‘How did you find this room?’ demanded the bearded man, scowling.
‘By accident,’ said Dinah. ‘We were so surprised. Please let us go. We’re only two girls, and we didn’t mean any harm.’
‘Does anyone outside this castle know we are here, or anything about this room?’ asked the shaggy man.
‘No, nobody,’ said Dinah truthfully. ‘We have never seen you before this moment, and we only found the room today. Please, do let us go!’
‘I suppose you’ve been messing about here for some days,’ said the man. ‘We found your things. Interfering little trespassers!’
‘We didn’t know the castle belonged to anyone,’ said Dinah, again. ‘How could we know? No one ever comes here. The villagers keep away from the place.’
‘Is anyone with you?’ asked the bearded man, suspiciously.
‘Well, you can see that for yourselves,’ said Dinah, hoping fervently that none of the men would think of looking into the suits of armour standing round the room.
‘We’ve looked all over the place,’ said the third man to the shaggy one. ‘There’s no one else here, that we do know!’
‘Please let us go,’ begged Dinah. ‘We won’t come here again, we promise.’
‘Ah – but you will go home and you will tell about things you have found here and seen here, isn’t that so?’ said the bearded man, in a horrid, smooth kind of voice. ‘No, little missies – you must stay here till our work is done. Then, when it no longer matters, maybe we shall let you go. I said maybe! It depends on how you behave.’
Philip trembled with anger inside the suit of armour. How dared these men speak like that to the two girls? But the boy did not dare to show himself. That might only make things worse.
‘Well,’ said the bearded man, ‘We have business to discuss. You may leave this room, but do not go beyond our call.’
To the girls’ intense relief the men allowed them to go up the stone steps into the hall. Then the hole closed once more, and they were left alone.
‘We must escape,’ whispered Dinah, taking Lucy-Ann’s hand. ‘We must get away immediately and bring help to Philip. I daren’t think what would happen to him if those men found him.’
‘Where’s Jack?’ sobbed Lucy-Ann. ‘I want him.’
Jack was not far away. As soon as he heard the stone close the hole up, and recognised the girls’ voices, he darted out of the old drawing-room. Lucy-Ann saw him and ran to him gladly.
He put his arms round her, and patted her. ‘It’s all right, Lucy-Ann, it’s all right. We’ll soon be out of here, and we’ll get help to rescue Philip. Don’t worry. Don’t cry any more.’
But Lucy-Ann couldn’t stop crying, though now she cried more from relief at having Jack again than from fright. The boy guided her to the wide stone stairs that led to the upper rooms of the castle.
‘We’ll get across the plank in no time,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll be safe. We’ll soon rescue Philip too. Don’t be afraid.’
Up they went and up, then along the long corridor, lit dimly by its slit windows. They came to the room they used for the plank.
Dinah ran gladly to the window, eager to slip across to safety. But she paused in dismay. There was no plank.
‘We’re in the wrong room!’ she said. ‘Oh, quick, Jack, find the right one!’
They ran out and into the next room – but there was no plank on the sill there either. Then into the next room further on they went – but again there was no plank.
‘This is like a bad dream,’ said Dinah, trembling. ‘We shall go into room after room, and the plank will never be there! Oh, Jack – is this a nightmare?’
‘It seems like one,’ said the boy. ‘Come now – we’re upset and excited – we’ll begin at the bottom of the corridor and work our way along each room – then we shall find the right one.’
But they didn’t. Room after room had no welcome plank on its sill. At the last room the children paused.
‘I’m afraid,’ said Jack, ‘I’m very much afraid that the men discovered how we got in – and removed the plank!’
‘Oh dear!’ said Dinah, and sat down suddenly on the dusty floor. ‘My legs won’t hold me up any more. I suppose the men would never have let Lucy-Ann and me out of the hidden room unless they had discovered our way in, and made it impossible for us to escape that way.’
‘Yes – if we’d stopped to think for a moment we’d have guessed that ourselves,’ said Jack, gloomily. He also sat down on the floor to consider things. ‘I wonder where they put the plank. It might be a good idea to look for it.’
‘They’ve probably just tipped it off the sill and left it lying on the ground,’ said Dinah, just as gloomily.
‘No, they wouldn’t do that, in case anyone else did happen to know that way in,’ said Jack. ‘We’d better look for it.’
So they hunted all over the place, but there was no sign of the plank at all. Wherever it was, it was too well hidden for the children to find. They gave it up after a bit.
‘Well, what are we going to do, now that we can’t escape?’ said Dinah. ‘Do stop sniffing, Lucy-Ann. It doesn’t do any good.’
‘Don’t bother her,’ said Jack, who felt sorry for his small sister. ‘This is pretty serious. Here we are, stuck in this old castle with no way of escape – and Philip down below in the hidden room in great danger of being discovered. He’s only got to sneeze or cough, you know!’
Lucy-Ann pondered this statement of alarm. She at once imagined poor Philip trying to stifle sneeze after sneeze.
‘We’ve apparently fallen headlong into some strange mystery,’ said Jack. ‘I can’t make head or tail of it. Why these men want to hide up here, I don’t know. But they are ugly customers – nasty fellows, each one of them. They must belong to a gang of some sort, up to some mischief. I’d like to put a stop to it, but it’s impossible as things are. The only good things about the whole affair are that the men don’t know I’m here, and they don’t know that Philip is hidden in their secret meeting place!’
‘If only we could get out!’ sighed Lucy-Ann. ‘I know Aunt Allie is away, but we could get hold of the farmer or someone.’
‘I don’t see how we can possibly get out, now that our one and only way of getting in is gone,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t think even Tassie will come up, now that her mother has threatened her with a hiding if she does.’
‘We mustn’t let the men know you’re here too, Jack,’ said Dinah. ‘Where will you hide for safety?’
‘In the middle of my gorse bush,’ said Jack. ‘That’s as safe as anywhere. You girls go down to the hall and see if that room is still shut – if it is I’ll slip down and go up the crag to my gorse bush. You can sit about on the rocks there and whisper to me what goes on.’
‘I wish we knew where Button got in and out,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘If we did we might try his way. Only I suppose if it’s a rabbit-hole it would be far too narrow for us.’
They made their way to the hall. The stone was still in place over the hidden room. They beckoned Jack down, and he sped across the hall, out of the great doorway, across the courtyard and up the craggy, gorse-grown rock in the corner to the safety of his hiding-place. He crawled in, and the bush closed round him.
The girls climbed up the rocks to be near him. From there they had a good view of everything to do with the castle. They undid a packet of food and began to have a meal, though Lucy-Ann choked over almost every mouthful. They handed Jack some food through the prickly branches of the bush.
‘Good thing we brought up such stacks of food,’ said Dinah. ‘If we are going to be prisoners for ages it’s just as well!’
‘Of course, if your mother hadn’t gone away she would have got worried when we didn’t go home, and have sent a search party up to the castle,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘It’s bad luck she should have gone away just now! No one will miss us at all.’
‘Sh! Here are two of the men!’ said Dinah. ‘Don’t say a word more, Jack.’
&n
bsp; The men gave a loud shout for the two girls. Dinah answered sulkily. They beckoned to them to come down from the crag.
‘And did you find your little plank?’ enquired the bearded man politely, and the other man sniggered.
‘No. You took it away,’ said Dinah sullenly.
‘Of course. It was such a good idea of yours – but we didn’t like it,’ said the man. ‘Now, you cannot get away, you know that. So you may stay here unharmed in the courtyard, and at night you may sleep peacefully in the big bed downstairs, for we have work to do that will take us elsewhere. But we forbid you to go up to the towers, or upstairs at all. We are not going to have you signalling for help. You understand that if you disobey us, you will be very sorry – and you will probably be put down into a dungeon we know of, where rats and mice and beetles live.’
Dinah shuddered. The very idea filled her with horror.
‘So you be good girls and obedient, and no harm will come to you,’ said the bearded man. ‘Always be where we can see you, somewhere in this courtyard, and come when we call. You have plenty of food, we know. And there is water in the kitchen, if you pump it.’
The girls did not answer. The men walked off and disappeared once more into the castle.
‘What’s happening to Philip?’ said Lucy-Ann, after a pause. ‘Will he starve down there? I wish we could rescue him.’
‘He won’t starve. There’s plenty of food on the table, if only he can step off his pedestal and get it,’ said Dinah. ‘If only we could send word to Tassie! She might get help. But there is no way of sending word.’
‘I suppose Kiki wouldn’t go, with a note tied to her leg, like pigeons have in wartime?’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘No, I’m sure she wouldn’t leave Jack. She’s an awfully clever and sensible bird, but it would be too much to expect her to become a messenger for us.’
However, a messenger did turn up – a most unexpected one, but a very welcome one indeed!
19
Lucy-Ann has an idea
All that day the girls hung about the courtyard, never keeping very far from the crag, so that they could talk to poor bored Jack in his hiding-place. They wondered how Philip was getting on down in the hidden room. Had he been discovered?
‘It’s a great pity those men talk together in some language we don’t understand,’ said Dinah. ‘If they talked in English Philip might learn quite a lot of secrets, standing there so close beside them, without them knowing!’
‘Yes, he might,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I wish he wasn’t down there though. I should feel so scared if it was me, hidden in armour that might creak or clank if I moved just a little bit.’
‘Well, Philip won’t feel scared,’ said Dinah, ‘He is hardly ever scared of anything. I expect he is quite enjoying himself.’
But Lucy-Ann didn’t believe that for one moment. She thought Dinah was silly to say such a thing. But then, Dinah wasn’t as fond of her brother as she, Lucy-Ann, was. It was bad enough to have Jack being compelled to hide in that horrid gorse bush – but it would have been far worse to have him down in the hidden room with the men, likely to be discovered at any moment!
‘Cheer up!’ whispered Jack, from the gorse bush, seeing her gloomy face. ‘This is an adventure, you know.’
‘I only like adventures afterwards,’ said Lucy-Ann. ‘I don’t like them when they’re happening. I didn’t want this adventure at all. We didn’t look for it, we just seemed to fall into the middle of it!’
‘Well, never mind. It’ll turn out all right, I expect,’ said Jack comfortingly.
But poor Lucy-Ann couldn’t see how. It was quite clear that they couldn’t escape from the castle, and equally clear that no one could rescue them.
They had tea on the crag, the girls passing food to Jack, who was now feeling very cramped indeed, and longed to get out and stretch his legs. But he didn’t dare to. When night came he would, but not till then.
The sun went down. Kiki, bored with her long imprisonment, became very talkative. The girls let her talk, keeping a sharp lookout in case the men came and heard her.
‘Poor old Kiki, what a pity, what a pity! Put the kettle on, God save the Queen! Now, now, now, now, attention please! Sit up straight and don’t loll. How many times have I told you to pop the weasel?’
The girls giggled. Kiki was very funny when she talked, for she brought into her chattering all the words and sentences she knew, running them one into another in a most bewildering way.
‘Good old Kiki!’ said Jack, scratching her neck. ‘You’re bored, aren’t you? Never mind, you shall have a fine fly round when it’s dark. Now don’t start your express-engine screech, or you’ll bring our enemies up here at a run!’
The sun sank lower. Long shadows lay across the courtyard and then the whole of it went into twilight. The stars came out one by one, pricking the sky here and there.
The men came up the yard, two of them together. They called the girls.
‘Hey, you two girls! You’d better come down and go to bed.’
‘We don’t mind the dark. We’ll stay a bit longer,’ shouted back Dinah, who wanted to walk round the yard with Jack, before she and Lucy-Ann retired to the hidden room.
‘Well, come down in half an hour,’ shouted the bearded man. ‘It will be quite dark then, and you’d be better inside.’
They disappeared. Dinah slipped down from her perch and went silently after them. She saw them going down the steps of the hidden room. Then she heard the now familiar grating noise as the entrance hole was closed by the sliding stone.
She ran back to Jack. ‘Come on, Jack,’ she whispered. ‘The men are down in the hidden room, and it’s almost dark now. You’ll be safe if you come out.’
Very glad to come from his uncomfortable hiding-place, Jack squeezed out of the bush. He stood up thankfully and stretched his arms high above his head.
‘Golly, I’m stiff!’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s go for a nice sharp walk round the courtyard. It’s too dark for me to be seen now.’
They set off, linking their arms together. They hadn’t gone more than halfway before something hurled itself against them out of the shadows, and almost knocked Jack over. He stopped, startled.
‘What’s that? Where’s my torch?’
He flicked it on quickly, and then off again, in case the men were about. He gave a low cry.
‘It’s Button! Dear little old Button – how did you get here? I am glad to see you!’
Button made happy noises in his throat, rolled over like a puppy, licked the girls and Jack, and generally behaved as if he was mad with delight. But he kept going off to the side and back again, and it was soon clear to the others that he had come to find Philip, his master.
‘You can’t get to Philip, old boy,’ said Jack, fondling the little fox cub. ‘You’ll have to make do with us. Philip isn’t here.’
The fox cub made a barking noise, and Kiki, who was sitting on Jack’s shoulder, evidently rather disgusted to see Button appear again, immediately imitated the barking. Button jumped up, trying to reach her, but he couldn’t. Kiki made a jeering noise, which would have been most infuriating to Button if he had understood it, but he didn’t.
‘Jack! I’ve got an idea!’ said Lucy-Ann, suddenly clutching her brother’s arm.
‘What!’ said Jack, who never thought very much of Lucy-Ann’s good ideas.
‘Can’t we use Button as a messenger? Can’t we send him back to Tassie with a note, telling her to get help for us, Jack? Button is sure to go back to her when he can’t find Philip, because, next to Philip, he loves Tassie. Can’t we do that?’
‘Jack! That’s really a good idea of Lucy-Ann’s!’ said Dinah, in excitement. ‘Button is the only one of us who knows how to get out of here. He could be our messenger, as Lucy-Ann says.’
Jack considered it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I must say it seems a sound idea, and worth trying. It can’t do any harm, anyway. All right, we’ll make Button our messenger.’
The next thing was
to write a note to Tassie. Jack had a notebook, and he tore out a page. He wrote a few words in pencil and read them out to the others.
‘Tassie, we are imprisoned here. Get help as soon as you can. We may be in serious danger.’
They all signed it. Then Jack folded it up and wondered how to get Button to take it.
He thought of a way at last. He had some string in his pocket, and first of all he tied the note tightly round and round with it. Then he twisted the string fairly tightly round Button’s sturdy little neck. He knew that if he made it too loose the fox cub would work it off over his head, for, like all wild things, he resented anything tied to him.
‘There,’ said Jack, pleased. ‘I don’t think Button can get that off, and the note is tied very tightly to the string. I’ve made him a kind of string collar, with the note at the front, under his chin.’
‘Go back to Tassie, Button,’ said Lucy-Ann. But Button didn’t understand. He still hoped Philip would appear, and he didn’t want to go back until he had seen him – or, better still, he would stay with him if he could. So the little fox cub hunted all around for Philip again and again, occasionally stopping and trying to get off this new thing round his neck. But he couldn’t.
Suddenly one of the men called loudly, making everyone jump violently. ‘Come in, you two girls!’
‘Good night, Jack. We must go,’ whispered Lucy-Ann, giving her brother a hug. ‘I hope you won’t be too uncomfortable tonight. Take some of our extra rugs into the bush with you, when you go to sleep.’
‘I shan’t go back to that beastly bush for ages,’ said Jack, who was thoroughly tired of his hiding-place and would have been glad never to see it again. ‘Good night. Don’t worry about anything. Once Button gets to Tassie, she’ll soon bring help.’
The girls left him in the dark courtyard. They went into the hall, and saw the dim light of the lamp shining up from the hidden room. They went down the stone steps, and looked hurriedly round. Was Philip still in the suit of armour? They couldn’t tell. All the suits of armour were standing around as usual, but whether one had Philip inside or not they didn’t know.