but he smiled at the children and then spoke to Philip.
"We are all grateful for your help, Mr. Sharman. Please telephone the police at once and ask them to send someone here immediately. We must not lose our heads either now, or when they arrive. We want clear heads and must tell all we know as quickly as possible. None of you children must speak unless you are asked to do so. I blame myself for not taking action more quickly."
"And keep courage up," Mr. Venton said unexpectedly in rather a squeaky voice. "This is all disgraceful and I've been a fool. Should have been more suspicious when all this started. Very sorry you've all been dragged into it. Mr. Sparrow and I are in complete agreement. Thought I'd better come back with him and see if I could help. Glad I did. Glad to know you all. Soon get these children back. Nobody dare hurt them. Just threats. Better tell them about that impertinent letter, Sparrow. The man must be mad."
"Very well. Sit down, my dears."
"Start talking," Penny said as she ran into the kitchen. "I'll put the kettle on and we'll have some tea. We must do something while we're waiting for the police."
They could hear the murmur of Philip's voice on the telephone in the shop as Mr. Sparrow told them about the letter which had been left for him at Pickering station.
"It is a threatening and unpleasant letter. It was marked 'Confidential and Urgent' and although it is unsigned I think we know who wrote it. I'm sorry to tell you that it states that Harriet and Mary will not be returned unless I agree to sell my property immediately. A document for me to sign was enclosed and I am to make my decision by the morning at the latest."
"Who are you to tell of your decision, sir?" Jon asked, "Is there an address on the letter?"
"No, Jonathan. No address. Our enemies are not so silly as that. They are very clever. If I agree to sell - and obviously they believe that I shall - I am to move the old French clock which you have all seen in the centre of the shop window to the righthand side."
"You're to move the clock, sir? Who will see it? Surely we've only to watch carefully to see who comes up and down the street in the morning," David said.
"In the morning?" Peter cried. "We can't wait till the morning to get the girls back. They must be found at once. What good are the police if they can't find them tonight? Who delivered the note at the station?"
"They didn't know, my dear. They said they didn't notice, but it hadn't been waiting for me very long and whoever left it knew that I should be on the London train."
"Witch Wildblood, of course!" Dickie shouted with a catch in his voice. "Foul old Wildblood! Witch and traytress."
"What would they think if you took the clock right out of the window now and in the morning it just wasn't there?" Penny asked. "Isn't that a brainwave?"
They had no time to discuss this because Sharman came back into the room and gave them a sympathetic smile.
"I've described the 'Doctor', Robens and Amy, and told them about Harry and Mary. There's a patrol car not far away and the police will radio a message at once ordering the car to Spaunton. They may be here in five minutes."
They were, and everybody was thankful to break the tension of waiting. The two policemen were young, good-looking and obviously suspicious and discouraged by the sight of so many children, but Mr. Sparrow took control and with Mr. Venton's help told them about the anonymous offers for the business and of what they knew of the 'Doctor', of Robens and of Amy Wildblood. They were impressed by the letter left for him at Pickering station.
Then Sharman tried to speak but was interrupted by Peter and Dickie and because the latter would not be shouted down they had to listen to him first.
"Why do you keep on talk, talk, talk," he said with tears in his eyes. "There you are with a whacking great car outside and a radio and I 'spect you've got guns an' tear gas an' if you haven't you ought to have and you don't go an' find my twin and Harriet. Can't you jolly well see they've been kidnapped? Can't you jolly well understand that this 'Doctor' chap and that skunk Robens are crooks? We know all about them and we keep telling you an' all you do is write in a notebook and look at us as if we're all liars------"
"Richard!" Mr. Sparrow warned. "Please be quiet. There is no need to be rude."
"Yes there is!" Dickie shouted. "Yes there is. We've got to find Mary and Harry, haven't we? How do we know they're not being tortured? They're jolly well trusting us, and now we've got these policemen an' their cars an' things an' what do they do? Jus' tell me what they do except talk an' not believe us------"
"Hi!" the younger policeman interrupted. "That's enough of that, young man. Who's talking now?" - and he lifted Dickie and swung him on to the table so that he was looking down on all of them. "Stop bullying us. We'll find your girls. Nobody will dare hurt them."
Dickie sniffed and brushed the tears away from his eyes as Sharman said, "I've given your people a description of the three we believe to have kidnapped the two girls. Surely every police station should be alerted with descriptions of these three and of the two children."
The elder of the two policeman looked annoyed.
"That, sir, has already been done. If you had notified us earlier - when you were at Pickering for instance - we might have saved nearly an hour, but by now they may be a hundred miles away. This man you call the 'Doctor' now, the man you think is behind all this. Have any of you any suggestions as to where he may be staying or where he might have taken the children?"
"Yes," Penny said quickly. "The man Robens had rooms over a horrid little tobacco shop in Prospect Way, Whitby. You don't give us time to tell you but they tried to keep me there once... Don't look at me like that, please. It's true. We know a lot about these men. We've met them before. I don't think they'd go back to Prospect Way now because they know we know about it, but they might."
"O.K.," the senior policeman said to his companion. "Telephone Whitby, George, and ask them to have a look. Tobacconist's shop in Prospect Way."
"Tell them to ask if Mr. Warner is still there," Penny said. "That's the name Robens was using then. There's a telephone here in the shop."
The younger policeman swung Dickie to the ground. "Come and help me telephone, son," he said. "You're the sort of chap we want in the Force" - and Dickie went with him as if he were already a detective.
Then Jon spoke up.
"Of course we can't be sure, but I don't think the 'Doctor' is far away. He met Robens in Whitby as Penny knows. He also met him on Goathland station. We know that he's probably looking all over Yorkshire for old mine workings and searching them for deposits of uranium."
"So that's the racket?" the policeman said. "What's he going to do with a mine when he gets it?"
"Sell it to the Ministry of Fuel and Power, of course," Sharman snapped. "The Government has said they'll help private owners who may have uranium on their land. That's what this man is doing. He's buying up land with uranium on it and will then resell it at a tremendous profit. I'm not sure that Jon is right about him being near, though. He's a bit crazy and this kidnapping is a final attempt to make Mr. Sparrow give in and for all we know those children may be on the way to London."
The others looked at him in horror and then, as Dickie came back into the room, David suddenly clapped his hands to his forehead.
"I've got a brainwave!" he shouted. "When we were at Coram Street this afternoon I saw a strange woman. I looked at her through Philip's glasses and she reminded me of somebody. I've been puzzling this out and now I'm sure that this crazy-looking woman with a scarf over her head reminded me of our Amy Wildblood. The two could be sisters. Suppose they are? Suppose they've been working together on this? We know that Amy knew Robens. We know that Amy did a lot of telephoning this afternoon after Peter and the girls got back here. Suppose Amy reported to the 'Doctor' that they'd come back unexpectedly? Peter has told us how Amy kept on trying to get rid of her and how Mary refused to leave Harriet. Isn't there a chance that the 'Doctor' is hiding somewhere near Coram Street and the woman I saw is working for him with Amy and Robens? I bet the woman I saw is the link. See what I mean?"
Dickie jumped on the policeman's foot in his excitement.
"Come on then!" he yelled. "Let's go back to Coram Street. Mackie will find them. Take torches an' things and hunt them out. Kill the old Wildbloods. Burn the old witches... Don't you worry any more, Mr. Sparrow. We'll find them. Up the Lone Piners!"
14. The Fire
As the trolley carrying the Wildbloods with Mary and Harriet, rumbled with increasing speed towards the tunnel's mouth the two girls clung fearfully to each other. Amy's scream was cut short, like an engine's whistle, when it hurtled into the darkness and Edith, working frantically at the lever, shouted over her shoulder, "Hold tight, dearies. Hold tight! Don't rock the boat, dearies!"
The wheels screeched on the rusty rails, the lever clanked, and the echoes of this din together with Amy's renewed screams beat back deafeningly from the dripping walls. The air was cold, and horrid drops of muddy-tasting water fell on them from the roof as they rushed forward on their nightmare journey.
The chill struck through Mary's thin dress and her teeth chattered as Harriet held her close and shouted in her ear, "Where are they taking us, Mary? This can't last for ever, can it? I want it to stop!"
But it didn't stop. It went faster and at last Amy's screams became whimpers and Edith stopped working the lever.
"She runs free now!" she shouted in triumph. "See how she runs! She's a beauty. What are you fussing about, Amy? I forgot you hadn't been this way before. We've got a cosy little place here. Ever so cosy. You'll like it."
While she was speaking Mary saw far in front of them a tiny, white pin-point of light. It got bigger. The size of a sixpence. Of a shilling. A florin. A half-crown. Then it was as big as a dustbin lid. The air smelled cleaner. Now they could see little ferns growing in the crumbling brickwork and suddenly the noise of the trolley changed as they rattled into the daylight.
"Sit still!" Edith shouted. "Do as you're told and you won't come to no harm. We're slowing down now."
They clanked over some points where a branch line led away to the right towards a pool under the cliffs of a huge quarry. Directly ahead, and also on the right of the railway track, the girls saw a row of cottages. From the chimney of the nearest rose a wisp of smoke. The trolley slowed to a stop opposite a path leading over waste ground to the door of this cottage.
"Off you get, dearies," Edith said. "Keep close to them, Amy, and see they don't try any funny capers. I'll open the door."
The girls got off the trolley and looked round. Telephone wires ran from the cottage away over the shoulder of the quarry hill but there was no road. The two women stared uneasily at the girls standing together hand in hand at the edge of the track. Amy, now that she was on firm ground again, tried to forget that she had behaved like a coward and to put herself right with the girls again.
"Maybe you'd like to take my hands, dearies? This path is rough. Let old Amy look after you because she knows you're going to be good and not run away. This place is strange to me too, so we'll go along together. You just be good and you won't get hurt. We're going indoors here for a while and I expect you could both do with a nice cup of tea."
"Stop all that silly talk," Edith broke in. "Just come along. No doubt his lordship has seen us and he don't like being kept waiting. Are you two coming quietly?"
"Yes we are," Mary said coldly. "But you needn't think that's because we're afraid of either of you or of anyone else. We utterly despise you. Despise is the word I've just thought of and it's jolly well, utterly right. Please don't touch us and don't glare at us like that. Acksherley we're afraid for you, aren't we, Harriet?"
"Of course we are. Our friends will find us soon. They'll know where to find us too because of certain clues. You dare not hurt us. We've done nothing wrong, but you're the ones who are going to be sorry. What do you think my grandfather will do when he finds out what you've done to us? We think that our friends and the police are surrounding this place now."
The women glanced at each other uneasily and then Edith hurried ahead. The girls following feeling rather pleased with themselves, but their spirits fell when they had a closer look at the place to which they were being taken. There were curtains across the windows, but it was a horrid little house with the paint peeling from the woodwork and there was no sign of life anywhere except a gay little goldfinch swinging on a thistle head. Mary kept her thoughts to herself as Edith opened the door of the cottage, but she suspected who the man she had called 'his lordship' might be. She didn't like the idea of being kept a prisoner by the 'Doctor' who would not be likely to forget some of their previous meetings.
"No fuss now!" Edith hissed as she grabbed Harriet's arm. "Just come quietly. The other one, too, Amy."
The girls just had time to see that they were in a narrow passage with a closed door on their left and a steep staircase on their right. There were two more doors at the end of the passage and that on the right, which was open, led into a kitchen. Edith opened the other door and pushed the girls into a small room.
There wasn't much to see. It was crowded with a lot of shabby furniture - a gate-leg table with a dead pot-plant on it, three dining-room chairs, an old easy chair, a tiny fireplace, the grate of which was stuffed with newspaper, an old cupboard against one wall and a brass coal-scuttle. The window, overlooking an overgrown yard behind the house, was small and the room was dim and stuffy.
"Stay there and be quiet and you won't be hurt," Edith said as she closed the door, and then Mary ran across in time to hear her muttering:
"Chair out of the kitchen. Quick, Amy. There's no key for this lock. Wedge the door. Top of the chair under the handle."
Mary beckoned to Harriet and then tried the door. It was not quite closed but it was certainly tightly wedged, and although the handle turned the chair held it firmly. There was, however, a crack through which they heard first the two Wildbloods arguing and then the angry interruption of a man who must have come out of the front room.
"Stop that row!" he shouted. "What are you doing here, Amy, and why are there two children? You've got the Sparrow girl, haven't you?"
"Oh yes, sir. She's there but I had to bring the other because she couldn't leave Harriet. I didn't want to make trouble, sir. They've been very good and it seemed better to bring both when the chance came, sir. It's been very, very, difficult. What with all the telephoning which I never did care for, and there not being much time and the three girls coming back unexpected. I got rid of the older one, sir, but------"
"So you've messed it all up, have you, Amy?" the man's voice cut in. "I told you and Robens to bring the Sparrow child only. We don't want any more. What do you think this place is? A day nursery or a boarding-school? Where's Robbie? I hope you haven't brought him."
"Oh no, sir," Edith replied smugly. "He's gone off in the car. He seemed very glad to be out of it. And a rare shock I had you can be sure when I saw I'd got two kids to manage. That's why I bring Amy, sir. It wasn't fair to ask me to deal with two, was it?"
"I ask the questions here, Edith. You answer them. You two go into the kitchen and shut the door. I'll see these youngsters and then tell you what I'm going to do."
There was a scuffle of feet in the passage and Mary dragged Harriet away from the door and sat with her in the old easy chair. "Don't show him that we're afraid, Harry. He can't really hurt us, and you know that I dropped my cardigan outside the tunnel? If Peter or any of the others see it, they'll know it's mine. Darling Mackie will know it too. I do wish we knew where they all are and where we are too. Ssh! Here he comes."
There was a muttered curse from outside as the man wrenched the door open and came inside the room. It was nearly dark, but the girls could see him more clearly than he could see them with their faces in the shadow. Mary recognised him at once. He was the man they knew as the 'Doctor' and who they had last seen on Goathland station.
He crossed the room and looked down at them. He was such an ordinary-looking man that Mary wondered how he could be so wicked, ruthless and greedy.
"Get up," he said quietly. "Turn to the window. I want to see you. Which of you is the Sparrow girl?"
"I am," Harriet said as she stood up. "Do you know that we've been kidnapped and brought here all the way from Spaunton? Who are you? Please let us go at once."
"I can't do that yet," the 'Doctor' said. "You'll have to stay in this house for a while, but I'll send you upstairs to a more comfortable room. There's nothing for you to worry about if you behave yourselves. What's your name, girl? You. The Sparrow child."
"Harriet," she said. "But I don't see what it's got to do with you. You must let us go. My grandfather will be very, very angry with you when he finds us."
"Ah! Your grandfather. Yes, indeed he may be angry. I'm glad you reminded me of him. I may ask you to write him a little note presently. I'm sure he'd like to hear from you, particularly as you will be spending the night here."
"But you can't do that!" Mary shouted. "We're not going to stay in this horrible house."
"Now let me look at you," the 'Doctor' said in his horrid silky voice. "You're the child who got in the way and would come too. How very foolish of you... Ah, yes. You are one of the nuisance children and I remember you on Goathland platform. Very impertinent. A night here will be quite a change for you. Don't try me too far."
Although there was quiet menace in these words and Mary was certainly frightened, she felt that the 'Doctor' was really very unsure of himself. She wasn't old enough to know that he did not understand children, was not interested in them and did not even know how to talk to them. She wasn't quite sure what to say to him either and was just wondering whether they were going to find a chance to escape, when Harriet said with a catch in her voice:
