He was working his way methodically along the rim of the roped-off area, where the earth flooring was excavated to a depth of about three inches, and the raw edges at least offered a possibility that a corner of parchment might show among the soil and gravel, when a sudden small sound caused the hair to rise on the nape of his neck, and sent him diving into the corner behind the hand-cart, his torch hastily extinguished. The grate of a key in the lock might have alerted him more rapidly, but the door was not locked, and what he heard was the neat click of the latch yielding, and without even a full second in between, the door swung silently open. It was new, light and noiseless; it ought to have been heavy, creaky and slow, to give him time to make the best of his inadequate cover. But if this was simply a routine round, there would be the merest flick of a torch round the interior, and then the warden would move on, satisfied.
Bossie had miscalculated, owing to inadequate data. The careful restorers of the paving, salvaging broken tiles from under layers of soil, matching and repairing and patiently assembling the fours into their patterns of coiled leaves and tendrils, had sometimes worked both early and late, and fitted up for their needs a highly efficient temporary lighting system, which was not used during show hours. Of all the things to which Bossie was blind, the marvels of technical efficiency came at the head of the list. Probably Ginger could have told him the place was wired for a perfect blaze of light, but Bossie had noticed nothing, neither the switch by the door nor the dangling bulbs all along the north walk. And the flood of light that suddenly sprang up overhead almost flattened him into the floor with its unexpected force. Crude white light that threaded through the wheels of the handcart, probed behind the stacked wood, and reduced the derelict stones to unhelpful pebbles. Light crashed down on his head and pressed him to his knees, but he knew at once that if this person in the doorway came on into the room, he could not possibly avoid being seen. His heart stopped for one frightful instant, and then sturdily picked up its beat. Being scared was no protection whatever, he might as well go on breathing, after all. There could be credible, if not respectable, reasons for being here at this hour.
‘Well, well!’ said a familiar voice, mild, amused, even teasing. ‘This is really excess of enthusiasm. I gathered you were a devotee, but don’t you think this is carrying it to absurd lengths? Oh, do come on out of there! You might as well, I can see you perfectly, and I don’t get one like you every trip. I’ve recognised you already, and you don’t look at all comfortable’
Bossie wasn’t comfortable, and besides, he had recognised the intruding voice as quickly as its possessor had recognised him, and the relief was enormous. Not the warden, after all, but the nice guide who had been so patient and accommodating in showing them round in the afternoon. In any case, Bossie’s dignity was affronted at crouching behind a handcart in full view of an eye-witness. He rose to his full unimpressive height, and came out from behind his barricade. The big, fair-haired, amiable young man grinned at him from just within the doorway, and made no intimidating move to approach nearer.
‘Well, now I’ve seen everything! I’ve known kids driven in here in a state of mutiny, but I’ve never before known one come back for more out of hours. You’ve made my day. But I shudder to think what you’re laying up for yourself. Do you realise it’s getting on for ten? Your parents must be worried sick about you. Whatever possessed you to hide away in here like this?’
He sounded just as he had sounded in the afternoon, patient, tolerant and amused, and that gave him every right to take the mickey, in his airy way. Bossie drew a little nearer, cautiously but placatingly.
‘I wasn’t going to steal anything, or do any damage. But did you know there are stories that the last prior buried the church plate and treasures somewhere here? I wanted to try and find them, make some fabulous discovery and get to be famous. But if I’d found anything, I should have told!’
‘I’m sure you would,’ agreed the guide with amusement, and studying him very attentively. ‘Well, that’s all very nice, I dare say, and no doubt places like this ought to be bulging with buried treasure all over the shop. But we’ve exhausted the possibilities in this part, you know, and you are rather wasting your time. As well as frightening your folks half to death, I should think. And just as well for you it happens to be me making the rounds tonight, and not the warden, he’d have you frog-marched up to the police station in no time flat. You be thankful he wanted to go out tonight, and I volunteered to do the locking up for him.’
‘Oh, I am!’ agreed Bossie fervently. ‘But I didn’t mean to do anything wrong, really, and I didn’t realise it was as late as all that.’
‘I should think not! Do you realise you could have got yourself locked in here overnight? That would have scared them even worse, and I don’t suppose you’d have been feeling quite so cocky yourself when it got really cold. So now hadn’t you better tell me where you live, and let me drive you safely home? And don’t blame me if you get your behind tanned when you get there!’
That was when Bossie made his great mistake, and after that there was no salvaging it. Obviously he couldn’t let himself be driven home, having accounted for a night’s absence, or in the stress of the moment he had no time to realise that that would now have been his safest and sanest course, however many awkward explanations it might involve. He never gave up his enterprises easily; and before he had time to think he heard himself politely declining this fair offer.
‘That’s awfully kind of you, really, but you see I’m staying with some friends for tonight, here in Mottisham. So my people won’t be worrying about me. But thank you, all the same. It’s only five minutes’ walk.’
There was a brief and deep silence. The guide did not move from his position with his back against the door, and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully upon the small, stolid figure before him, though he continued to smile and speak with amused resignation.
‘It is, is it? And home, I suppose, is somewhere a good deal further away. But surely
Bossie floundered in deeper in his haste, and felt the morass of all too detectable fibs tugging at his feet, but it was too late to draw back. ‘Oh, they weren’t expecting me very early, because I told them I should be coming late from my music lesson.’
‘About three hours late, I imagine,’ said the young man drily.
He ought to have known. He could see all the flaws himself. A twelve-year-old’s music lesson would be arranged for a civilised hour like half past six or seven. He’d given himself away completely. It wouldn’t take a genius to conclude that he was lying about his night’s lodging, and it wasn’t a long step from that to concluding positively that he had so played off the two ends against each other as to leave his parents convinced he was safe with a known host in Mottisham, while the supposed host had no notion whatever that he was anywhere but in his own bed at home. In short, nobody knew where he was, or what he was doing…
The fair young man heaved a philosophical sigh, smiled at him even more benevolently, and reaching a hand into his pocket, drew out a bunch of keys, and selected the right one with a flick of long fingers. Silently he closed the door, and moving aside for the first time, turned the key, and locked them in together.
Perhaps the act in itself would have been enough, but it was what the act revealed that hit Bossie like a lightning-stroke. For a moment he stopped breathing, frozen with shock. The flooding light that had blazed down on
