them all this while now fell for the first time directly on the right hand that was so deliberately turning the key. and on the third finger of that hand was a large, flattish seal-ring made from a black stone like an onyx or a very dark moss agate. He had seen just that motion and just that flat flash from the polished blackness once before, and had failed to remember and identify it. Among the tangle of tombs under the church tower that same hand, wearing the same ring, had turned up Rainbow’s limp head to the light of a torch No other part of the nocturnal marauder had been lit like that. Now the turn of the long muscular hand echoed the same gesture, and memory recovered from the paralysis of shock. He didn’t know who this man was, but he knew all too well
And he, Bossie, was locked in with him, and like a fool he had brought it on himself. If only he’d jumped at the offer to drive him home, maybe snivelled a little and repented of his adventure, this man might have been reassured that he knew nothing, had nothing to tell, could never identify him; and he might have done just what he had offered, driven him home and stopped worrying about him. Which would have been his mistake. But now Bossie was the one who’d made the mistake. There was only one thing he hadn’t betrayed, and that was that all five of his companions of the afternoon knew very well where he was, and could tell the police as soon as it dawned on somebody that something was wrong. If he dropped that out now, casually, or deliberately and with obvious intent, would he be believed? And would it make any difference now? No, it was too late. If he’d blabbed all that like a scared kid right at the beginning, it might have worked, his captor might have decided it was too dangerous to make away with him, and returned to his role of tolerant Dutch-uncle. Not now! He’d watched the door being closed, and the murderer had watched his face as he took in the significance of the act. It would take more than a sudden story of five potential witnesses to undo that. Even if he was believed, it would only hasten whatever was going to happen, to get him out of the way at once, and Bossie was pretty sure he was in no hurry to get on with it.
Which left only the delaying tactics of gormless, childish stupidity, innocence almost incredible. Notice nothing, admit nothing, remain trustingly ingenuous, not to say imbecile.
He shuffled his feet uneasily, and crossed his eyes, as he could do at will, though he never knew when he did it involuntarily. ‘I’m sorry, it wasn’t really true, that stuff I told you. I shouldn’t have tried to fool my parents like that. Maybe I ought to go home, after all. I only wanted to explore… I did tell them I was going to stay with Philip Mason, I’ve often done it before, so they won’t be anxious. But it wasn’t right, was it? You know, I’m ever so glad you came. I don’t really like this place, after all, not now it’s dark…’ Bossie could raise a tear just as nimbly as he could raise a fist, and produced a heart-rending contortion of a face never notable for beauty, as well as a genuine trickle down his cheek. And all the while he knew it wasn’t any good. His brains did show so plainly!
They were working frantically now. He was sure this man knew the name James Jarvis, and his address, from the Locke anthem he had lost in the churchyard, but did he know what James Jarvis looked like? At least he’d gone to the trouble to find out Bossie’s routine, enough to hunt him down on his way home from the music lesson. But there might still be room for confusion. To some people all kids of about the same age looked alike. Who else of comparable age lived up that same road?
‘Would you really take me home?’ he bleated hopefully. ‘I’m Adrian Bowen, my dad lives at the Moor Farm in Abbot’s Bale. I don’t care if I do get into trouble, I want to go home!’ If a miracle happened, and he was believed and duly delivered there, the Bowens would at any rate haul him into the house, if only to demand explanations, and it would be too late then to drag him out again by force. But he didn’t believe in it! He worked at it, but he knew he was up against a stone wall. Solider than the one now flanking them!
The man leaning back against the door never moved, never took his eyes from Bossie, and as yet said no word. His smile had vanished, he peered from beneath brows drawn and morose, almost irritable, and jutted a thoughtful lower lip as he wrestled with this problem. But the false name did not make the slightest impression on his fierce concentration.
‘And for a while there you almost had me fooled,’ he mused at last, as much to himself as to Bossie. ‘Why the hell did you have to go and get mixed up in this business? Why did you meddle? You’re the one who’s made this necessary, you know that?’ Downright accusingly, as if Bossie owed him an abject apology for forcing his hand like this to a repugnant act. ‘What am I going to do with you now?’ he demanded, in tones decidedly aggrieved.
‘You could drive me home, like you offered,’ sniffed Bossie, determinedly obtuse. But the disguise was thinning; what was the use of it, if it was ineffective?
‘Knowing as much as you know, James Boswell Jarvis?’ said his enemy, and heaved his broad shoulders with an effort away from the door, and took a long stride forward into the north walk. ‘Not bloody likely!’
‘Your show, Toby,’ said George, marshalling his handful of men within the barrier, and casting a glance aside at the ticket-office, where a uniformed constable had taken over the-switchboard and re-established contact with the system, and was at this moment engaged in the first of a series of calls designed to run to earth the truant warden of Mottisham Abbey, who apparently had all available keys with him, since they had found none in the office. ‘Lead on, you know where Bossie’s liable to have holed up.’
In the complex of buildings, gardens, excavations and reserves of plant and scaffolding, Toby moved with cautious speed. Things had changed since last he gate-crashed this enclosure.
‘The stable-block’s this way.’ He went ahead steadily, and brought them face to face with the long line of the eighteenth-century wall. The night remained dark, and George had thought it best to work as far as possible without lights, using torches only fleetingly where necessary. He had given no voice to his misgivings, but Toby had grasped that the absence of John Stubbs was a matter for anxiety. He was one of the names against which a question-mark reared, he was here conveniently installed on the spot, and he was not where, by the terms of his appointment, he should have been. Moreover, he had been absent now for a length of time which should have allowed him to make the round of his charge, and be back at his post, but there was still no sign of him.
The gate that guarded the archway was closed, but yielded to a touch. The key was not in the lock. Toby pushed the gate open and slid through, with George and Sergeant Moon at his heels, and turned right, to make for the door in the north-east corner of the yard. And there he halted at the first step. The range of small, high windows in the inner wall of the north range glowed hollowly with a steady but muted light, reflected from below and patterned with shadows from the network of roof rafters.
‘There’s somebody—’ began Toby, low-voiced, and bit off the rest as George laid a warning hand on his arm. For there was indeed somebody within there, and though it might be Bossie, was it likely that a boy playing the secret investigator by night would run the risk of betraying his presence by switching on a whole array of lights, in a place where he had no right to be? Not a boy as bright as Bossie!
George went forward alone, moving silently along the wall to the door, beneath which a very thin line of light showed. He grasped the handle, and very gingerly turned it, but it did not yield to pressure. Locked! And locked with someone inside, and the lights on.
Correction, with two people inside. For hollowly from within he heard voices.
‘What the hell can you expect, now you’ve put me in this position?’ The once-amiable and encouraging guide looked a very different person now, coming forward slow step by step, glaring annoyance and genuine resentment from under brows tight and creased as though in pain. ‘It’s your own damned silly fault, you should have let well
