After this, there were no arguments about his not being allowed to go riding in the Forest on his own. The pony was put out to grass, and any riding which Hamish did was in the field attached to the Stone House grounds. Every day, after tea, he and Laura, accompanied by Dame Beatrice, Fergus and Lindy Lou, drove over to Mrs Schumann’s cottage to give her dogs food and fresh water, the huge wolfhound and the tiny terrier remaining in the car with Dame Beatrice while Laura and Hamish carried out their errand of mercy.
The climax to all this came in the middle of the following week. The three had left the Stone House at just after a quarter past five, and as the car drew up outside the cottage Dame Beatrice said,
‘I think I saw a large dog go into the woods about half a mile back. It looked, from the glimpse I had of it, remarkably like Fergus. I suppose, after they had had their run yesterday, the five dogs were safely fastened up again?’
‘Oh, yes, they were,’ said Hamish, who was on the back seat with Fergus and Lindy Lou. ‘We both tried the doors. We always do. It wouldn’t be at all the thing to let Mrs Schumann’s dogs roam loose when she’s trusted us to look after them.’
The polite fiction that Laura and Dame Beatrice had arranged with Mrs Schumann to feed and exercise the dogs while she was away from home had, of course, been allowed to stand.
‘And they couldn’t possibly get out on their own,’ said Laura. ‘It must have been someone else’s dog you spotted.’ She and her son left the car, carrying the food they had brought with them. Since Phillips had broken the kitchen window there was no difficulty in obtaining a supply of drinking-water for the dogs. Hamish climbed into the kitchen as usual and had unbolted the back door preparatory to emerging with an enamel pitcher filled with water from the scullery tap when he heard a shout and a horrid snarling noise.
He emerged to see his mother flat on her back outside the shed where the two wolfhounds were housed and, standing over her with all his hackles up, was an enormous, unkempt, crossbred dog.
‘Oh, mamma!’ he cried, in fright and dire dismay.
‘Don’t come any nearer,’ said Laura, calmly. ‘He won’t attack unless I try to put up a fight. Go back to the car as steadily and confidently as you can, and ask Mrs Croc, to get help. Don’t hurry. Above all, don’t run.’
Hamish did exactly as he was told, although his heart was thumping until it made him feel sick. He reached the car and said, in a voice which came out in a curious croaking tone,
‘A big ugly dog has flown at my mother and knocked her down. He’s standing over her with his teeth bared, and he’s snarling like anything. She says he won’t hurt her so long as she keeps still. She says will you go for help. Oh, Mrs Dame, dear, what on earth shall we do? Would Fergus tackle him?’
‘I have no idea, and I do not think we will risk it,’ said Dame Beatrice. She produced from a capacious skirt pocket a small, elegant, but sinister revolver. ‘You had better stay here with the dogs. They may be alarmed when they hear the shot.’ Her real reason was that she did not want the child to see the other dog killed.
(4)
‘Well,’ said Laura, ‘that was quite an experience.’ She switched on the engine and drove with apparent composure along the woodland track and on to the road which led ultimately to the Stone House.
‘What happened exactly?’ asked Dame Beatrice.
‘Why, I went to open the wolfhounds’ shed, as usual, but the door stuck, so I gave it a bit of a kick. It flew open, and, instead of Sean and Maire, a beastly great lurcher jumped straight out at me, full tilt, caught me off balance and ditched me. I realised that my only chance was to lie quite still and hope for the best. I didn’t know you had your little gat with you. What a bit of luck!’
‘Oh, I expect Mrs Dame always carries it in the Forest,’ said Hamish, speaking airily to cover the fact that he had had a terrible fright. ‘I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that she does.’
‘Oh, yes, there’s been some rumour of a mad bitch roaming loose,’ said his mother. ‘That’s why I said I was nervous about your riding in the Forest this holiday.’
‘Oh? Not the other, then?’
‘Well, I don’t think that, in itself, would make me nervous, but it wouldn’t be much fun having that, if anything happened to you, would it?’
‘Of course, there is only one conclusion to be drawn from today’s episode,’ said Dame Beatrice, when Hamish had gone to bed.
‘That there is a mad bitch loose in the Forest. Yes, I know,’ said Laura, ‘but if she’s been in the Forest all this time – let’s see – it must be the best part of six weeks – where on earth can she have been hiding? I mean, the police have combed the country for her.’
‘I do not think, (and I base my idea on the dog which, unfortunately, I had to destroy), I really do not think that she has been at any great distance from her cottage. She has been overlooked, in fact, because she was so near to it.’
‘But she’d have to eat. Surely, with her description circulated as widely as it has been, somebody would have spotted her and given her away, wherever she’s been hiding?’
‘I can think of an explanation and I have just passed it on to Detective-Inspector Maisry over the telephone. He has announced his intention of discussing it with Superintendent Phillips. I think it possible that she may have been staying at a
