for about a quarter of a mile before branching in four or five different directions.
Guided by the map, the party selected the most south-westerly of these divergent tracks, and came up upon a narrow road, which led to the solitary farm-house. They crossed the road, still kept within the confines of the wood, and so came upon the quarry.
‘Of course, there are these two quarries, as well,’ said Laura, pointing them out on the map, ‘but they are nearer the village and further away from the stream. I should think she’d have to wash herself, shouldn’t you?’
‘If she did what I think she did, she’d need water for another purpose,’ responded Mrs Bradley. ‘Mind how you come. The bank seems a bit crumbly.’
‘You’d better stay, at the top and keep
‘Please yourselves, child. This is the right place, anyhow, I think.’
The remains of the bonfire were immense. Not only that, but the fact that the fire had been made up on a carefully-built hearth of bricks indicated no casual wayfaring but somebody with a set purpose who had imported into the quarry the means for resolving that purpose into action.
Mrs Bradley sketched and scribbled, took out a lens and made a detailed inspection of the hearth, and then sent the students back to College, for it was ten minutes to four, and she was afraid they would miss their tea. Reluctant but obedient, off went Laura. Kitty showed more alacrity. Mrs Bradley, left alone, explored the quarry indefatigably for footprints, and for traces of ingress and egress. The crumbling banks assisting her, she discovered, besides the traces left by herself and the two girls, tracks in several places, but these might have been made at any time and by anybody, for the frequent winter rains had washed out all individuality, and no actual footprints could be detected. She did, however, mark on her sketches the new landslide which marked that part of the bank which she and the students had used. Then she scrambled up it again and went off to the farm to ask permission to use the telephone.
She had other inquiries to make.
‘Where,’ she asked, ‘was it possible to purchase bricks like those she had found in the quarry?’
The answer to this question was a broad stare from the woman who had answered the door, and a request to wait a minute.
Standing in the stone-flagged hall beside the grandfather clock, Mrs Bradley waited. In less than two minutes the woman came back, accompanied by a boy of about fifteen.
‘Tell the lady about Mr Tegg’s bricks,’ said the woman. ‘Her wants to know where to buy some like those her’ve seen in the quarry.’
‘I suppose the police have sent you?’ said the boy.
‘The lady’s just been on phone to ’em, any road,’ said the woman. ‘I told thee, and so did Father, there’d be more to say about they bricks. Now perhaps thee’ll believe us as is older than thyself.’
‘Leave me alone with him,’ said Mrs Bradley. The woman hesitated, and then added, still speaking to the boy, but this time in a tone between apology and anger:
‘Thee’s brought this on thyself, and mun face it out best thee can.’
‘I can take it,’ muttered the boy, shifting his feet, lowering his eyes and giving all the other signs of obstinacy in wrong-doing common to boys in trouble.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Mrs Bradley, taking out her notebook. The boy was silent. ‘Afraid to give his name,’ she added as though saying the words she was writing. The boy looked up.
‘I’m not afraid to give my name. My name’s William Turley, if you want to know. And I did steal the rotten bricks, but it was to oblige a lady. Yes, and I did build a fireplace for her, and I fetched water for her from the beck, and I helped her down with it so that it shouldn’t all get spilt. Let the police get a load of that, if it means anything to them!’
‘Dear me!’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Can you describe the lady?’
‘No. And I wouldn’t, anyway. I don’t get other people into trouble.’
‘Good. So if I told you she was fairly young, dark, active as a cat, sharp-voiced and had a car, you would contradict me, I suppose?’
The boy did not answer, but put his hands in his pockets.
‘And now,’ went on Mrs Bradley, after she had scribbled a few more hieroglyphics, ‘what did Mr Tegg have to say about the bricks?’
‘Nothing, except that they’d been stolen.’
‘How did he trace them to you?’
‘Dad saw them in the quarry. I got mud on my Sunday clothes, and they wanted to know how. I didn’t say, because I ought to have been in church, and I hadn’t been, and Dad recognized the kind of mud, I suppose, and he told Mr Tegg he needn’t look for his missing bricks, and asked him to let the police know I’d had them. That’s all.’
‘Very interesting, too,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘What did Mr Tegg say to that?’
‘I went to him privately and asked for time to pay, but he said he’d promised my father to let the police lay me by the heels.’
‘And now you think they have, do you? My view is that your father paid Mr Tegg long ago. What makes your parents want to frighten you?’
‘No business of yours.’
‘You don’t speak like the boys about here.’
‘I’ve been to a decent school, that’s why. I got sacked.’
