‘It might be on the Isle of Gloom – or on some equally deserted, desolate island,’ said Jack hopefully. ‘I do wish we could go there and see. I bet there would be thousands of frightfully tame birds there, sir.’
This eternal talk about birds always bored Dinah. She changed the subject.
‘You should have seen Joe’s face when we brought in our catch of fish yesterday,’ she said, with a grin. ‘He said, “You never caught those from the rocks. You’ve been out in a boat”.’
‘You didn’t tell him you had?’ said Bill Smugs at once. Dinah shook her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘He’d try to spoil our pleasure if he knew we used your boat.’
‘Do your uncle and aunt know you’ve met me?’ asked Bill. Dinah shook her head again.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you want them to know? What does it matter whether they do or not?’
‘Well,’ said Bill Smugs, scratching the bald top of his head. ‘I came here to be alone – and to watch the birds – and I don’t want people coming round spoiling things for me. I don’t mind you children, of course. You’re fun.’
Bill Smugs lived all alone in the tumbledown hut. He had a comfortable car, which he kept under a tarpaulin at the top of the cliff, in as sheltered a place as possible. He went into the nearest town to do his shopping whenever he wanted to. He had brought a mattress and other things to the hut, to make it as comfortable as he could.
The children were thrilled when they knew he had a car as well as a boat. They begged him to take them out in it next time he went.
‘I want to buy a torch,’ said Jack. ‘You remember that secret passage we told you about, Bill? Well, it’s difficult to go up it carrying a candle – a torch would be much handier. I could buy one if you’d take me in your car.’
‘I’d like one too,’ said Philip. ‘And, Jack – you said you wanted some camera film, because you’d left yours behind at Mr Roy’s. You can’t take photographs of birds unless we get some. You could get that too.’
The girls wanted things as well, so Bill Smugs agreed to take them the next day. They all crowded into the car in excitement the following morning.
‘Joe’s going into the town as well today,’ said Dinah, with a giggle. ‘It would be funny if we saw him, wouldn’t it? He would get a surprise.’
Bill Smugs’ car was really a beauty. The boys, who knew about cars, examined it in delight.
‘It’s new,’ said Jack. ‘This year’s, and a jolly fast one. Bill, are you very rich? This car must have cost a lot of money. You must be awfully well-off.’
‘Not very,’ said Bill, with a grin. ‘Now – off we go.’
And off they went, cruising very swiftly, once they left the bad coast road behind. The car was well-sprung, and seemed to surge along.
‘Golly, isn’t it different from Aunt Polly’s old car!’ said Dinah, enjoying herself. ‘It won’t take us any time to get to the town.’
They were very soon there. Bill Smugs parked the car, and then went off by himself, after arranging with the children to meet them for lunch at a very grand hotel.
‘I wonder where he’s gone,’ said Jack, staring after him. ‘We might just as well have kept all together. I wanted to go to that stuffed animal shop with him, and see some of the stuffed birds there.’
‘Well, you could see he didn’t want us,’ said Dinah, who was disappointed too. She was very fond of Bill Smugs now and had saved up some money to buy him an ice cream. ‘I expect he has got business of his own to do.’
‘What is his business?’ asked Lucy-Ann. ‘He must do something besides bird-watching, I should think. Not that he does much of that, now that he knows us.’
‘He never said what his work was,’ said Jack. ‘Anyway, why should he? He’s not like us, always wanting to blurt out everything. Grown-ups are different. Come on – let’s find a shop that sells torches.’
They found one that had extremely nice pocket torches, small and neat. The beam was strong, and the boys could well imagine how the dark secret passage would be lighted up, once they turned on their torches. They each bought a torch.
‘Now we needn’t light our bedroom candles at night,’ said Dinah. ‘We can use torches.’
They went to buy rolls of film to fit Jack’s camera. They bought sweets and biscuits, and a small bottle of strong-smelling scent for Aunt Polly.
‘Now we’d better get some sunflower seeds for Kiki,’ said Jack. Kiki gave a squawk. She was on Jack’s shoulder as usual, behaving very well for once. Every passer-by stared at her in surprise, of course, and the parrot enjoyed this very much. But, except for sternly telling a surprised errand-boy to stop whistling at once, Kiki hardly said a word. She was pleased with the sunflower seeds, which she adored, and gobbled up a few in the shop.
The children looked in the shops for a time, waiting for one o’clock to come, so that they might join Bill Smugs at the hotel. And then, quite suddenly, they saw Joe.
He was coming along the street in the old car, hooting at a woman crossing the road. The children clutched one another, wondering if he would see them, half hoping that he would.
And he did. He caught sight of Philip first, then saw Jack with Kiki on his shoulder, and then the two girls behind. He was so overcome with amazement that he let the car swerve across the road, almost knocking down a policeman.
‘Here, you! What do you think you’re doing?’ yelled the policeman angrily. Joe muttered an apology, and then looked for the children again.
‘Don’t run away,’ said Jack to the others. ‘He can’t chase us in the car. Just walk along and take no notice of him.’
So they walked down the street, talking together, pretending not to see Joe and taking no notice at all of his shouts.
Joe simply could not believe his eyes. How did the children get here? There was no bus, no train, no coach they could take. They had no bicycles. It was too far for them to have walked there in the time. Then how was it they were here?
The man hurried to park his car, meaning to go after the children and question them. He parked it and jumped out. He ran after the four children, but at that moment they reached the very grand hotel where they had arranged to meet Bill Smugs, and ran up the steps.
Joe did not dare to follow the children into the grand hotel. He stood at the bottom of the big flight of steps, looking after them in annoyed surprise. It was astonishing enough to find them in the town – but even more astonishing to find them disappearing into the most expensive hotel in the place.
Joe sat down at the bottom of the steps. He meant to wait till they came out. Then he would pack them into his car and take them home, and tell Miss Polly where he’d found them. She wouldn’t be best pleased to hear they were wasting hard-earned money at expensive hotels, when they could easily take a packet of sandwiches with them.
The children giggled as they ran up the steps. Bill Smugs was waiting for them in the lounge. He showed them where to wash and comb their hair. They all met together again in a few minutes and went into the restaurant to have lunch.
It was a magnificent lunch. The children ate everything put in front of them, and finished up with the biggest ice creams they had ever seen.
‘Oh, Bill, that was grand,’ said Dinah, sinking back into her comfortable chair with a sigh. ‘Simply marvellous. A real treat. Thanks awfully.’
‘I think you must be a millionaire,’ said Lucy-Ann, watching Bill count out notes to the waiter in payment of the bill. ‘Golly, I’ve eaten so much that I feel I really can’t get up and walk.’
Jack remembered Joe, and wondered if the man was watching for them. He got up to see.
He peeped out of a window that looked on to the hotel’s main entrance. He saw Joe sitting patiently down at the bottom of the steps. Jack went back to the others, grinning.
‘Is there a back entrance to this hotel?’ he asked Bill Smugs. Bill looked surprised.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Because
Joe is sitting outside the hotel entrance waiting for us,’ said Jack. Bill nodded, understanding.
‘Well, we’ll depart quietly by the back entrance,’ he said. ‘Come on. It’s time we went, anyway. Got all you wanted from the shops?’
‘Yes,’ said the children, and trooped out after him. He led them to the back of the hotel, and out of a door there into a quiet street. He took them to where he had parked his car, and they all got in, happy at having had such a lovely day.
They sped back to the coast, and got out of the car at the nearest point to Craggy-Tops. They hurried over the cliff, eager to get back before Joe did.
He did not arrive until about an hour later, looking dour and grim. He put away the car and went to the house. The first thing he saw was the group of four children playing down on the rocks. He stood and stared in angry astonishment.
There was a mystery somewhere. And Joe meant to find out what it was. He wasn’t going to be puzzled and defeated by four children. Not he!
13
Joe is tricked again
Joe thought about the mystery of the children being in the town, with, as far as he knew, no possible way of getting there – except by walking, and this they had not had time to do. He came to the conclusion that they must know someone who gave them a lift there.
So he set himself to watch the children closely. He managed to find jobs that always took him near them. If they went down to the shore, he would be there, collecting driftwood. If they stayed in the house, he stayed too. If they went up on the cliff, Joe followed. It was most annoying for the children.
‘He’ll follow us and find out about Bill Smugs and his boat and car,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘We haven’t been able to go and see him at all today – and if he goes on like this we shan’t be able to go tomorrow either.’
It was impossible to give Joe the slip. He was very clever at keeping a watch on the children, and soon they grew angry. The two girls went up into the tower-room with the boys that night and discussed the matter together.
‘I know,’ said Jack suddenly. ‘I know how we can give him the slip properly, and puzzle him terribly.’
‘How?’ asked the others.
‘Why, we’ll all go into the caves,’ said Jack. ‘And we’ll slip down the hole into the secret passage, and go up to Craggy-Tops cellar, slip out of there whilst Joe is waiting down on the beach for us, and go over the cliffs to Bill.’
‘Oooh, that is a good idea,’ said Philip. The girls were doubtful about it, for they neither of them liked the idea of the secret passage very much. Still – they all had torches now, and it would be a good chance to use them.
So next day, with Joe close on their heels, the four children and Kiki went down to the beach.
‘Joe, for goodness’ sake leave us alone,’ said Philip. ‘We’re going into the caves, and no harm can come to us there. Go away!’
‘Miss Polly said I was to keep an eye on you,’ repeated Joe. He had told the children this times without number, but they knew it wasn’t the real reason. Joe enjoyed making himself a nuisance. He wanted to poke his nose into everything they did.
They went into the caves. Joe wandered outside, putting driftwood into his sack. The children all slipped down the hole that led to the secret passage, and then, with their torches switched on, they made their way along it.
The girls didn’t like it at all. They hated the smell, and when they found that in one part it was difficult to breathe, they stopped.
‘Well, it’s no good going back,’ said Philip, giving Dinah a shove to make her go on. ‘We’ve come more than halfway now. Do go on, Dinah. You’re holding us up.’
‘Don’t push!’ said Dinah. ‘I shall stop if I want to.’
‘Oh, shut up arguing, you two,’ groaned Jack. ‘I believe you’d start a quarrel if you were in a ship that was just about to sink, or an aeroplane about to crash. Get on, Dinah, we’ll be out soon.’
Dinah was about to start an argument with Jack too, when Kiki gave a mournful cough, so exactly like Joe’s that the children at first thought the man must have found the passage, and all of them, Dinah as well, hurried forward at once.
‘It’s all right – it was only that wretch Kiki,’ said Jack, relieved, as Kiki coughed again. They pushed on, and at last came to the end of the passage. They all stared at the trap-door above their heads, brightly lit by the light of their four torches.
Up it went, and over with a crash. The boys climbed up to the cellar floor and then helped the girls up. They shut the trap-door, went to the cellar door, which was shut, and pushed it open. The boxes on the other side fell over again with a familiar crashing noise.
The children went through the door, shut it, piled the boxes up again, and then went up the cellar steps to the big kitchen. No one was there. That was lucky.
Out they went, and up to the cliff. Keeping to the path, where they were well hidden from the shore below, they hurried off to find their friend Bill Smugs. They grinned to think of Joe waiting down on the beach for them to come out of the caves.
Bill Smugs was tinkering with his boat. He waved cheerily as they came up.
‘Hallo,’ he said, ‘why didn’t you come and see me yesterday? I missed you.’
‘It was because of Joe,’ said Jack. ‘He keeps following us around like a shadow. I think he probably suspects we have a friend who has a car, and he means to find out who it is.’
‘Well, don’t tell him anything,’ said Bill quickly. ‘Keep things to yourself. I don’t want him prying around here. He doesn’t sound at all a nice person.’
‘What are you doing to your boat?’ asked Jack. ‘Are you going out in it?’
‘I thought I would,’ said Bill. ‘It’s a fine day, the sea is fairly calm, yet there’s a nice breeze – and I half thought I might sail near to the Isle of Gloom.’
There was an excited silence. The Isle of Gloom! All the children wanted to see it close to – and Jack badly wanted to land there. If only Bill would take them with him!
Jack looked out to the west. He could not see the island, for once again there was a low heat haze on the sea. But he knew exactly where it was. His heart beat fast. The Great Auk might be there. Anyway, even if it wasn’t, all kinds of other sea-birds would be there – and probably as tame as anything. He could take his camera – he could . . .
‘Bill – please, please take us with you!’ begged Lucy-Ann. ‘Oh, do! We’ll be very good, and you know, now that you have taught us how to sail a boat, we can really help.’
‘Well – I meant to take you,’ said Bill, lighting a cigarette, and smiling round at the children. ‘I wanted to go yesterday, and when you didn’t come, I put the trip off till today. We’ll go this afternoon, and take our tea with us. You’ll have to give Joe the slip again. He mustn’t see you sailing in my boat or he’d probably try to stop you.’
‘Oh, Bill! We’ll be along first thing this afternoon,’ said Jack, his eyes gleaming very green.
‘Thanks most awfully,’ said Philip.
‘Shall we really see the Isle of Gloom close to?’ asked Lucy-Ann, in excitement.
‘Can’t we land there?’ said Dinah.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Bill. ‘You see, there is a ring of dangerous rocks around it, and although there may once have been a passage somewhere through them, and possibly is now, for all I know, I don’t know where it is. I’m not going to risk drowning you all.’
‘Oh,’ said the children, disappointed. They would have been quite willing to run the risk of being drowned, for the sake of trying to land on the bad isle.
‘You’d better go back and have an early lunch, if your aunt will let you have it,’ said Bill. ‘I don’t want to be too late in starting. The tide will help us, if we get off fairly early.’
‘All right,’ said the four, jumping up from the rocks at once. ‘Goodbye till this afternoon, Bill. We’ll bring tea with us – as nice as we can, to reward you for waiting for us.’
They set off h
ome again, talking eagerly of the coming trip. Joe had said so many frightening things about the desolate island that the children couldn’t help feeling excited at the idea of seeing it.
‘I wonder if Joe is still on the beach, watching for us outside the caves,’ said Jack. The children went cautiously to the edge of the cliff and peeped over. Yes – he was still down there. What a sell for him!
They went to Craggy-Tops and found Aunt Polly. ‘Aunt, could we possibly have an early lunch, and then go off and take our tea with us?’ asked Philip. ‘Will it be any trouble? We’ll help to get the lunch, and we don’t mind what we have.’
‘There’s a cold pie in the larder,’ said Aunt Polly considering. ‘And some tomatoes. And there are some stewed plums. Dinah, you lay the table, and the others can set out the food. I’ll make you some sandwiches for your tea, and there’s a ginger cake you can have too. Lucy-Ann, can you put the kettle on to boil? You can have some tea in a thermos flask if you like.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ said the children, and set to work at once. They laid a place for Aunt Polly, but she shook her head.
‘I don’t feel very well today,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a bad headache. I shan’t want anything. I shall have a good long rest while you are out this afternoon.’
The children were sorry. Certainly Aunt Polly did look tired out. Philip wondered if his mother had sent any more money to help things along a bit, or whether Aunt Polly was finding things very difficult. He didn’t like to ask her in front of the others. Soon the children were having their dinner, and then, the tea being packed up and ready, they set off over the cliff.
They had not seen Joe. The man was still down on the beach, now feeling puzzled, and most annoyed with the vanished children. He felt certain they were in the caves. He went in himself and called to them.
There was no answer, of course. He called again and again. ‘Well, if they’ve lost themselves in the caves, it will be good riddance of bad rubbish,’ he said to himself. He decided to go up and report the matter to Miss Polly.