“If only we could solve it ourselves,” said Dominic wistfully.
“Well, couldn’t we at least try? It doesn’t seem as if anyone else is doing much about it, and somebody’s got to.”
“My father—” began Dominic, his hackles rising at once.
“Your father’s a dear, and I know he’s trying all he can, and listen, I’m too upset to argue with you. I’m only asking you, couldn’t we try? It’s awful when you think about people being so miserable. If only it wasn’t for this business hanging over them, maybe they could act a little more sensibly, maybe it would come out right. But as things are, what chance have they got? Dom, let’s at least try!”
“I’d like to,” said Dominic, “I want to. But I’m trying to think. What is there we can do? We haven’t got a clue. We don’t know where to look for one. There’s only the basin by the well, where we found
“If only we could find the weapon—or even a trace of it—”
“Well, there’s only one thing we can do, and that’s go over and over the ground inch by inch, for
“Yes, of course I am. When shall we go? Tomorrow?”
“The sooner the better. I’ll meet you there as soon as I’ve done my homework. I’ll bring a really good torch. Anyhow, if there is anything there, this time we won’t miss it.” He looked at Pussy crouching on the floor among the straw, and was touched to see the bright scornful eyes blinking back tears. He knew they were only going on a wild-goose chase, he knew they might just as well start going through the Harrow stacks for the proverbial needle, but he wouldn’t admit it, if the pretense could comfort Pussy. He clapped her on the shoulders, a hard, comradely clout. “It’ll be all right in the end, old girl, you see if it isn’t. We’ll try tomorrow, and we’ll go on trying till we jolly well get somewhere. We’ve got to get ourselves and everyone else out of this mess, and we’re going to do it, too.”
Pussy said: “You know, Dom—I know I go on about Io, sometimes, but she’s really not bad. I—I
Two
« ^ »
It rained heavily most of the night, and the thirsty earth drank madly, but still there was water to spare next day, lying in all the dimples of the road, and making a white slime of all the open clay faces on the mounds. By the time Dominic came home from school the clouds were all past, and the sky from east to west hung pale and faint and exhausted into calm.
Just when he wanted to rush his tea and his homework, and be away on the job in hand—though when it came to expecting any results from it he might have been regarded as a despairing optimist—Cousin John was at the house visiting, and without his mother, so that it inevitably followed that Dominic was expected to help to look after and amuse him. Not that young John was such a bad kid, really, but who could be bothered with him on this particular day? Dominic made an ungracious business of it, so much so that Bunty was a little hurt and put out at his behavior. He was usually an accommodating child. Still, she admitted his right to his off-days, like the rest of us, and good-humoredly, if a little coolly, relieved him of his charge as soon as she had washed up. Dominic rushed through his French, made a hideous mess of his algebra, and scuttled out at the back door in a terrible hurry, with George’s best torch in his pocket. It wasn’t that he expected to find anything, really, but there was somehow a satisfaction in furious activity, and, after all, if one raked around persistently enough, something might turn up. At least he had keyed himself to the attempt, and he meant to leave no blade of grass undisturbed between Webster’s well and the Harrow fences.
This was the day on which the news went round Comerford that the Harrow appeal had been allowed. In view of the objections raised by the owner, the Ministry had decided not to proceed with the extension of the open-cast site, but to cut their losses and end their operations in Comerford at the Harrow borders. Nobody was much surprised. The Blundens almost always got their own way, and it wasn’t to be expected, in view of what Comerford had yet seen of nationalized industries, that the new setup was going to alter the rule very much. It took more than a change of name to upset the equilibrium of Selwyn Blunden when it was a case of manipulating authorities.
Dominic had heard, distractedly from behind a French prose extract, the discussion round the tea-table. He wasn’t surprised, either, everyone had been saying for weeks that it would go that way, but somehow long delay raises disconcerting doubts far back in the mind, behind the facade of certainty. Every speculation always ended with: “But after all, you never know!” Well, now they did know, and that was done with. Now there was only one topic of conversation left in Comerford.
At the last moment, just as he was sliding out at the gate, Bunty called him back, and asked him to see John safely on to the bus for Comerbourne Bridge; which meant that he had to go all the way round by the green, and stand chafing for five minutes until the wretched bus arrived, instead of taking all the most convenient short cuts to his objective. But as soon as John was bundled aboard, off went Dominic by the fields and the lane and the quarry, heading by the longer but now more direct route for Webster’s well.
He came to the stile in the rough ground outside the Harrow preserves, where the silvery green of birches fluttered against the background black of the conifers; and there was Charles Blunden sitting on the stile, with a shotgun on his arm and a brown-and-white spaniel between his feet. He was looking straight before him with mild, contemplative eyes, and he looked vaguely pleased with the contents of his own mind, and rather a long way off. But he smiled at Dominic when he came up, and said: “Oh, hullo, Dom! Made any more interesting discoveries yet?”
Dominic had walked off the remnants of his impatience and ill-temper, and grinned back quite cheerfully at him. “No, nothing new! Did you get any birds tonight?” He peered through the stile, and saw a brace dropped in the grass by the side of the path. The spaniel, sad-eyed, poked a moist nose into his palm; its brow was covered with raffish brown curls, and its front legs were splayed out drunkenly, spreading enormous feathered paws in the wet grass. It had a pedigree rather longer than its master’s, and shelves of prizes, and rumor had it that he had refused fabulous sums for its purchase; but it was not in the least stuck-up. Dominic doubled its ears and massaged them gently in his fingers, and the curly head heeled over into his thigh heavy and lopsided with bliss.
“I heard,” said Dominic, looking up into Charles’s face, “about the result of the appeal. I bet you’re glad it’s settled, aren’t you?”
“Settled? Ah!” said Charles absently. He grew a little less remote, his wandering glance settling upon Dominic thoughtfully. “Tell me, Dom, as an intelligent and unprejudiced person, what do you think of that business? What were the rights and wrongs of it? Don’t mind me, tell me your opinion if it kills me.”
“I hadn’t exactly thought,” said Dominic, taken aback.
