Quicksilver Part 97

There was a week of watching, but Bob Dimsted was not caught, and the doctor sternly said that he would not place the matter in the hands of the police. But all the same the little pilferings went on, and Mrs Millett came one morning, with tears in her eyes, to say that she couldn't bear it any longer, for only last night a whole quartern loaf had been taken through the larder bars, and, with it, one of the large white jars of black-currant jam.

Mrs Millett was consoled with the promise that the culprit should soon be caught, and two nights later Peter came in to announce to the doctor that he had been so near catching Bob Dimsted that he had touched him as he chased him down the garden, and that he would have caught him, only that, without a moment's hesitation, the boy had jumped into the river and swum across, and so escaped to the other side.

"Next time I mean to have him," said Peter confidently, and this he repeated to Mrs Millett and Maria, being rewarded with a basin of the tea which had just come down from the drawing-room.

It was just two days later that, as Helen sat with her work under the old oak-tree in the garden--an old evergreen oak which gave a pleasant shade--she became aware of a faint rustling sound.

She looked up, but could see nothing, though directly after there was a peculiar noise in the tree, which resembled the chopping of wood.

Still she could see nothing, and she had just resumed her work, thinking the while that Dexter would some day write, and that her father's correspondence with the Reverend Septimus Mastrum had not been very satisfactory, when there was a slight scratching sound.

She turned quickly and saw that a ragged-looking squirrel had run down the grey trunk of the tree, while, as soon as it saw her, it bounded off, and to her surprise pa.s.sed through the gateway leading into the yard where the old stable stood.

Helen Grayson hardly knew why she did so, but she rose and followed the squirrel, to find that she was not alone, for Peter the groom was in the yard going on tiptoe toward the open door of the old range of buildings.

He touched his cap on seeing her.

"Squir'l, Miss," he said. "Just run in here."

"I saw it just now," said Helen. "Don't kill the poor thing."

"Oh no, Miss; I won't kill it," said Peter, as Helen went back into the garden. "But I mean to catch it if I can."

Peter went into the dark old building and looked round, but there was no sign of the squirrel. Still a little animal like that would be sure to go upwards, so Peter climbed the half-rotten ladder, and stood in the long dark range of lofts, peering among the rafters and ties in search of the bushy-tailed little creature.

He walked to the end in one direction, then in the other, till he was stopped by an old boarded part.i.tion, in which there was a door which had been nailed up; but he remembered that this had a flight of steps, or rather a broad-stepped old wood ladder, on the other side, leading to a narrower loft right in the gable.

"Wonder where it can be got," said Peter to himself; and then he turned round, ran along the loft, dropped down through the trap-door, and nearly slipped and fell, so hurried was his flight.

Half-across the yard he came upon Dan'l wheeling a barrow full of mould for potting.

"Hallo! what's the matter?"

Peter gasped and panted, but said nothing.

"Haven't seen a ghost, have you?" said Dan'l.

"Ye-es. No," panted Peter.

"Why, you white-faced, cowardly noodle!" cried Dan'l. "What d'yer mean?"

"I--I. Come out of here into the garden," whispered Peter.

Dan'l was going down the garden to the potting-shed, so he made no objection, and, arrived there, Peter, with solemn emphasis, told how he had gone in search of the squirrel, and that there was something up in the loft.

"Yes," said old Dan'l contemptuously--"rats."

"Yes; I know that," said Peter excitedly; and his eyes looked wild and dilated; "but there's something else."

Dan'l put down the barrow, and sat upon the soft mould as he gave his rough stubbly chin a rub.

"Lookye here, Peter," he said; "did yer ever hear tell about ghosts being in old buildings?"

"Yes," said Peter, with an involuntary shiver, and a glance across the wall at a corroded weatherc.o.c.k on the top of the ancient place.

"Well, my lad, ghosts never comes out in the day-time: only o' nights; and do you know what they are?"

Peter shook his head.

"Well, then, my lad, I'll tell you. I've sin several in my time. Them as you hears and don't see's rats; and them as you sees and don't hear's howls. What d'yer think o' that?"

"It wasn't a rat, nor it wasn't a howl, as I see," said Peter solemnly; "but something gashly horrid, as looked down at me from up in the rafters of that there dark place, and it made me feel that bad that I didn't seem to have no legs to stand on."

"Tchah!" cried the gardener. "What yer talking about?"

"Anything the matter?" said the doctor, who had come up unheard over the velvety lawn.

"Hush!" whispered Peter imploringly.

"Shan't hush. Sarves you right," growled Dan'l. "Here's Peter, sir, just seen a ghost."

"Ah! has he?" said the doctor. "Where did you see it, Peter?"

"I didn't say it were a ghost, sir, I only said as I see something horrid up at end of the old loft when I went up there just now after a squir'l."

"Squirrel!" said the doctor angrily. "What are you talking about, man?

Squirrels live in trees, not in old lofts. You mean a rat."

"I know a squir'l when I see one, sir," said Peter; "and I see one go 'crost the yard and into that old stable."

"Nonsense!" said the doctor.

"Did you find it, Peter!" said Helen from under the tree.

"Find what?" said the doctor.

"A squirrel that ran from here across the yard."

Peter looked from one to the other triumphantly, as he said--

"No, Miss, I didn't."

"Humph!" grunted the doctor. "Then there was a squirrel!"

"Yes, sir."

"And you saw something strange!"

"Yes, sir, something awful gashly, in the dark end, sir."