‘Did you put him a nice warm rug there, and a dish of fresh water?’ asked George, anxiously, for the third or fourth time.
‘You know I did. I keep telling you,’ said Sooty. ‘Look, we won’t put back all the furniture except the chairs. We can say we want it left back because we like to play a game on the carpet. It’ll be an awful bore if we have to move chests and things every time we exercise Tim.’
They were just in time for their dinner. Block was there to serve it, and so was Sarah. The children sat down hungrily, in spite of having had coffee and buns. Block and Sarah ladled out hot soup on to their plates.
‘I hope you got rid of the unpleasant dog,’ said Block in his monotonous voice. He gave George a rather nasty look. Evidently he had not forgotten how she had flown at him.
Sooty nodded. It was no good speaking in answer, for Block would not hear. Sarah bustled round, taking away the soup-plates and preparing to give them their second course.
The food was very good at Smuggler’s Top. There was plenty of it, and the hungry visitors and Sooty ate everything put before them. Marybelle hadn’t much appetite,
but she was the only one. George tried to secrete titbits and bones whenever she could, for Timmy.
Two or three days went by, and the children fell into their new life quite happily. Timmy was taken out each morning for a long walk. The children soon got used to slipping down the rope-ladder, and making their way with Timmy to the cliff-side.
In the afternoons they went to either Booty’s room or Marybelle’s, and played games or read. They could have Timmy there, because the buzzer always warned them if anyone was coming.
At night it was always an excitement to get Timmy to George’s room without being seen. This was usually done when Mr. and Mrs. Lenoir were sitting at their dinner, and Block and Sarah were serving them. The children had a light supper first, and Mr. and Mrs. Lenoir had their dinner an hour later. It was quite the best time to smuggle Timmy along to George’s room.
Timmy seemed to enjoy the smuggling. He ran silently beside George and Sooty, stopped at every corner, and scampered gladly into George’s room as soon as he got there. He lay quietly under the bed till George was in bed herself, and then he came out to lie on her feet.
George always locked their door at night. She didn’t want Sarah or Mrs. Lenoir coming in and finding Timmy there! But nobody came, and as night after night went by, George grew more easy about Timmy.
Taking him back to Sooty’s room in the morning was a bit of nuisance, because it had to be done early, before anyone was up. But George could always wake herself at any time she chose, and each morning about half past six the little girl slipped through the house with Timmy. She went in at Sooty’s door, and he jumped out of bed to deal with Timmy. He was always awakened by the buzzer that
sounded when George opened the door at the end of the passage.
‘I hope you are all enjoying yourselves,’ Mr. Lenoir said to the children, whenever they met him in the hall or on the stairs. And they always replied politely. ‘Oh yes, Mr. Lenoir, thank you.’
‘It’s quite a peaceful holiday after all,’ said Julian. ‘Nothing happens at all!’
And then things did begin to happen and once they had begun they never stopped!
Chapter Nine
WHO IS IN THE TOWER?
ONE night Julian was awakened by someone opening his door. He sat up at once. ‘Who is it?’ he said. ‘Me, Sooty,’ said Sooty’s voice, very low. ‘I say, I want you to come and see something.’
Julian woke Dick, and the two of them put on their dressing-gowns. Sooty led them quietly out of the room and took them to a queer little room, tucked away in an odd wing of the house. All kinds of things were kept here, trunks and boxes, old toys, chests of old clothes, broken vases that had never been mended, and many other worthless things.
‘Look,’ said Sooty, taking them to the window. They saw that the little room had a view of the tower belonging to the house. It was the only room in the house that did, for it was built at a queer angle.
The boys looked – and Julian gave an exclamation. Someone was signalling from the tower! A light there flashed every now and again. In and out – pause – flash, flash, in and out – pause. The light went regularly on and off in a certain rhythm.
‘Now – who’s doing that?’ whispered Sooty.
‘Your father?’ wondered Julian.
‘Don’t think so,’ said Sooty. ‘I think I heard him snoring away in his room. We could go and find out though -see if he really is in his bedroom.’
‘Well – for goodness sake don’t let’s get caught,’ said Julian, not at all liking the idea of prying about in his host’s house.
They made their way to where Mr. Lenoir had his | room. It was quite plain he was there, for a regular low snoring came from behind the closed door. ‘It may be Block up in the tower,’ said Dick. ‘He looks full of secrets. I wouldn’t trust him an inch. I bet it’s it Block.’
‘Well – shall we go to his room and see if it’s empty?’ whispered Sooty. ‘Come on. If it’s Block signalling, he’s doing it without Father knowing.’
‘Oh, your father might have told him to,’ said Julian, who felt that he wouldn’t trust Mr. Lenoir much further than he would trust Block.
They went up the back-stairs to the wing where the staff slept. Sarah slept in a room there with Harriet the ‘kitchen-maid. Block slept alone.
Sooty pushed open Block’s door very softly and slowly. When he had enough room to put in his head, he did so. The room was full of moonlight. By the window was ‘}\Block’s bed. And Block was there! Sooty could see the humpy shape of his body, and the black round patch that was his head.
He listened, but he could not catch Block’s breathing. He must sleep very quietly.
He withdrew his head, and pushed the other two boys quietly down the back-stairs.
‘Was he there?’ whispered Julian.
‘Yes. So it can’t be him, signalling up in our tower,’ said Sooty. ‘Well – who can it be then? I don’t like it. It couldn’t possibly be Mother or Sarah or the little kitchen-maid. Is there a stranger in our house, someone we don’t know, living here in secret?’
‘Can’t be!’ said Julian, a little shiver running down his back. ‘Look here – what about us going up to the tower and trying to peep through the door or something? We’d
soon find out who it was then. Perhaps we ought to tell your father.’
‘No. Not yet. I want to find out a whole lot more befoie I say anything to anyone,’ said Sooty, sounding obstinate. ‘Let’s creep up to the tower. We shall have to be jolly careful though. You get to it by a spiral staircase, rather narrow. There’s nowhere much to hide if anyone suddenly came down out of the tower.’
‘What’s in the tower?’ whispered Dick, as they made their way through the dark and silent house, thin streaks of moonlight coming in here and there between the cracks of the closed curtains.
‘Nothing much. Just a table and a chair or two, and a bookcase of books,’ said Sooty. ‘We use it on hot summer days when the breeze gets in strongly through the windows there, and we can see a long way all round us.’
They came to a little landing. From this a winding, narrow stairway of stone went up to the rounded tower. The boys looked up. Moonlight fell on the stairway from a slit-like window in the wall.
‘We’d better not all go up,’ said Sooty. ‘We should find it so difficult to hurry down, three of us, if the person in the tower suddenly came out. I’ll go. You stay down here and wait. I’ll see if I can spy anything through the crack in the door or the key-hole.’
He crept softly up the stairway, soon lost to view as he rounded the first spiral. Julian and Dick waited in the shadows at the bottom. There was a thick curtain over one of the windows there, and they got behind it, wrapping its folds round them for warmth.
Sooty crept up to the top. The tower-room had a stout oak door, studded and barred. It was shut! It was no use trying to look through the crack, because there wasn’t one. He bent down to peer through the key-hole.