Читать книгу Ring O' Bells Mystery - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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“No—you go off home and clean yourselves,” said the woman crossly. “I’ve had enough of you. You’ll mess up all the clean rooms if you go about like that now.”

“Well, it was your fault,” said Snubby, banging himself violently again, and making the soot fly. “You must have known that place was filthy. Come on—we paid you an extra sixpence each to show us the passage. Where is it?”

“You come back clean to-morrow and I’ll show it to you,” said the woman. But Snubby could be very obstinate when he wanted to.

“I’ll walk all over the Ring O’ Bells Hall banging off my soot, if you don’t show us,” he announced, and gave himself such a blow on the chest that everyone sneezed because of the soot.

The woman scowled and said no more. She went back to the hall and took down a bunch of keys from a hook. She selected one and led the way to a panelled room, which she unlocked.

“The secret passage was made in the year 1748,” she said. “Or so the chronicles say. This room was panelled then, and an entrance to the passage was made behind the panelling. It runs behind it for a little way, and then curves downwards into the foundations of the house.”

“Does it go to the cellars?” asked Roger.

“No. It avoids those, and ends blindly,” said the guide.

“What was the use of it then, if it didn’t lead anywhere?” asked Snubby. “What a pity!”

“It was probably used just as a hiding-place,” said the guide. “More people could crowd into it than into the small cavity behind the fire-place. Now—can any of you find the secret passage?”

They looked round the panelled room. It was dark, because the windows were heavily leaded and not very large. The ivy that grew outside obscured the light even more.

Snubby began tapping over the panelling. He gave a triumphant cry at last. “It sounds awfully hollow here! Tap it, you others. Then tap this bit. Can you hear the difference?”

They could. One panel sounded hollow, the other sounded solid. The woman watched them, looking bored.

But Snubby could not find out how to enter the secret passage. He pushed this and pulled that, but nothing happened at all. He turned to the woman at last.

“Tell us where it is exactly. It’s very cleverly hidden.”

“Watch,” said the woman, and she went to an enormous tapestry picture over the mantelpiece. The children went with her. “But the panelling sounds solid all round here,” protested Snubby. “We tapped it.”

The woman said nothing. She reached up to the dim face in the old picture. The face wore a helmet, or what looked like a helmet, pushed back over its forehead. The woman pressed a stud in the helmet and then stood back.

The great picture slid silently to one side—about four inches only—but enough to show a small panel of wood that looked just a little different from the others.

The woman put her hand firmly on the small panel and pressed it to one side. It slid along under her hand, leaving a tiny space, just big enough for a hand to go into it.

“Feel inside the space,” she said. They all groped there, feeling curiously excited as they did so. There was something mysterious about this—a secret planned long ago by a clever brain, a secret well hidden, and perhaps of great use more than two centuries before.

Each of them felt a knob in the space behind. “Now you—press it,” said the guide, tapping Roger on the arm. He pressed the knob hard and it yielded suddenly beneath his hand. At the same moment something rattled softly behind the panelling not far off.

“That knob releases a lever which in turn enables us to press back a bigger panel,” said the woman, going to the panelling from behind which the rattle had come. She pressed her hand against a big panel, and it gradually slid inside into the wall, sliding neatly behind the panel next to it. A hole yawned there at last, big enough for a man to squeeze into. The woman shone her torch into the hole.

“There you are,” she said. “Not much to see, really. Just a passage behind the panelling. It runs along beside it for a few feet and then goes downwards to the blind end I spoke of.”

“I want to go inside,” said Snubby, of course, and he put one leg into the hole.

The woman pulled him back roughly. “No!” she said. “No one is allowed to go inside. Now surely you don’t want to get dirtier than you are! Get back at once.”

Snubby struggled away, and tried his hardest to get into the dark hole. He badly wanted to follow that secret passage. Why did it go to a blind end? Was it only a hiding-place, then, not a passage? He didn’t believe it.

The woman got angry. “I shall report you,” she said, still holding Snubby by his coat. “Do you want me to lose my job? Now, you just do as you’re told. And listen to those dogs of yours barking! Something’s up. You’d better go and see what’s the matter.”

Snubby heard Loony and Loopy barking and he reluctantly got back into the room. But he made up his mind about one thing—he was going to explore that secret passage before his holiday was ended!

All three rushed out into the front garden of Ring O’ Bells Hall to see what was exciting the dogs. It was only another dog! He had come trotting by, and had smelt the two bones belonging to Loony and Loopy. He had also seen that the other two dogs were tied up.

He had apparently nipped up to them and taken one of the bones before either Loony or Loopy had seen him. Then he had sat himself down well out of reach and proceeded to crunch up the bone.

This, of course, made the two spaniels go nearly off their heads with rage and desperation, and if their leads had not been very strong, there is no doubt but that the four-footed thief would have been chased out of the county!

As it was, all they could do was to bark madly, almost strangling themselves with their leads. Snubby ran at the thief-dog, and he tore off, leaving the bone behind him.

“Take your dogs away,” called the woman from the door of Ring O’ Bells Hall. “And don’t come here again with them. Anyway, you’ve seen all there is to see.”

The children went off, the dogs still on the lead, straining after the scent left behind by the other dog. Snubby got cross. “Stop it, Loony—you’re almost pulling my arm out. You’ve got back your bone, so what’s all the excitement about?”

Diana suddenly looked white. Roger noticed it and took her arm. “Come on, old girl,” he said, “we’ll get back. This is the first day since the ‘flu that we’ve taken much exercise or had much excitement. You look fagged out. Lean on me and we’ll go home.”

They were all very glad to get back to the house. Miss Pepper was there, looking out for them. Lunch was being laid, but alas, none of them felt quite like it after their rather queer morning.

“You all look very tired,” said Miss Pepper reproachfully. “Whatever have you been up to?”

“Only talking to old Mother Hubbard and getting the dogs a bone, and seeing over Ring O’ Bells Hall,” said Snubby, sinking down into a chair. “And examining secret hidey-holes in fire-places and secret passages behind panels and——”

“Oh, Snubby! You surely haven’t been doing all that?” said Miss Pepper. “And what in the world has made you so dirty? Look how dirty you’ve made that cushion. You look as if you’ve been up a chimney or something.”

“Good guess!” said Snubby. “Oh, Miss Pepper—must I go and change and have a bath and all that? I do suddenly feel so tired.”

He wasn’t pretending. Miss Pepper patted him kindly, and then was horrified to find a cloud of sooty dust rising into the air out of his shoulder. Dear, dear—trust Snubby to arrive home in some sort of dirty state. But she hadn’t the heart even to make him change his coat.

They ate rather a poor lunch, mostly because they had had a late and very good breakfast. Then they dragged themselves off to have a rest on their beds. Snubby managed to undress himself and throw his sooty things down to Miss Pepper. Then, rolled round in his dressing-gown, he fell fast asleep.

“That ‘flu really did take it out of them, poor things,” said Miss Pepper to her cousin Hannah, as they sat sewing together peacefully that afternoon. There wasn’t a sound to be heard from the children. Loony was on Snubby’s bed, of course, and Loopy was out in the garden, making futile leaps at the cat on the wall.

“You’ve done enough walking for to-day,” said Miss Pepper firmly, when the children came down to tea, showing signs of a healthy appetite again. “Just potter about the garden after tea. You can feed the chickens for Miss Hannah and collect the eggs.”

However, Loony and Loopy made up for the lack of energy on the part of the children, by indulging to the full their craze for purloining mats, towels and brushes, and when the children arrived back in the garden after feeding the hens, and looking for the eggs, they found half the mats and towels in the house strewn over the grass. Somebody’s hairbrush sat in the middle of a clump of polyanthus!

Loony got a spanking with the hairbrush and retired under the sofa, sulking. Loopy, who had never seen anyone spanked with a hairbrush before, rushed away in horror and didn’t appear till suppertime.

“By the way,” said Miss Pepper, at supper, “do you ever hear from that strange friend of yours—Barney. He was a circus boy, wasn’t he—and had a monkey called Miranda.”

“Yes,” said Roger. “We don’t very often hear from him. He’s been all over the place since we last saw him. We ought to hear soon, though. Good old Barney.”

“Who’s this?” asked Miss Hannah, with interest. “Barney? I’ve not heard of him before.”

“Oh, he’s a circus boy we made friends with,” said Roger. “Awfully nice chap. Mother likes him, so you can guess he’s all right. He’s got no mother, but he’s hoping to find his father one day. He’s got one somewhere—an actor, he thinks. But you should see Miranda, his monkey.”

“No thank you,” said Miss Hannah, with a shudder. “I can’t bear the nasty little things. I hope you won’t hear from your friend just yet, anyway, if he’s got a monkey.”

But they did hear from Barney—the very next day too!