Amateur Detectives
The girls felt that their short week of strawberry picking was crammed
more full of experiences than a whole term of ordinary school life.
There were so many interesting people at the camp who had been working
at various absorbing occupations, and were ready to talk about their
adventures. Miss Hoyle could give accounts of celebrities whom she had
been sent to interview by her newspaper; Miss Gordon, the Social
Settlement secretary, had stories of factory girls and their funny
ways and sayings to relate; Nurse Gibbons had much to tell about her
training in a London hospital; Miss Parker was an authority on
munition work, and Miss Lowe, an artist, drew spirited sketches of
everybody and everything, to the amusement of all. There was a great
feeling of comradeship and bonhomie in the camp; everyone was ready to
be friendly, and to meet everybody else on equal terms. There was only
one member who did not seem responsive and ready to mix with the
others. This was Mrs. Vernon, a shy, reserved little woman, who never
blossomed out into any confidences. She would sit and listen
attentively to all the tales told by Miss Hoyle and Miss Parker, and
would even question the latter about her munition work, but she gave
no information at all respecting herself or her occupation. It was
rumoured that she was a widow, but the report was not confirmed. The
Marlowe Grange girls did not much like her, and took very little
notice of her. It was the easiest thing in the world to ignore her,
for she seemed to shrink from even the most ordinary civilities, and
would vouchsafe nothing but a curt reply when spoken to.
On the morning after the expedition to Ledcombe there was considerable
excitement in Raymonde's tent. Katherine woke up with her face covered
with a rash. Morvyth, who slept next to her, noticed it immediately,
and told her that she had better stay in bed until Miss Gibbs saw her.
Naturally Miss Gibbs was in a state of great apprehension, and feared
that Katherine must be sickening for measles, scarlatina, chicken-pox,
or some other infectious complaint. Manifestly the first thing to be
done was to send for a doctor. The nearest medical man lived at
Ledcombe, and in order to save time Raymonde and Aveline offered to
walk in to Shipley village, and telephone to him from the post office
there.
"Nice little business if Kitty starts an epidemic in the camp!" said
Aveline as they went along. "I suppose we couldn't go back to
school?"
"No, and we shouldn't be allowed to pick strawberries either, if we
were infectious. They'd turn us out of the camp, and treat us like
lepers."
"Oh, I say! It would be no fun at all!"
They had reached Shipley by this time--a little quaint old-world place
consisting of one village street of picturesque cottages, most of
them covered with roses or vines, and with flowery gardens in front.
The tiny church stood on a mound, surrounded by trees, and looked far
smaller than the handsome vicarage whose great gates opened opposite
the school. The post office appeared also to be a general store, where
articles of every description were on sale. From the ceiling were
suspended tin pails, coils of clothes-line, rows of boots or shoes,
pans, kettles, brooms, and lanterns, while the walls were lined with
shelves containing groceries and draperies, stationery, hosiery, quack
medicines, garden seeds, and, in fact, an absolutely miscellaneous
assortment of goods and chattels, some old, some new, some fresh, some
faded, some appetizing, and some decidedly stale.
Raymonde asked to use the telephone, and retired to the little
boxed-off portion of the shop reserved for that instrument, where she
successfully rang up Dr. Wilton, and received his promise to call
during the morning at the camp. This most pressing business done, they
proceeded to execute a few commissions for Miss Jones, Miss Lowe, and
several other members of the party. Miss Hoyle had begged them to buy
a few yards of anything with which she might trim a large shady rush
hat she had brought with her, so the girls asked the postmistress to
show them some white ribbon. That elderly spinster, having first, with
considerable ingenuity, satisfied her curiosity as to the object for
which they required it, commenced a vigorous hunt among the
miscellaneous collection of boxes in her establishment.
"I know I have some," she soliloquized, "for it was only six weeks
ago I sold a yard and a half to Mrs. Cox, to finish a tea-cosy she was
making. Where can I have put it? No, this is lead-pencils and
india-rubber, and this, neuralgic powders and babies' comforters. It
might have got into the small wares, but I had that out only
yesterday. Why, here it is, after all, among the tapes and buttons!"
The girls soon found that shopping at Shipley possessed an immense
advantage over kindred expeditions in town. When there was only a
single article, no selection could be made; it was impossible to be
bewildered with too many fineries, and "This or nothing" offered a
unique simplicity in the way of choice. Miss Pearson, the
postmistress, decided for them that the ribbon was the right width and
quality, and even offered a few hints on the subject of trimming.
"I believe she's longing to do it herself!" whispered Aveline. "Are
those specimens of her millinery in the window? I'd as soon wear a
cauliflower on my head as that erection with the squirms of velvet and
the lace border!"
"You're sure three yards will be sufficient?" pattered the little
storekeeper. "Well, of course you can come for more if you want. I'm
not likely to be selling it out, and, if anybody should happen to come
and ask for the rest of it, I'll get them to wait till you've finished
trimming your hat. Dear me! If I haven't mislaid my scissors now! I
was cutting flowers with them in the garden before breakfast, and I
must have put them down in the middle of the sweet peas, or on the
onion bed. It wouldn't take me five minutes to find them. You'd
rather not wait? Then perhaps you'll excuse my using this."
Without further apology, Miss Pearson seized the carving-knife with
which she usually operated on the cheese and bacon, and, giving it a
hasty wipe upon her apron, proceeded to saw through the ribbon,
wrapping up the three yards in a scrap of newspaper.
"I'm sorry I'm out of paper bags," she announced airily, "but the
traveller only calls once in six months. Let me know how you get on
with the hat, and, if you want any help that I can give you, just
bring it across to me, and I'll do my best. By the by, I suppose you
young ladies go to a fine boarding-school? Do you learn foreign
languages there?"
"Why, yes--French and German and Latin--most of us," replied Raymonde,
rather astonished.
"Then perhaps you'll be so good as to help me, for there's a letter
arrived this morning I can make nothing of. It's certainly not in
English, but whether it's in French or German or Russian or what, I
can't say, for I'm no authority on languages."
"Let me look at it, and I will do my best."
Miss Pearson bustled to her postmistress's desk, and with an air of
great importance produced the letter. Raymonde took it carelessly
enough, but when she had grasped a few sentences her expression
changed. She read it through to the end, then laid it down on the
counter without offering to translate.
"This is not addressed to you, I think," she remarked.
"You're quite right, it's for Martha Verney; but she's no scholar, so
I opened it for her, like I do for many folks in Shipley. I was quite
taken aback when I couldn't make it out, and Martha said: 'Miss
Pearson, if you can't read it, I'm sure nobody else can!' But I told
her to leave it, in case anyone came into the shop who could."
"Where's the envelope?" asked Raymonde briefly.
"It's here. The writing is small and queer, isn't it? I had to put on
both my pairs of glasses, one over the other, before I could see
properly."
"You've made a very great mistake," said Raymonde. "The letter is
addressed to Mrs. Vernon, Poste Restante, Shipley."
"Well, I never! I thought it was Martha Verney. There are no Vernons
in Shipley."
"There's a Mrs. Vernon at the camp. No doubt it's intended for her."
"Well, I am sorry," replied Miss Pearson. "To think of me being
postmistress all these years, and making such a mistake! I'll put it
in an official envelope and readdress it. She'll get it to-morrow. Is
it important? I suppose you were able to understand it?" with a
suggestive glance at the letter, as if she hoped Raymonde would reveal
its contents.
Raymonde, however, did not answer her question.
"I think you had better seal it up at once," she parried, "and drop it
into the box, and then you'll feel you've finished with it."
"Oh, it will be all right! I hope I know my duties. If people
addressed their envelopes properly in a plain hand, there'd be no
mistakes," snapped Miss Pearson, highly offended, putting back the
bone of contention among her papers, and locking the desk. She knew
she had been caught tripping, and wished to preserve her official
dignity as far as possible. "I've opened Martha Verney's letters for
the last fifteen years, and had no complaints," she added.
"Ave," said Raymonde, as the two girls left the shop and turned up the
lane towards the camp, "that was a most important letter. I didn't
tell that old curiosity-box so, but it was written in German. I'd
Fraeulein as my governess for four years before I came to school, so I
can read German pretty easily, as you know. Well, I couldn't quite
understand everything, but the general drift seems to be that Mrs.
Vernon has a husband or a brother or a cousin named Carl, who is
interned not so far away from here, and is trying to escape. This
evening's the time fixed, and he's coming into the neighbourhood of
our camp, and she's to meet him, and give him clothes and money."
"Good gracious! What are we to do? Go back and 'phone to the
police--or tell Mr. Rivers?"
"Neither," said Raymonde decidedly. "After that idiotic business on
Wednesday night, trying to guard the larder with everybody tumbling
over everyone else, it's worse than useless to tell. It would be all
over the camp in five minutes, and Mrs. Vernon would hear about it,
and go and warn 'Carl' somehow. As for the police, they'd spend a week
in preliminaries. They'd have to send a constable to look at the
letter, and ask questions of us, and Miss Pearson, and Mr. Rivers, and
no end of red-tape nonsense; and by that time Carl would be safely out
of the country, and on to a neutral vessel. No, my idea is to 'set a
thief to catch a thief'. I'm going to ask the gipsies to help us. If
anybody can deal with the business, they can!"
"Topping!" exclaimed Aveline. "I'd back the gipsies against the best
detectives in England."
"I'll go to the field and talk to that woman who caught Dandy for us
yesterday. Mr. Rivers sent a horse last night, and brought their
caravan to the farm, so they'll all be at work picking this morning.
Don't tell a single soul in the camp. You and I will watch Mrs.
Vernon, and follow her if she goes out, and the gipsies shall keep
guard in the wood where she's evidently arranged to meet him. They'll
get a reward if they catch him."
"That'll spur them on, as well as the sport of the thing!" laughed
Aveline.
The girls were fearfully excited at the idea of such an adventure.
They had never liked Mrs. Vernon, and now saw good ground for their
suspicions. They wondered how much information she had gleaned at the
camp, for Miss Hoyle and Miss Parker were not very discreet in their
communications. They walked at once to the gardens, found their Romany
friend among the strawberries, and with much secrecy told her the
whole affair. As they had expected, she rose magnificently to the
occasion.
"You leave it to us gipsies," she assured them. "Bless you, we're used
to this kind of job. There's a lot of us altogether working here, and
I'll pass the word on. There'll be scouts this evening behind nearly
every hedge, and if any German comes this way we'll get him, I promise
you. You keep your eye on that Mrs. Vernon! We may want a signal.
Look here, lady; come to the back of that shed, and I'll teach you the
gipsies' whistle. Anybody with Romany blood in them's bound to answer
it."
The gipsy's whistle was a peculiar bird-like call, not very easy to
imitate. Raymonde had to try again and again before she could
accomplish it to her instructress's satisfaction. At last, however,
she had it perfectly.
"Don't use it till you must," cautioned her dark-eyed confederate;
"but, if we hear it, it will bring the lot of us out. Now I must go
back to my picking, or the agent will be turning me off."
"And I must rush back to the camp," declared Raymonde, remembering
that Miss Gibbs, who had stayed with the invalid, would expect a
report of the visit to the telephone. The excitement of the German
letter had temporarily banished Katherine's illness from her thoughts,
and she reproached herself for her unkindness in forgetting her
friend. The doctor called during the course of the morning, and, after
examining the patient, pronounced her complaint to be neither measles,
chicken-pox, nor anything of an infectious character, but merely a
rash due to the eating of too many strawberries.
"They cause violent dyspepsia in some people," he remarked. "I will
make up a bottle of medicine, if you can send anybody over on a
bicycle for it this afternoon. You mustn't eat any more strawberries,
young lady. They'd be simply poison to you at present. Oh yes! you may
go and pick them; the occupation will do you no harm."
Much relieved that they had not started a centre of infection in the
camp, Katherine and Miss Gibbs returned to work after lunch, the
latter issuing special instructions to her girls against the excessive
consumption of the fruit they were gathering. Katherine was inclined
to pose as an interesting invalid, and to claim sympathy, but the
general feeling of her schoolfellows was against that attitude, and
the verdict was "Greedy pig! Serves her right!" which was not at all
to her satisfaction.
"You're most unkind!" she wailed. "You've every one of you eaten quite
as many strawberries as I have, only I've a delicate digestion, and
can't stand them like you can. You're a set of ostriches! I believe
you'd munch turnips if you were sent to hoe them! I don't mind what
you say. So there!"
As half-past six drew on, and most of the workers were handing in
their last baskets for the day, Raymonde and Aveline kept watchful
eyes on Mrs. Vernon. They fully expected that she might disappear on
the way back to the camp, so, without making their purpose apparent,
they shadowed her, pretending that they were looking for flowers in
the hedge. They hung about in the vicinity of her tent until
supper-time, and changed their seats at table so that they might sit
nearer to her in the marquee. When the meal was over, and the washing
up and water carrying finished, nearly everybody collected for an
amateur concert. Miss Hoyle had a banjo, which she played atrociously
out of tune, but on which she nevertheless strummed accompaniments
while the rest roared out "Little Grey Home in the West," "The Long,
Long Trail," and other popular songs. It was certainly not classical
music, but it was amusing; and, as everybody joined in the choruses,
the company consisted entirely of performers, with no audience except
the cows in the adjacent pasture. Even Mrs. Vernon was singing, though
with an inscrutable look in her grey eyes hardly suggestive of
enjoyment.
"She's doing it as a blind!" whispered Raymonde to Aveline. "Don't let
her out of your sight for a single moment!"
When the fun was at its height, and everybody seemed fully occupied
with ragtimes, two pairs of watchful eyes noticed Mrs. Vernon slip
quietly away in the direction of her tent. She went inside for a
moment, then, coming out again with a parcel in her hand, walked
rapidly towards a stile that led into the fields. Raymonde and Aveline
allowed her to reach the other side of it, then flew like the wind to
a gap in the hedge through which they could see into the next meadow.
She was walking along the path among the hay, in the direction of the
wood, and was no doubt congratulating herself upon getting rid of her
camp-mates so easily. There was nothing at all unusual in the fact of
her taking a stroll; many of the workers did so in the evenings,
though they generally went two or three together. Had it not been for
the letter she had read at the post office, Raymonde's suspicions
would probably never have been aroused. The two girls crossed the
stile, and began to follow Mrs. Vernon as if they, too, were merely
enjoying an ordinary walk, leaving a considerable distance between her
and themselves. She turned round once, but as they were in the shadow
of the hedge she did not see them. It was a more difficult business to
track her through the wood. The light was waning fast here, and in
her brown costume she was sometimes almost indistinguishable among the
tree-trunks and bushes. That she was going to some specially arranged
trysting-place they were certain. Using infinite caution, they
followed her. Towards the middle of the wood she paused, looked round,
and, seeing nobody (for the girls were hidden behind a tangle of
bramble), she stood still and called softly. There was no answer. She
called again, waited a few moments, and then began to walk farther on
into the wood. She was at a point where two paths divided, and she
chose the one to the right.
"Ave," whispered Raymonde, "we must spread ourselves out. She's
evidently looking for 'Carl', and he may be on the other path. We
mustn't miss him. You follow her, and I'll take the way to the left."
Aveline nodded and obeyed. She did not much relish going alone, but
she had a profound respect for her chum's judgment. The path which
Raymonde had chosen was the narrower and more overgrown. She stole
along, listening and watching. After a few hundred yards she came to
an ancient yew-tree, the trunk of which, worn with age, was no more
than a hollow shell. It would be perfectly possible for anyone to hide
here. An idea occurred to her, venturesome indeed, but certainly
feasible. Raymonde was not a girl to stop and consider risks. If an
escaped German were in the wood, it was her duty to her king and
country to try to effect his arrest. All her patriotism rose within
her, and, though her heart thumped rather loudly, she told herself
that she was not afraid. Going into the middle of the path, she
called as Mrs. Vernon had done, then dived into the shelter of the
hollow tree.
"If he's anywhere near here, that'll bring him!" she thought.
For a moment all was silence, then came a crashing among the bushes,
and an answering call. Someone was coming in the direction of the
yew-tree.
Peeping from her hiding-place, Raymonde could just distinguish a man's
figure advancing through the gathering darkness of the wood. Then
awful fear fell upon her. Suppose he were to look inside the hollow
tree and find her? He was a German, and a desperate man; she was a
girl, and alone. Why, oh why had she sent Aveline away? He would be
quite capable of murdering her.
In that moment of agony she bitterly repented her folly. To be sure,
there were the gipsies, but she was not certain whether they were
really within call, and would come quickly in answer to her signal.
The footsteps drew nearer, they were almost at the tree; she shrank to
the farthest corner, trusting that in the darkness her brown serge
school costume might escape notice. Just at that moment another
cautious shout sounded through the wood. The footsteps stopped, so
near to her tree that Raymonde could see the flap of a coat through
the opening; then they turned, and went in the direction of the voice.
Raymonde drew a long breath of intense relief, and peeped out. The man
was tacking down a little incline towards the brook, guided by a
further call.
"I've seen he's here, and I know he's going down there to meet her,"
thought Raymonde. "It's time for me to act."
She slipped from the tree, ran nearer to the edge of the wood, and
gave the peculiar blackbird-like whistle which the Romany woman had
taught her. Its effect was immediate. Within ten seconds one of the
gipsy boys ran up to her, and she told him briefly what had occurred.
"I'll pass the signal on," he replied. "There's a ring of us all round
the wood. We won't let him go, you bet!"
He gave a low cry like the hooting of an owl, which was at once
answered from the right and the left.
"That means 'close the ring'," he explained. "We've all sorts of calls
that we understand and talk to each other by when we're in the woods.
They'll all be moving on now."
The gipsy boy went forward, and Raymonde, with her heart again
thumping wildly, followed at a little distance. This was indeed an
adventure. She wondered where Aveline was, and if she were equally
frightened. She wished she had not left her friend alone.
The gipsies, well versed in wood-craft, walked as silently as hunters
stalking a buck. She would not have known they were within a mile of
her, had she not been told. Her boy guide had vanished temporarily
among the bushes. She stood still for a few minutes, uncertain what to
do.
Then there was a shout, and a sound of running footsteps crashing
through the bushes, excited voices called, and presently between the
trees came five or six of the gipsies hauling a man whose arms they
had already bound with a rope. The Romany woman, herself as strong as
any man, was helping with apparent gusto. When she saw Raymonde she
ran to her.
"We've got him right enough, lady!" she exclaimed triumphantly.
"They're going to take him to the farm, and borrow a trap to take him
to the jail at Ledcombe. We nabbed him by the brook as neat as
anything. The other young lady's over there."
"Aveline! Aveline!" called Raymonde, rushing in pursuit of her
friend.
The two girls clung to each other eagerly. They were both thoroughly
frightened.
"Let's go back to the camp," gasped Aveline. "I daren't stay here any
longer. Oh! I was terrified when you left me!"
"What's become of Mrs. Vernon?" asked Raymonde.
Aveline did not know. In the hullabaloo of the pursuit the woman had
been allowed to escape. She had the wisdom not to return to the camp,
and was indeed never seen again in the neighbourhood. Great was the
excitement at the farm when the gipsies brought in the German. Mr.
Rivers himself undertook to drive them and their prisoner to the
jail.
Raymonde and Aveline had a thrilling story to tell in the marquee that
night, where everybody collected to hear the wonderful experience,
those who had already gone to their tents donning dressing-gowns and
coming to join the interested audience. Miss Gibbs seemed divided
between a sense of her duty as a schoolmistress to scold her pupils
for undertaking such an extremely wild proceeding, and a glow of pride
that her girls had actually succeeded in effecting the capture of an
escaped enemy. On the whole, pride and patriotism prevailed, and the
pair were let off with only a caution against madcap adventures.
Raymonde found herself the idol of the gipsies at the strawberry
gardens next day.
"We're to have a big reward, lady, for copping that German!" said the
Romany woman. "It'll buy us a new horse for our caravan. Will you
please accept this basket from us? We wish we'd anything better to
offer you. I'll teach you three words of Romany--let me whisper! Don't
you forget them, and if you're ever in trouble, and want help from the
gipsies, you've only to say those words to them, and they'll give
their last drop of blood for you. But don't tell anybody else, lady;
the words are only for you."
"What was she saying to you?" asked Morvyth curiously.
"I can't tell you," replied Raymonde. "It's a secret!"
[Illustration: "RAYMONDE DREW A LONG BREATH OF INTENSE RELIEF, AND PEEPED
OUT"]