THE DARK PASSAGE
It was nine o’clock when Danny woke up the next day--a golden Sunday
morning. At first he thought his night adventures had been a dream, and
then he realised that it was all true, and jumped out of bed. He longed
to tell someone about them. But, remembering the snubs he had received
before, and that he had been accused of having lied, he determined to
keep his wonderful discoveries to himself. This adventure should be all
his own. Danny the Detective would have a big triumph when the whole
mysterious case was brought to light, and the wily strangers stood in
the dock! His first impulse was to make straight for the scene of last
night’s adventure. Then, remembering that private detectives as well
as other people must fulfil their duty to God, he set off for church.
And after all, he had much to thank God for! Last night he had had a
very narrow escape. And also he had got the desire of his heart--a new
and important clue.
Church over, he dashed off to examine the ditch. Yes, there was his
grotto--he could see it from afar. On reaching the place, the first
thing that caught his eye was a long, snake-like something lying half
hidden in the rank grass. He picked it up. It was a piece of rubber
tubing about three yards long.
“That must be what the man dropped when I sneezed,” said Danny. “I
expect he was so worried with my biting his hand that he forgot to pick
it up!”
The detective next turned his attention to the ditch. Yes, there were
footmarks in the soft mud. And they were the very same that he had
drawn a sketch of in his book that day he saw the stranger with the
bicycle! There was a kind of dented, flattened place, as if someone
had been lying in the ditch. Sticking out of the bank, half hidden by
the rank grass, was an old moss-grown drain pipe. Putting his lips to
it, Danny spoke a few words. His voice sounded hollow. He slipped the
tubing down into it, and put the end to his ear.
“Some telephone!” he said, and fairly wriggled with delight. “So that’s
what the chap was doing last night! The question is, who was he talking
to, and what kind of a place does this pipe lead to?”
Search as he might he could find no sign of a cave or any hiding-place
in the bank.
“It must be fairly deep,” he said, “or they wouldn’t want three yards
of tubing.”
He poked a stone through the pipe, and heard it rattle down on to
what sounded like a stone floor some way below. Then he sat up and
considered. They weren’t just common tramps or poachers, these people
he was after, for they owned a car. They were evidently afraid the
police were on the lookout for them, or they would not have changed
the number board and worn false beards!
“There is some connection between this drain-pipe telephone affair
and the mill pond, and I mean to discover what it is!” said Danny the
Detective.
After making his puzzling discovery of “the drain-pipe telephone” as he
called it, Danny ran off to make his inspection of the mysterious pond.
Running his eyes quickly over the bank he soon saw a clue that to the
ordinary person would have meant nothing, but which revealed something
very important to the “Detective.” On the dusty bank of the pond there
was a wet patch, as if something or someone had come up out of the
water and stood and dripped for a moment!
The morning shadows had not yet moved away from the spot and allowed
the hot July sun to dry the ground. Examining the wet patch more
closely, Danny saw that there was duck-weed on it--the same stuff that
dotted the surface of the pond. There was also some black mud--just
the kind of slime one would expect to coat the bottom of the pool.
“So,” said Danny, “the chap who went down into the pond with his sack
_did_ come up the way he went down. He went down on Saturday afternoon
and he came up in the night. What’s more, he came up after I had left
the place at 1 A.M. I can’t help thinking he had something to do with
the two chaps in the car.”
The Detective scratched his head. It was so jolly puzzling.
“Anyway, I missed him. And he’s not here now, so there’s no good in my
staying here,” he said.
An empty feeling under his Sunday waistcoat told him that it must be
getting near one o’clock. At dinner his thoughts were far away, and
his mother wondered why he was so silent. He determined to spend the
afternoon having a long _think_. He would read up all his notes and
try to put the various clues together and solve the mystery. He had a
particular, secret place of his own where he always hid when he wanted
to be quiet. It was in the ruins of an old abbey that stood on the
grounds of Sir Edward Finch’s estate.
The old, grey, half-crumbled buildings stood quite close to the little
lodge where he lived. No one was allowed to go into this ruin. One
reason was that Sir Edward was a funny old crank and hated strangers
poking about on his property. Another was that the beautiful old tower
of the church was supposed to be tottering and about to fall. In fact,
two years ago a man had been killed by a part of the church falling on
him. So a high, barbed-wire fence surrounded the ruin. The great iron
gates were always kept locked, and no one ever went in. But one day
Danny had discovered that there was a little wee path that led from
his mother’s cabbage patch to the hedge that divided the garden from
the ruin. The path was only about ten inches wide. It must have been
made by rabbits, and if rabbits could get through the hedge and the
barbed-wire into the mysterious old abbey, a boy could get in, too. So
Danny had followed the path and had soon scrambled through the thick
hedge. To his delight he had found himself in a fascinating place.
The turf was soft and mossy and full of harebells. And there was the
old grey ruin to explore. Danny crept about in the traceried cloisters,
where he loved to imagine the holy monks walking six hundred years ago
with their sandalled feet. There was the room where he decided they
must have had their meals. But most of all he loved the ruined church.
Somehow it seemed very holy. He always used to take his cap off when
he went in, though it was open to the blue sky, and carpeted with wild
flowers. One day he had found a tomtit’s nest built between the mossy
stones where the altar had been.
Now, on this hot sleepy Sunday afternoon he crept out into the
back-garden and filled his cap with gooseberries. Then he wriggled
through the hedge and had soon curled up in a warm corner of the
cloisters with no one to see him but the rabbits.
Danny had not had a very restful night, having been on guard by the
pond, and now the warm sun and his good dinner and the drowsy hum of
the bees in the wild thyme made him very sleepy and he began to nod.
Before long he was fast asleep, and having a very strange dream. He
thought he was back in the old days and that he was a knight in shining
armour who had come to the abbey to pray before going to the Crusades.
In his dream he saw the monks moving about in their white habits. And
then he suddenly saw a horrid-looking fellow creeping about in the
shadows all dressed in black and hiding a dagger beneath his wide
sleeves.
“A _traitor_,” said Danny in his dream. And then he suddenly saw it was
the man he had seen with the bicycle and again in the motor! Drawing
his long sword, he stepped forward, and--but at this exciting moment he
woke up with a start.
“Danny, Danny!” someone was shouting. “Where are you, you young rotter?
Danny, come on, we’re going bathing!”
He started to his feet and rubbed his eyes.
“Here I am!” he called, emerging from the gooseberry bushes as if he
had been there all the time.
His Sixer and two Cubs were waiting for him. Very soon the four boys
were running gaily off across the marsh with towels round their necks.
It was only about ten minutes’ run down to the seashore. Before
long the Cubs were splashing about in the cool green water. It was
ripping! In the old London days Danny had bathed all the year round
in the baths, but it was not half as jolly as this. All the same, his
swimming-bath experience had been useful, for he had learnt to swim
well, and to dive.
“I can swim and float,” said Sixer Fred Codding, “but I can’t dive.
Show us how you do it, Daniel.”
Danny ducked down his head, chucked up his heels, and vanished. The
cool green water closed over his head. Everything looked so funny down
there--all a lovely pale green colour, full of myriads of bubbles. Red
and brown seaweed waved lazily on the pebbly bottom. Danny swam gently
forward, looking for a stone to bring up to show the other chaps he had
really been to the bottom of the deep pool.
Suddenly, down there in the dim, bubbly water, among the shells and
shrimps and seaweed, a great idea came to him. He would dive down into
the mill pond himself and see what there was at the bottom, and why
those strangers were so fond of going down there! He swam quickly to
the surface, his heart high with resolve. It would take some pluck to
do it. “But a chap’s not worth calling a Cub if he can’t do a thing
like that!” he said to himself, as he dried vigorously and got into his
clothes again.
Tea was ready when Danny got in. He was as hungry as a wolf--or rather
a Wolf Cub! But if he was to go down that day he must go before the
sun set; it was past six already. So he contented himself with a cup of
tea and a small piece of bread and butter. “I won’t give in to myself,”
he said, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, as his mother
offered him a big slice of the most lovely plum cake.
Running up to his room, he changed into a pair of old shorts, a cotton
shirt, and some old gym. shoes. Then he set out along the well-known
road that had proved to be so full of mysterious adventures.
There was no sign of any one having been to the pond since the morning.
Still, he could not be sure. He felt a strange feeling inside him, as
he stood all alone on the bank and looked down into the water. The
evening sun was shining full on it; he was glad; it would be easier to
see when he was under. What would there be down there? He clenched his
fists and said the Cub Promise between his teeth to buck him up. Then
he suddenly remembered his dream and how brave he had felt when he was
a Crusader-knight, about to challenge the lurking traitor in the Abbey.
Before his courage had time to fail he dived, straight as an arrow,
into the pond.
It was very different down there from what it was in the sea. All was
a murky, brownish colour. Black, slimy weeds waved about, like wicked
little clinging hands. He swam about gently but could see nothing
unusual. Soon he had to come up for more air. Taking a very big breath,
he dived again. This time he happened to be very near the side. In
order to keep down and look well about him he caught hold of a big
bunch of weed growing on the wall of the pond. Suddenly, just before
him, he saw a black, cavernous hole in the bank. It was about three
feet across and seemed like the entrance to a passage, leading away
from the bottom of the pool. But it was full of water, of course.
Danny rose to the surface for breath, and ideas crowded into his mind.
A passage leading away from the bottom of the pond! Then _that_ was
where the men went, and where the bicycle had disappeared to for which
they had dragged the pond so carefully. But why did not all the water
run away? Then he remembered that water never rises above its own
level. On that side of the pond the bank rose steeply towards the high
ground where the ruined mill stood. If the passage led up in a steep
incline, or in steps, it would very soon be on a level with the surface
of the pond. The water, flowing into the passage, would rise as high
as this, and no higher. The level of the mill and the road was high
enough for the passage to rise beyond the water altogether, and still
be underground. Did it do this? The only way to find out was to dive
again, swim into the passage, and see! He would have to take a very big
breath to bring him up where the passage came up, and to let him get
back if it did not seem to be rising. It was something of a risk. But
Danny had nerved himself to anything. “If I do find a passage it will
be jolly dark,” he said. And then he remembered that he had brought his
pocket electric light, and had hidden it, with his handkerchief, knife,
and two pennies, on the bank before diving. He would take his light
down. Perhaps the water would not hurt the battery. Scrambling out on
to the edge he soon found his torch, and stowed it away in the pocket
of his shorts. Then, taking a mighty breath, he dived again, and swam
straight into the dark passage.
Almost at once his outstretched hands came in contact with something
hard and slippery. It was the bottom step of a flight of stone stairs.
A moment later Danny was half swimming, half scrambling up them. His
store of air was very nearly exhausted when, to his intense relief,
his head suddenly came up above the water, and he breathed again. It
was pitch dark, and he was standing in water up to his neck. He was
safe from drowning, however--that was one thing to be thankful for! He
had reached the top step of the flight, and was walking on a slippery
surface that seemed to be inclined uphill, as he found that before long
his shoulders were out of the water, and then he was only waist-deep.
He took out his electric torch and pressed the button. To his joy he
found the battery was working, and a ray of golden light shot through
the darkness. Turning the light from side to side he saw that he was in
a low, vaulted passage, walled and roofed with stone. There was nothing
else to see. The passage seemed to go straight ahead. There was nothing
for it but to go on, and hope there was no one else down there!
Danny had not walked many yards before his light glinted on something.
Peering closer he saw that it was a bicycle leaning up against the
wall. “So that’s where the bike went!” said Danny triumphantly, wishing
the Kangaroos could see it, as he remembered their cutting remarks the
day they dragged the pond in vain.
The bicycle was rusty and useless. The bareheaded stranger who had
been in such a hurry that day on the road, and had said that he was
going one way when he was really going another, must simply have been
flying from his pursuers, and have thrown his stolen bicycle into the
pond so as not to leave a clue when he dived down into his wonderful
hiding-place!
So the mystery of the bicycle was solved at last! Danny had been
determined to solve it. But in working at it he had come on still more
mysterious things. It was a big affair this. And now he felt himself
well on the way to clearing it up. Had he not got into the most secret
hiding-place of the gang? With his heart beating fast with excitement
he pressed on along the passage. He had reached dry ground at last. The
air was musty and suffocating. Danny the Detective thought that _this_
adventure would solve the whole problem; he little knew all that was to
befall him and his country before the mystery would be finally brought
to light.
His heart beating fast with excitement, Danny pressed forward through
the damp darkness. There was a silent horror about this place. Mildew
stood on the walls. Black creatures scurried away beneath his feet,
afraid of the light. How often Danny had longed to find a secret
passage! But now that he had really found one he shrank from going into
the unknown darkness. If only there were another chap to talk to, to
feel near! His teeth chattered with the cold, for he was soaking wet.
But once more he remembered the Cub Law and did not give in.
“My light won’t last long if I keep it on,” he said. Flashing it round
to see his way, he noticed a small lantern hanging on the wall with
a box of matches in a little niche. With a sigh of relief he took it
down and lighted it. The candle light cast weird, flickering shadows on
the wall as Danny hurried on. Every now and then he lifted the lantern
high, looking about him. He must have gone nearly a quarter of a mile
when, some five feet above his head, a faint streak of pale light
shone through a small, round hole in the wall.
“Daylight!” whispered Danny. “I wonder where that hole goes to.” Then
he suddenly remembered his adventure of 1 A.M. on Sunday morning. “Why,
that must be the drain-pipe telephone!” he said. “This is where the
man was who listened at the other end of the pipe while the one in the
ditch talked in a funny language!”
Danny must have walked about half a mile when he was brought up short
by a flight of stone steps. Mounting these, he found himself face to
face with a low door made of some hard, black wood, studded thickly
with iron nails and bands, red with rust. There was a massive lock
and two heavy bolts. The bolts were not across the door, and Danny
stepped forward eagerly, hoping that he would be able to open it. But,
try as he would, the door baffled all his efforts. Cold and weary and
disappointed he had at last to give up the task. There was nothing for
it but to go back.
After a long, dark walk he reached the end of the passage once more and
hung the lantern up on its hook. Then, bracing himself for the effort,
he plunged again into the black water.
The sun had just set in a glory of red and gold when Danny rose from
the mill pool. The air of the summer evening was warm after the icy,
tomb-like atmosphere of the passage. It was an infinite relief to see
daylight again, and a comfort to hear the birds singing their goodnight
songs, and to feel there were live things about. Wringing the water
from his clothes, he set out for home at a brisk trot.
“Hullo, Danny,” said his Sixer the next morning, as the boys hurried
to school, “where on earth were you last night? You didn’t half miss
something. All us chaps were paddling down on the beach, in front of
the ‘Blue Boar,’ when an artist-chap came up and started painting.”
“An artist?” said Danny, all interest at once, for, after being a
detective, the next thing Danny wanted most in the world to be was an
artist.
“Yes,” said Codding, “and he wasn’t half a decent chap either. He let
us come as close as we liked and watch him. And he gave us old ends of
pencils and crayons and bits of paper. He’s staying at the ‘Blue Boar,’
’cos he wants to draw heaps of pictures round here. And he said we
might come and see him again this evening.”
So, after tea, quite a little crowd of Cubs collected round the artist,
who was as friendly as ever. After a time most of them drifted off, and
Danny was left alone. The stranger, seeing his interest, gave him a
nice, clean piece of paper and some old paints and let him have a try.
A week passed, and every evening he would run down and squat on the
ground by the artist, drawing. And while they drew the artist asked him
lots of questions about Dutton, and the people, and the country round.
Danny, being a Wolf Cub, was delighted to answer them all, promptly
and politely, and, if he did not know the necessary information,
did his best to find it out for his new friend. When he was tired
of drawing he would look at the sketch-books the artist kept in his
satchel. The pictures were mostly of harbours and hills and fields. One
day he came on one that puzzled him.
“What a funny one this is!” he said.
“Ah!” said the artist. “I’ll tell you why that one looks funny. It is
because I was sitting right up on the top of a very high church tower
when I drew that. And, looking down, all the country was spread round
me like a map, and I looked down on the roofs of the houses and the
tops of the trees.”
“Oh,” said Danny, “I see!” He was just looking at a funny little sketch
he had found in an inner pocket of the satchel. It was of Dutton, and
showed the harbour and the church and the Village, and the roads all
round. And it was very much like the one done from the church tower. It
puzzled him, because Dutton Church had a spire and no one could sit up
on that and paint!
“It’s very funny,” said Danny thoughtfully.
“What’s funny?” asked the artist.
“This sketch. You must have been up somewhere high when you drew it.
But we have no church tower here.”
The artist dropped his pencil and turned round quickly on Danny.
“What d’you mean?” he said sharply. “What sketch? Give it to me.” And
he snatched it out of the boy’s hand and, folding it, put it in his
breast-pocket.
Danny looked keenly at the man. Why was he so flurried and excited? His
detective instinct smelt a rat at once.
“Where did you sit, sir, when you did that sketch?” he asked with
innocent eyes resting on the artist’s face.
“I, oh--I don’t remember,” said the man.
“But you must have been up high somewhere.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said the artist shortly, and changed the subject. But
Danny was not to be put off so easily. He meant to find out why his
friend had suddenly turned “snuffy,” and why he had told a lie, for any
one could see the sketch had been drawn from above. Sitting silently
on the ground, Danny thought deeply. Could it have been drawn from the
roof of the Hall? No!--for the Hall and its lake and gardens came into
the picture. There was only one other high building in Dutton--the
ruined tower of the Abbey. The man must have done his sketch from
there! But how had he got up? And why was he so mysterious about it?
“Sir,” said Danny, “how did you manage to get up the tower to do that
sketch? The door is always locked and the tower is dangerous.”
The man started at the question, and looked closely at Danny, a frown
on his face.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “Run along, now, and don’t go on
bothering me--I’m busy.”
Of course Danny examined the door of the tower, but, as usual, it
was locked, and there were no signs that any one had broken into the
Abbey ruins. But before long he had made a curious discovery about his
artist friend. Another friend of Danny’s--a fisherman--had promised
to take him out on a fishing expedition, if he could manage to wake
up, and get to his cottage by 5 A.M. It was terribly early to have to
get up, but, with the help of an alarum clock, Danny managed to wake.
The whole Village seemed fast asleep as he crept out into the chill,
dewy morning. Not a soul was about. He was trotting along the road at
“scouts’ pace,” whistling, when, to his surprise, he suddenly saw the
artist walking quickly towards him!
“Hullo, sir!” he cried, with friendly pleasure.
But the artist had started on seeing the Cub, and was not looking
over-pleased at this early-morning encounter.
Scanning the man with curious eyes, Danny noticed that his rough tweed
suit looked wet. To make sure, he took hold of the artist’s arm, as if
by a friendly impulse. Sure, enough, his coat was wringing wet, and,
peering more closely, Danny saw little scraps of duck-weed sticking to
it. His thoughts flew at once to the mill pond.
But before Danny had had time to think much of this discovery, his
quick eyes had noted something else.
“Look, sir,” he said, “you’ve torn a big piece out of your coat! And
one of the buttons, too!” The artist glanced down.
“So I have,” he said, a little uneasily. Then he hurried on, and Danny
was left standing in the road. He gave up his idea of going fishing and
decided to go on the trail again. Here was a new, important clue--the
friendly artist, so full of questions and kindness, was one of the
stealthy gang!
He determined to go to the pool and find out where and how the man had
torn such a great piece out of his coat.
As he passed the drain pipe in the ditch, he paused and looked at it.
He was standing on the bank, his hand resting on a telegraph-pole, when
something made him glance up. Just above his head, a torn scrap of
cloth, with a button sewn to it, was hanging on a bent nail in the post.
Reaching up, Danny unhooked it. Yes, it was the artist’s button! So he
had been climbing a telegraph-pole! What on earth for? Danny was more
puzzled than ever. But it was certainly a “clue,” and he logged it in
his notebook, with the other particulars concerning the artist.
The pool revealed no more secrets, except that someone had certainly
climbed out of it lately, and left wet marks on the bank.
[Illustration: “Look, sir,” he said, “you’ve torn a big piece out of
your coat! And one of the buttons, too!”]
“My word, but I won’t half keep a sharp lookout on that chap,” said
Danny to himself, as he walked home. But he had two pieces of news
to learn when he reached Dutton. One was that the artist and his
portmanteau had departed in a cart for the station; and the other that
the newspapers had very serious news in them. The quarrel between
Germany and the Balkan States that had been attracting attention was
spreading to something wider. “It will end in a great war,” people
said. In a few days came the news that Germany had broken all treaties,
and was trampling on little Belgium. England, standing for fair play,
_must_ come in. On August 4th, England had declared war on Germany.
“If only we could _do_ something,” everybody felt. The Dutton Scouts
and Wolf Cubs fairly ramped with impatience to be called out on war
service. Their chance came sooner than they expected. And sooner than
he expected came the solution to the great mystery that had puzzled
Danny the Detective for so long.