CHAPTER VTHE DARK PASSAGE
Itwas nine o’clock when Danny woke up the next day—a golden Sunday morning. At first he thought his night adventures had been a dream, and then he realised that it was all true, and jumped out of bed. He longed to tell someone about them. But, remembering the snubs he had received before, and that he had been accused of having lied, he determined to keep his wonderful discoveries to himself. This adventure should be all his own. Danny the Detective would have a big triumph when the whole mysterious case was brought to light, and the wily strangers stood in the dock! His first impulse was to make straight for the scene of last night’s adventure. Then, remembering that private detectivesas well as other people must fulfil their duty to God, he set off for church. And after all, he had much to thank God for! Last night he had had a very narrow escape. And also he had got the desire of his heart—a new and important clue.
Church over, he dashed off to examine the ditch. Yes, there was his grotto—he could see it from afar. On reaching the place, the first thing that caught his eye was a long, snake-like something lying half hidden in the rank grass. He picked it up. It was a piece of rubber tubing about three yards long.
“That must be what the man dropped when I sneezed,” said Danny. “I expect he was so worried with my biting his hand that he forgot to pick it up!”
The detective next turned his attention to the ditch. Yes, there were footmarks in the soft mud. And they were the very same that he had drawn a sketch of in his book that day he saw the stranger with the bicycle! There was a kind of dented, flattened place, as ifsomeone had been lying in the ditch. Sticking out of the bank, half hidden by the rank grass, was an old moss-grown drain pipe. Putting his lips to it, Danny spoke a few words. His voice sounded hollow. He slipped the tubing down into it, and put the end to his ear.
“Some telephone!” he said, and fairly wriggled with delight. “So that’s what the chap was doing last night! The question is, who was he talking to, and what kind of a place does this pipe lead to?”
Search as he might he could find no sign of a cave or any hiding-place in the bank.
“It must be fairly deep,” he said, “or they wouldn’t want three yards of tubing.”
He poked a stone through the pipe, and heard it rattle down on to what sounded like a stone floor some way below. Then he sat up and considered. They weren’t just common tramps or poachers, these people he was after, for they owned a car. They were evidently afraid the police were on the lookoutfor them, or they would not have changed the number board and worn false beards!
“There is some connection between this drain-pipe telephone affair and the mill pond, and I mean to discover what it is!” said Danny the Detective.
After making his puzzling discovery of “the drain-pipe telephone” as he called it, Danny ran off to make his inspection of the mysterious pond. Running his eyes quickly over the bank he soon saw a clue that to the ordinary person would have meant nothing, but which revealed something very important to the “Detective.” On the dusty bank of the pond there was a wet patch, as if something or someone had come up out of the water and stood and dripped for a moment!
The morning shadows had not yet moved away from the spot and allowed the hot July sun to dry the ground. Examining the wet patch more closely, Danny saw that there was duck-weed on it—the same stuff that dotted the surface of the pond. There was also someblack mud—just the kind of slime one would expect to coat the bottom of the pool.
“So,” said Danny, “the chap who went down into the pond with his sackdidcome up the way he went down. He went down on Saturday afternoon and he came up in the night. What’s more, he came up after I had left the place at 1A.M.I can’t help thinking he had something to do with the two chaps in the car.”
The Detective scratched his head. It was so jolly puzzling.
“Anyway, I missed him. And he’s not here now, so there’s no good in my staying here,” he said.
An empty feeling under his Sunday waistcoat told him that it must be getting near one o’clock. At dinner his thoughts were far away, and his mother wondered why he was so silent. He determined to spend the afternoon having a longthink. He would read up all his notes and try to put the various clues together and solve the mystery. He had a particular, secretplace of his own where he always hid when he wanted to be quiet. It was in the ruins of an old abbey that stood on the grounds of Sir Edward Finch’s estate.
The old, grey, half-crumbled buildings stood quite close to the little lodge where he lived. No one was allowed to go into this ruin. One reason was that Sir Edward was a funny old crank and hated strangers poking about on his property. Another was that the beautiful old tower of the church was supposed to be tottering and about to fall. In fact, two years ago a man had been killed by a part of the church falling on him. So a high, barbed-wire fence surrounded the ruin. The great iron gates were always kept locked, and no one ever went in. But one day Danny had discovered that there was a little wee path that led from his mother’s cabbage patch to the hedge that divided the garden from the ruin. The path was only about ten inches wide. It must have been made by rabbits, and if rabbits could get through the hedge and thebarbed-wire into the mysterious old abbey, a boy could get in, too. So Danny had followed the path and had soon scrambled through the thick hedge. To his delight he had found himself in a fascinating place.
The turf was soft and mossy and full of harebells. And there was the old grey ruin to explore. Danny crept about in the traceried cloisters, where he loved to imagine the holy monks walking six hundred years ago with their sandalled feet. There was the room where he decided they must have had their meals. But most of all he loved the ruined church. Somehow it seemed very holy. He always used to take his cap off when he went in, though it was open to the blue sky, and carpeted with wild flowers. One day he had found a tomtit’s nest built between the mossy stones where the altar had been.
Now, on this hot sleepy Sunday afternoon he crept out into the back-garden and filled his cap with gooseberries. Then he wriggled through the hedge and had soon curled up in awarm corner of the cloisters with no one to see him but the rabbits.
Danny had not had a very restful night, having been on guard by the pond, and now the warm sun and his good dinner and the drowsy hum of the bees in the wild thyme made him very sleepy and he began to nod.
Before long he was fast asleep, and having a very strange dream. He thought he was back in the old days and that he was a knight in shining armour who had come to the abbey to pray before going to the Crusades. In his dream he saw the monks moving about in their white habits. And then he suddenly saw a horrid-looking fellow creeping about in the shadows all dressed in black and hiding a dagger beneath his wide sleeves.
“Atraitor,” said Danny in his dream. And then he suddenly saw it was the man he had seen with the bicycle and again in the motor! Drawing his long sword, he stepped forward, and—but at this exciting moment he woke up with a start.
“Danny, Danny!” someone was shouting. “Where are you, you young rotter? Danny, come on, we’re going bathing!”
He started to his feet and rubbed his eyes.
“Here I am!” he called, emerging from the gooseberry bushes as if he had been there all the time.
His Sixer and two Cubs were waiting for him. Very soon the four boys were running gaily off across the marsh with towels round their necks.
It was only about ten minutes’ run down to the seashore. Before long the Cubs were splashing about in the cool green water. It was ripping! In the old London days Danny had bathed all the year round in the baths, but it was not half as jolly as this. All the same, his swimming-bath experience had been useful, for he had learnt to swim well, and to dive.
“I can swim and float,” said Sixer Fred Codding, “but I can’t dive. Show us how you do it, Daniel.”
Danny ducked down his head, chucked uphis heels, and vanished. The cool green water closed over his head. Everything looked so funny down there—all a lovely pale green colour, full of myriads of bubbles. Red and brown seaweed waved lazily on the pebbly bottom. Danny swam gently forward, looking for a stone to bring up to show the other chaps he had really been to the bottom of the deep pool.
Suddenly, down there in the dim, bubbly water, among the shells and shrimps and seaweed, a great idea came to him. He would dive down into the mill pond himself and see what there was at the bottom, and why those strangers were so fond of going down there! He swam quickly to the surface, his heart high with resolve. It would take some pluck to do it. “But a chap’s not worth calling a Cub if he can’t do a thing like that!” he said to himself, as he dried vigorously and got into his clothes again.
Tea was ready when Danny got in. He was as hungry as a wolf—or rather a Wolf Cub!But if he was to go down that day he must go before the sun set; it was past six already. So he contented himself with a cup of tea and a small piece of bread and butter. “I won’t give in to myself,” he said, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, as his mother offered him a big slice of the most lovely plum cake.
Running up to his room, he changed into a pair of old shorts, a cotton shirt, and some old gym. shoes. Then he set out along the well-known road that had proved to be so full of mysterious adventures.
There was no sign of any one having been to the pond since the morning. Still, he could not be sure. He felt a strange feeling inside him, as he stood all alone on the bank and looked down into the water. The evening sun was shining full on it; he was glad; it would be easier to see when he was under. What would there be down there? He clenched his fists and said the Cub Promise between his teeth to buck him up. Then he suddenly remembered his dream and howbrave he had felt when he was a Crusader-knight, about to challenge the lurking traitor in the Abbey. Before his courage had time to fail he dived, straight as an arrow, into the pond.
It was very different down there from what it was in the sea. All was a murky, brownish colour. Black, slimy weeds waved about, like wicked little clinging hands. He swam about gently but could see nothing unusual. Soon he had to come up for more air. Taking a very big breath, he dived again. This time he happened to be very near the side. In order to keep down and look well about him he caught hold of a big bunch of weed growing on the wall of the pond. Suddenly, just before him, he saw a black, cavernous hole in the bank. It was about three feet across and seemed like the entrance to a passage, leading away from the bottom of the pool. But it was full of water, of course.
Danny rose to the surface for breath, and ideas crowded into his mind. A passageleading away from the bottom of the pond! Thenthatwas where the men went, and where the bicycle had disappeared to for which they had dragged the pond so carefully. But why did not all the water run away? Then he remembered that water never rises above its own level. On that side of the pond the bank rose steeply towards the high ground where the ruined mill stood. If the passage led up in a steep incline, or in steps, it would very soon be on a level with the surface of the pond. The water, flowing into the passage, would rise as high as this, and no higher. The level of the mill and the road was high enough for the passage to rise beyond the water altogether, and still be underground. Did it do this? The only way to find out was to dive again, swim into the passage, and see! He would have to take a very big breath to bring him up where the passage came up, and to let him get back if it did not seem to be rising. It was something of a risk. But Danny had nerved himself to anything. “If I do find apassage it will be jolly dark,” he said. And then he remembered that he had brought his pocket electric light, and had hidden it, with his handkerchief, knife, and two pennies, on the bank before diving. He would take his light down. Perhaps the water would not hurt the battery. Scrambling out on to the edge he soon found his torch, and stowed it away in the pocket of his shorts. Then, taking a mighty breath, he dived again, and swam straight into the dark passage.
Almost at once his outstretched hands came in contact with something hard and slippery. It was the bottom step of a flight of stone stairs. A moment later Danny was half swimming, half scrambling up them. His store of air was very nearly exhausted when, to his intense relief, his head suddenly came up above the water, and he breathed again. It was pitch dark, and he was standing in water up to his neck. He was safe from drowning, however—that was one thing to be thankful for! He had reached the top stepof the flight, and was walking on a slippery surface that seemed to be inclined uphill, as he found that before long his shoulders were out of the water, and then he was only waist-deep. He took out his electric torch and pressed the button. To his joy he found the battery was working, and a ray of golden light shot through the darkness. Turning the light from side to side he saw that he was in a low, vaulted passage, walled and roofed with stone. There was nothing else to see. The passage seemed to go straight ahead. There was nothing for it but to go on, and hope there was no one else down there!
Danny had not walked many yards before his light glinted on something. Peering closer he saw that it was a bicycle leaning up against the wall. “So that’s where the bike went!” said Danny triumphantly, wishing the Kangaroos could see it, as he remembered their cutting remarks the day they dragged the pond in vain.
The bicycle was rusty and useless. Thebareheaded stranger who had been in such a hurry that day on the road, and had said that he was going one way when he was really going another, must simply have been flying from his pursuers, and have thrown his stolen bicycle into the pond so as not to leave a clue when he dived down into his wonderful hiding-place!
So the mystery of the bicycle was solved at last! Danny had been determined to solve it. But in working at it he had come on still more mysterious things. It was a big affair this. And now he felt himself well on the way to clearing it up. Had he not got into the most secret hiding-place of the gang? With his heart beating fast with excitement he pressed on along the passage. He had reached dry ground at last. The air was musty and suffocating. Danny the Detective thought thatthisadventure would solve the whole problem; he little knew all that was to befall him and his country before the mystery would be finally brought to light.
His heart beating fast with excitement, Danny pressed forward through the damp darkness. There was a silent horror about this place. Mildew stood on the walls. Black creatures scurried away beneath his feet, afraid of the light. How often Danny had longed to find a secret passage! But now that he had really found one he shrank from going into the unknown darkness. If only there were another chap to talk to, to feel near! His teeth chattered with the cold, for he was soaking wet. But once more he remembered the Cub Law and did not give in.
“My light won’t last long if I keep it on,” he said. Flashing it round to see his way, he noticed a small lantern hanging on the wall with a box of matches in a little niche. With a sigh of relief he took it down and lighted it. The candle light cast weird, flickering shadows on the wall as Danny hurried on. Every now and then he lifted the lantern high, looking about him. He must have gone nearly a quarter of a mile when, some five feet abovehis head, a faint streak of pale light shone through a small, round hole in the wall.
“Daylight!” whispered Danny. “I wonder where that hole goes to.” Then he suddenly remembered his adventure of 1A.M.on Sunday morning. “Why, that must be the drain-pipe telephone!” he said. “This is where the man was who listened at the other end of the pipe while the one in the ditch talked in a funny language!”
Danny must have walked about half a mile when he was brought up short by a flight of stone steps. Mounting these, he found himself face to face with a low door made of some hard, black wood, studded thickly with iron nails and bands, red with rust. There was a massive lock and two heavy bolts. The bolts were not across the door, and Danny stepped forward eagerly, hoping that he would be able to open it. But, try as he would, the door baffled all his efforts. Cold and weary and disappointed he had at last to give up the task. There was nothing for it but to go back.
After a long, dark walk he reached the end of the passage once more and hung the lantern up on its hook. Then, bracing himself for the effort, he plunged again into the black water.
The sun had just set in a glory of red and gold when Danny rose from the mill pool. The air of the summer evening was warm after the icy, tomb-like atmosphere of the passage. It was an infinite relief to see daylight again, and a comfort to hear the birds singing their goodnight songs, and to feel there were live things about. Wringing the water from his clothes, he set out for home at a brisk trot.
“Hullo, Danny,” said his Sixer the next morning, as the boys hurried to school, “where on earth were you last night? You didn’t half miss something. All us chaps were paddling down on the beach, in front of the ‘Blue Boar,’ when an artist-chap came up and started painting.”
“An artist?” said Danny, all interest at once, for, after being a detective, the nextthing Danny wanted most in the world to be was an artist.
“Yes,” said Codding, “and he wasn’t half a decent chap either. He let us come as close as we liked and watch him. And he gave us old ends of pencils and crayons and bits of paper. He’s staying at the ‘Blue Boar,’ ’cos he wants to draw heaps of pictures round here. And he said we might come and see him again this evening.”
So, after tea, quite a little crowd of Cubs collected round the artist, who was as friendly as ever. After a time most of them drifted off, and Danny was left alone. The stranger, seeing his interest, gave him a nice, clean piece of paper and some old paints and let him have a try.
A week passed, and every evening he would run down and squat on the ground by the artist, drawing. And while they drew the artist asked him lots of questions about Dutton, and the people, and the country round. Danny, being a Wolf Cub, wasdelighted to answer them all, promptly and politely, and, if he did not know the necessary information, did his best to find it out for his new friend. When he was tired of drawing he would look at the sketch-books the artist kept in his satchel. The pictures were mostly of harbours and hills and fields. One day he came on one that puzzled him.
“What a funny one this is!” he said.
“Ah!” said the artist. “I’ll tell you why that one looks funny. It is because I was sitting right up on the top of a very high church tower when I drew that. And, looking down, all the country was spread round me like a map, and I looked down on the roofs of the houses and the tops of the trees.”
“Oh,” said Danny, “I see!” He was just looking at a funny little sketch he had found in an inner pocket of the satchel. It was of Dutton, and showed the harbour and the church and the Village, and the roads all round. And it was very much like the one done from the church tower. It puzzled him,because Dutton Church had a spire and no one could sit up on that and paint!
“It’s very funny,” said Danny thoughtfully.
“What’s funny?” asked the artist.
“This sketch. You must have been up somewhere high when you drew it. But we have no church tower here.”
The artist dropped his pencil and turned round quickly on Danny.
“What d’you mean?” he said sharply. “What sketch? Give it to me.” And he snatched it out of the boy’s hand and, folding it, put it in his breast-pocket.
Danny looked keenly at the man. Why was he so flurried and excited? His detective instinct smelt a rat at once.
“Where did you sit, sir, when you did that sketch?” he asked with innocent eyes resting on the artist’s face.
“I, oh—I don’t remember,” said the man.
“But you must have been up high somewhere.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said the artist shortly, andchanged the subject. But Danny was not to be put off so easily. He meant to find out why his friend had suddenly turned “snuffy,” and why he had told a lie, for any one could see the sketch had been drawn from above. Sitting silently on the ground, Danny thought deeply. Could it have been drawn from the roof of the Hall? No!—for the Hall and its lake and gardens came into the picture. There was only one other high building in Dutton—the ruined tower of the Abbey. The man must have done his sketch from there! But how had he got up? And why was he so mysterious about it?
“Sir,” said Danny, “how did you manage to get up the tower to do that sketch? The door is always locked and the tower is dangerous.”
The man started at the question, and looked closely at Danny, a frown on his face.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “Run along, now, and don’t go on bothering me—I’m busy.”
Of course Danny examined the door of the tower, but, as usual, it was locked, and there were no signs that any one had broken into the Abbey ruins. But before long he had made a curious discovery about his artist friend. Another friend of Danny’s—a fisherman—had promised to take him out on a fishing expedition, if he could manage to wake up, and get to his cottage by 5A.M.It was terribly early to have to get up, but, with the help of an alarum clock, Danny managed to wake. The whole Village seemed fast asleep as he crept out into the chill, dewy morning. Not a soul was about. He was trotting along the road at “scouts’ pace,” whistling, when, to his surprise, he suddenly saw the artist walking quickly towards him!
“Hullo, sir!” he cried, with friendly pleasure.
But the artist had started on seeing the Cub, and was not looking over-pleased at this early-morning encounter.
Scanning the man with curious eyes, Danny noticed that his rough tweed suit looked wet.To make sure, he took hold of the artist’s arm, as if by a friendly impulse. Sure, enough, his coat was wringing wet, and, peering more closely, Danny saw little scraps of duck-weed sticking to it. His thoughts flew at once to the mill pond.
But before Danny had had time to think much of this discovery, his quick eyes had noted something else.
“Look, sir,” he said, “you’ve torn a big piece out of your coat! And one of the buttons, too!” The artist glanced down.
“So I have,” he said, a little uneasily. Then he hurried on, and Danny was left standing in the road. He gave up his idea of going fishing and decided to go on the trail again. Here was a new, important clue—the friendly artist, so full of questions and kindness, was one of the stealthy gang!
He determined to go to the pool and find out where and how the man had torn such a great piece out of his coat.
As he passed the drain pipe in the ditch, hepaused and looked at it. He was standing on the bank, his hand resting on a telegraph-pole, when something made him glance up. Just above his head, a torn scrap of cloth, with a button sewn to it, was hanging on a bent nail in the post.
Reaching up, Danny unhooked it. Yes, it was the artist’s button! So he had been climbing a telegraph-pole! What on earth for? Danny was more puzzled than ever. But it was certainly a “clue,” and he logged it in his notebook, with the other particulars concerning the artist.
The pool revealed no more secrets, except that someone had certainly climbed out of it lately, and left wet marks on the bank.
You’ve torn a big piece out of your coat“Look, sir,” he said, “you’ve torn a big piece out of your coat! And one of the buttons, too!”
“Look, sir,” he said, “you’ve torn a big piece out of your coat! And one of the buttons, too!”
“Look, sir,” he said, “you’ve torn a big piece out of your coat! And one of the buttons, too!”
“My word, but I won’t half keep a sharp lookout on that chap,” said Danny to himself, as he walked home. But he had two pieces of news to learn when he reached Dutton. One was that the artist and his portmanteau had departed in a cart for the station; and the other that the newspapershad very serious news in them. The quarrel between Germany and the Balkan States that had been attracting attention was spreading to something wider. “It will end in a great war,” people said. In a few days came the news that Germany had broken all treaties, and was trampling on little Belgium. England, standing for fair play,mustcome in. On August 4th, England had declared war on Germany.
“If only we coulddosomething,” everybody felt. The Dutton Scouts and Wolf Cubs fairly ramped with impatience to be called out on war service. Their chance came sooner than they expected. And sooner than he expected came the solution to the great mystery that had puzzled Danny the Detective for so long.