ONE A.M.
Night had fallen, soft and dark and still, when Danny climbed out of
his little latticed window on to the roof of the porch. He could smell
the honeysuckle though he could not see it. And somewhere a nightingale
was singing. He had gone up to bed at 9 o’clock. His mother had come in
and tucked him up, and, shutting the door, had gone downstairs.
Now Danny scrambled down the trellis-work of the porch and was soon
trotting softly along the road. As he got beyond the village his
courage began to fail just a wee bit. The road was very dark and
lonely. Great black fir trees stretched out weird arms towards him. An
owl hooted. A rabbit scampered across his path with a whisk of white
tail. Once he jumped as a cow poked her head through a gap at him,
and heaved a great sigh. Between the weird black branches of the pines
he could see the little, white, sparkling stars winking at him. They
reminded him of God, and that after all he was not quite alone. God
must be pleased with him, because he was “_doing his best_.” The lonely
darkness ceased to be full of horror. He went on with a brave heart.
At last he reached the pond. All was quite still. After listening
intently for a few minutes, he flashed his electric torch on the water.
The scraps of paper were still floating about. He walked round the
bank, casting a ring of golden light on to the dusty ground. But there
were no wet footmarks to show that someone had come up out of the water.
“I’ll keep watch,” said Danny, and he curled up in the shadow of the
wall.
It was a warm July night, but Danny’s teeth were chattering as he
squatted alone beneath the ruined wall. He gazed fascinated at the
black waters of the pond. Any moment a face, with a red, straggly
beard, might come up, all wet and dripping and look at him. He
half-wished he had not come. But he had vowed to do all he could to
solve the problem, and surely he was on the scent at last.
The moments crept by and nothing happened. Everything was very still,
save for the occasional hoot of an owl. The world seemed fast asleep.
Presently Danny began to nod.
It must have been three hours later when he awoke, stiff and
uncomfortable. Where was he? Oh yes! He jumped up quickly, rubbing his
eyes. He had slept on guard. He blushed in the darkness. Just think--if
he had been a soldier and his officer had come round--the shame of it!
And suddenly he found he was simply longing for home and mother and bed.
“My duty,” he said between his chattering teeth. Switching on his
electric torch, he went softly round the pond. But there were no wet
marks on the parched, dusty bank; so no one had come up out of the
water.
From away across the valley stole the faint sound of a church clock.
The four quarters rang out; Danny listened for the hour. _One_ ...
chimed like a sad voice across the dim countryside. “One o’clock,”
whispered Danny. He could not resist the longing for home, and softly
he made his way back on to the road.
“Rh-rrru-um!” A great, grey car swung round the corner and hummed past
Danny.
“A.R. 1692,” he said to himself as he watched the red tail-light grow
smaller and smaller in the distance. Almost from force of habit he
fixed the number in his mind.
Danny’s feet seemed to have acquired a nasty habit of tumbling over
each other. He wondered why. And then he gave a big yawn. How lovely it
would be to be in bed--all warm and safe and cosy, and, best of all,
to hear mother snoring in the next room! It was so lonely out here.
He trudged sleepily on and round the corner towards Dutton. He was
walking on the grass at the side of the road. A ditch ran along the
hedge.
Suddenly, almost at his feet, he heard a long, muffled whistle. He
started violently, and then, remembering the law of the wild, he
“froze.” The next moment three whistle notes sounded, not quite so
muffled, and coming, certainly, from the ditch. Then a strange,
guttural voice, speaking in low tones. It was there, at his feet,
in the ditch. What could it mean? Danny, the sleepy little boy, was
trembling with fear, but Danny the Detective was on the scent again.
Creeping softly across the grass to the edge of the ditch he dropped
on one knee and peered down. It was far too dark to see anything. So
he strained his ears to try and catch this mysterious conversation.
He soon found that, though he could hear every word distinctly, he
could not understand it. It was in a foreign language! There seemed a
lot of “ach,” and “gr-r-r” in it; very ugly it sounded. And the word
“so” seemed to come in it rather often. “Nine” was mentioned still
more often. Danny listened intently for any words he could recognise.
Presently he heard “Sir Edward Grey” ... quite distinctly. It did not
convey much to him, but at least the words were English, and he stored
them up. “Downing Street” ... he caught, and, later on, “Asquith.”...
It was a funny conversation. It kept breaking off suddenly, and there
would be a long silence. Then it would go on for a few words and stop.
And, somehow, the whole thing reminded him of how it sounded when the
postmaster _telephoned_ from the village post-office.
Suddenly there was a movement in the ditch. “They’re coming out,”
thought Danny. Like a rabbit he scuttled out of sight into a place
where the bank in front of the ditch formed a kind of little, earthy
grotto, half overgrown with bushes. He was hidden in the darkness, but
he could see well himself.
As he peered out, straining his eyes in the gloom, he saw a black
figure rear itself out of the ditch and stand up against the grey
star-spangled sky. He could see its outline quite clearly. It was that
of a slight, smallish man. In his hand he held something that looked
like about three yards of rather thick rope. For a moment he stood
still, brushing the mud from his suit. It was at this moment, when
silence was so essential, that Danny felt a violent tickle in his nose.
He was going to sneeze!
“A--hi----A--hi---- A--_tis_hu!” He tried to muffle it in his cap,
but it was no use. The man started violently, then looked about him
quickly. One step brought him close to Danny’s grotto. He had dropped
his rope end, and against the grey sky Danny could see the outline of a
revolver in his right hand.
Slowly the man bent towards him, peering through the darkness. Seeing
nothing, he stretched out his hand to feel. Cold sweat broke out all
over Danny. In a second the man would have touched him.
To keep still meant being caught for certain. To dash out and run would
probably mean a bullet in his legs. The groping hand was very near
his face. Suddenly an idea seized Danny. The man would not risk the
danger of breaking the night stillness with a shot if he thought that
the sound he had heard had merely been made by a _fox_; nor would he
bother to follow it up or be in any way disturbed or set on his guard
by its presence. With a sudden movement he fastened his sharp little
teeth in the hand. The man gave a muffled cry of pain, started back,
and Danny, with the bark of a young fox, dashed out past his legs in a
doubled-up position, and was soon running down the road under cover of
the darkness. Leaping across the ditch and through a well-known gap,
he threw himself down on the grass, panting. There was no sound of
following footsteps. His ruse had succeeded.
Cautiously Danny rose to his feet and began walking down the side of
the hedge on the field side. He was making for home. Strangers with
revolvers were not to be followed in the dark, even by detectives, when
the latter were unarmed. But before long he had stopped short and was
peering through the hedge. A little red light had caught his eye. Yes,
it was the tail-light of a motor--A.R. 1692! It was the same car that
had passed him--he remembered the number! The head-lights had been
turned off. The great body of the car loomed like some huge monster in
the darkness. Danny could just make out the form of a man sitting quite
still in the driver’s seat. He seemed to be waiting for something.
Perhaps the man who had been talking in the ditch was going to rejoin
him. Danny, managing to overcome his fear of the revolver, decided to
wait and watch. Before long there was a slight sound and the man he
had seen before stepped on to the road from the grassy border that had
muffled his approaching steps. The men exchanged a few words in the
same guttural language Danny had heard coming from the ditch. Then the
driver got down from the car and lit up the head-lights. A bright shaft
shot along the road.
Bending down, the man allowed his face to be caught in it for a moment,
and Danny looked with all his eyes, so that he might remember every
feature.
He was a thick-set man with a square, black beard and thick-lensed,
round glasses. An exclamation of annoyance from him brought his friend
round to help adjust one of the lamps, and Danny had a glimpse of the
second man’s face. He knew him in a moment! It was the mysterious
stranger of the bicycle incident, on whose track he had been for so
long!
The head-lights being successfully fixed up, the driver of the car went
round to the back, and Danny watched, fascinated, while he removed
the number board and substituted for it one showing “L. 323.” Then
together the men raised the hood of the car, though it was a cloudless
night. After moving about some time they both got into the car. But the
automatic starter would not work, and the driver, grumbling to himself,
climbed out again and went round to turn the handle.
This brought his face once more within the light of the great lamps.
Danny’s eyes opened wide at what he saw. The motorist was no longer a
black-bearded, spectacled, man. He had now a bristling red moustache
and his bright little blue eyes showed out from beneath rather bushy
eyebrows! A moment later the car had hummed off down the road.
[Illustration: Bending down, the man allowed his face to be caught in
the bright light, and Danny looked with all his eyes, so that he might
remember every feature.]