“Look, like I said, there’s only one of him and two of us.” Sadie propped her bicycle up against the gate. “He’ll probably run when he sees us coming, and then we can just go in there and get our knickers.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Polly dragged her bicycle up on its wheels, gave it a quick examination to make sure it wasn’t damaged, then leaned it against the gate next to Sadie’s. “All right, let’s get this over with. But I’m taking a big stick in with me.”
“Good idea.” Sadie set off for the trees. “We’ll pick one up in the woods.”
A few minutes later, each armed with a thick branch from a stout elm, the two of them crept up to the door of the windmill. Sadie signaled to Polly to stay behind her as she pushed the door open and looked in. After a nerve- shattering moment, she beckoned to Polly to follow and stepped inside.
Polly crept in behind her, sheltered behind Sadie’s sturdy body. All was quiet within, and after a moment, Polly peered around Sadie’s arm. “There’s no one here,” she whispered.
Sadie pointed to the floor. “Someone’s been here. Look at all the footsteps in the dust.”
“Looks like they’ve been and gone.” Dropping her stick, Polly came out from behind Sadie and stared around. “Now how are we going to get our knickers back?”
The answer came from an unexpected place-right above her head. She heard a smothered giggle, followed by a chorus of shushes.
Polly looked at Sadie, who stared back at her, her face turning red with temper.
Throwing back her head, Sadie yelled, “You’d better bleeding get down here right this minute, or I’ll light this match in my hand and burn this place down with you inside it.”
A scuffling answered her threat, then hushed voices conferred with each other.
“I’m counting to ten!” Sadie yelled. “One… two…”
“All right, all right,” a voice called out. “We’re coming.”
A pair of legs, bared from the knees down and ending in scruffy socks and shoes, descended the creaking stairs from the upper floor. The owner of the legs turned out to be a boy about ten years old, with huge freckles all over his face and a missing front tooth.
He landed with a thump on the floor, due to the three missing steps at the bottom. Behind him tumbled three more boys, one behind the other, none of them older than the first.
Sadie waited for them, one hand on her hip, stick held high, eyes blazing. She made a formidable figure, Polly thought with admiration as her friend pointed the stick at the boys and said in a voice of doom, “You’d better tell me what you’re doing up there, and I want the truth. If I find out you’re lying you’ll all go to jail until you’re twenty- one years old. Your mothers are not going to like that.”
At the mention of their mothers, the boys exchanged nervous glances. “Don’t hit us, miss! We didn’t mean no harm,” the first boy said quickly. “It was a quest, see?”
Lowering the stick, Sadie frowned. “Whatcha mean, a quest?”
“Well,” another boy piped up, “we have a secret club, and you can’t be a member until you’ve brought back a dozen pairs of ladies’ knickers.”
Nervous giggles from the boys greeted this announcement.
In spite of her outrage, Polly felt a tug at her lips and quickly straightened her face. “How many of you are in this club?” she demanded.
“Nine,” the first boy announced. “But me and Timmy are the leaders. The rest are just members. They’re not all here now. Just the ones what had to get the knickers today.”
“So you’re the one who told the others to steal the… unmentionables,” Sadie said, frowning at the boy.
“Yes, miss. We was going to bring them all back, though. Honest!”
“How do you know which ones are which?” Sadie glared at them, looking even more menacing. “How many people did you steal from?”
The boys exchanged nervous glances. “About six or seven,” one of them admitted.
The smallest of the group, a pudgy little boy with short hair that stuck up all over his head, said proudly, “I got mine from the Manor House!”
“Did you now.” Sadie dropped her stick on the ground and crossed her arms. “Just how did you get them down from the line, might I ask?”
“I knocked them off with the prop.” His smug expression faltered a little. “They got a bit dirty. They might need another wash.”
“I’ll wash you, you little…”
Sadie stepped toward him and he backed away, his face crumpling with threatened tears.
“Wait,” Polly said quickly. “Where are all the knickers now?”
This time there was no giggling at the forbidden word. “Up there.” The first boy pointed with his finger.
“What’s your name, son?” Sadie demanded.
“Jimmy, miss.”
“Well, Jimmy, you get back up them stairs and fetch down all them knickers this instant. All of them. You hear me?”
“Yes, miss. Hold on, I won’t be a minute.” He scrambled back up the rickety steps so fast he lost his footing on one of the gaps and stuck his foot through the hole.
Polly held her breath as he dragged it free and climbed on up out of sight. “Those stairs aren’t safe,” she told the other boys. “You could fall down and be killed. Promise me you won’t go up there again.”
“But it’s our meeting place!” one of them wailed.
“Polly’s right,” Sadie said forcefully. “You’ve all got to promise not to go up there again. Find another meeting place. There’s plenty of places around. What about that old barn on Miller’s farm? He never uses it. Ask him if you can meet in there. I bet he won’t mind.”
“And no more stealing knickers,” Polly added, wagging her finger at them. “You’ll have to think of a different quest. All right?”
A chorus of “Yes, miss!” answered her, just as Jimmy appeared on the stairs, his arms full of underwear.
“Throw them down,” Sadie ordered, and the boy let them drop. Some fell with a plop, while the rest fluttered down in a colorful lacy waterfall of silk.
Polly started gathering them up. “We’re going to need some help carrying these back to the bicycles,” she muttered. “I just hope we can get them all in the baskets.”
“We’ll cram them in somehow.” Sadie started picking up the rest of the garments. “Here, you boys, help me pick these up. You can carry them back to the gate for us before you go home.”
The boys obediently pounced on the knickers, which were looking decidedly worse for wear. Sadie waited until the last pair was picked up, then ordered the boys to form a line.
Clutching the underwear to their chests, the boys marched out of the door with Sadie and Polly bringing up the rear.
They were halfway across the field when a sudden shout brought the boys to a halt. Sadie almost fell over them, and Polly stopped dead, unable to believe what she was seeing.
All along the hedges, in front of the gate, all the way around the windmill on either side were men in uniform, all of them carrying rifles pointed ominously in their direction.
“Blimey,” Sadie said, her voice hushed with shock. “It looks like the whole bleeding army’s out there.”
Arriving back at the Reddings’ cottage, Elizabeth was greatly relieved to find Marion alone. The questions she needed to ask would be more easily delivered without Bob Redding’s fierce glare to intimidate her.
Obviously surprised to see her renowned visitor twice in one day, Marion invited her in, and Elizabeth wasted no time in coming to the point.
“I’ve just returned from North Horsham,” she told the flustered woman, after refusing her offer of a cup of tea. “I went there to speak to Ned Widdicombe.”
“Ah, yes, the butcher.” Marion sat on the very edge of her couch, her hands twisting in her lap. “Did you find the shop all right?”
“Yes, I did.” Elizabeth laid her purse on her lap. “Not a very sociable man. Rather rude, I thought.”
“He can be very blunt,” Marion agreed. Her gaze shifted to a clock on the sideboard, and Elizabeth wondered if she was expecting her husband home.
“While I was there, I thought I’d stop by and pay a visit to your daughter.”
