The Madcap of the School Part 15

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 ap.r.o.n, proceeded to saw through the ribbon, wrapping up the three yards in a sc.r.a.p 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 n.o.body 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 gla.s.ses, 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 Fraulein 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 a.s.sured them. "Bless you, we're used to this kind of job. There's a lot of us altogether working here, and I'll pa.s.s 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, p.r.o.nounced 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 att.i.tude, 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 cla.s.sical 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 n.o.body (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 sh.e.l.l. 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 pa.s.s 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."