Priscilla's Spies Part 14

"Go after them again to-morrow."

"That's all well enough; but things are much more mixed up than that. In some ways I rather wish we had Sylvia Courtney with us. She's president of our Browning Society and tremendously good at every kind of complication. What I feel is that we're rather like those boys in the poem who went out to catch a hare and came on a lion unaware. I haven't got the pa.s.sage quite right but you probably know it."

Frank did. He could not, since English literature is still only fitfully studied in public schools, have named the author. But he quoted the lines with fluent confidence. It was by turning them into Greek Iambics that he had won the head-master's prize.

"That's it," said Priscilla. "And that's more or less what has happened to us. We went out to chase a simple, ordinary German spy and we have come on two other mysteries of the most repulsively fascinating kind.

First there's Miss Rutherford, if that's her real name, who says she's fis.h.i.+ng for sponges, which is certainly a lie."

"I don't know about it's being a lie," said Frank. "She explained it to me after you'd gone."

"Oh, that about zoophytes. You don't believe that surely?"

"I do," said Frank. "There are lots of queer things in the British Museum. I was there once."

"My own belief is," said Priscilla, "that she simply trotted out those zoophyte things and the British Museum when she found that we weren't inclined to swallow the ordinary sponge. At the same time I can't believe that she's a criminal of any kind. She struck me as being an uncommonly good sort. The wind's dropping. I told you it would. Very soon now we shall have to row. Can you row, Cousin Frank?"

Frank replied with cheerful confidence that he could. He had sat at Priscilla's feet all day and bowed to her superior knowledge of sailing.

When it came to rowing he was sure that he could hold his own. He understood the phraseology of the art, had learned to take advantage of sliding seats, could keep his back straight and had been praised by a member of a University eight for his swing.

"The other mystery," said Priscilla, "is Inishbawn. The Kinsellas won't let the spies land on the island. They won't let Miss Rutherford. They won't let you, They tell every kind of ridiculous story to head people off."

The thought of his prowess as an oarsman had restored Frank's self-respect. He recollected the reason given by Jimmy Kinsella for not allowing Miss Rutherford to land on Inishbawn.

"I don't see anything ridiculous about it," he said. "Young Kinsella simply said that it wasn't a suitable place for ladies. There are lots of places we men go to where we wouldn't take???-"

His sentence tailed away. Priscilla's eyes expressed an amount of amus.e.m.e.nt which made him feel singularly uncomfortable.

"That," she said, "is the most utter rot I've ever heard in my life.

And in any case, even if it was true, it wouldn't apply to us. Jimmy Kinsella distinctly said that I might land on the island as much as I like, but that he jolly well wouldn't have you. We may just as well row now as later on. The breeze is completely gone."

She got out the oars and dropped the rowlocks into their holes. She pulled stroke oar herself. Frank settled himself on the seat behind her.

He found himself in a position of extreme discomfort. The _Tortoise_ was designed and built to be a sailing boat. It was not originally contemplated that she should be rowed far or rowed fast. When Frank leaned back at the end of his stroke he b.u.mped against the mast When he swung forward in the proper way he hit Priscilla between the shoulders with his knuckles. When the boat shot forward the boom swung inboard. If this happened at the end of a stroke Frank was. .h.i.t on the shoulder. If it happened at the beginning of a stroke the spar struck him on the ear.

However he s.h.i.+fted his position he was unable to avoid sitting on some rope. The centreboard case was between his legs and when he tried to get his injured foot against anything firm he found it entangled in ropes which he could not kick away. Priscilla complained.

"Put a little more beef into it, Cousin Frank," she said. "I'm pulling her head round all the time."

Frank put all the energy he could into a series of short jerky strokes, using the muscles of his arms, failing altogether to get the weight of his body on the oar. At the end of twenty minutes Priscilla gave him a rest.

"There's no use our killing ourselves," she said. "The tide's under us.

It's a jolly lucky thing it is. If it was the other way we wouldn't get home to-night. I wonder now whether the Kinsellas think you've any connection with the police. You don't look it in the least, but you never can tell what people will think. If they do mistake you for anything of the sort it might account for their not wanting you to land on Inishbawn."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know why exactly?not yet. But there often are things knocking about which it wouldn't at all do for the police to see. That might happen anywhere. There's an air of wind coming up behind us. Just get in that oar of yours. We may as well take the good of what's going."

A faint ripple on the surface of the water approached the _Tortoise_.

Before it reached her the boom swung forward, lifting the dripping main sheet from the water, and the boat slipped on.

"But of course," said Priscilla, "that idea of your being a policeman in disguise doesn't account for their telling Miss Rutherford that there was something on the island which it wouldn't be nice for a lady to see. And it doesn't account for the swine-fever story that Joseph Antony Kinsella told the spies."

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing much. Only that his wife and children had come out all over in bright yellow spots."

"But perhaps they have."

"Not they. You might just as well believe in Peter Walsh's rats. That leaves us with three different mysteries on hand." Priscilla hooked her elbow over the tiller and ticked off the three mysteries on the fingers of her right hand. "The sponge lady, whose name may be Miss Rutherford, one. Inishbawn Island, that's two. The original spies, which makes three. I'm afraid we'll have to row again. Do you think you can, Cousin Frank?"

"Of course I can."

"Don't be offended. I only meant that you mightn't be able to on account of your ankle. How is your ankle?"

"It's all right," said Frank, "That is to say it's just the same."

No other favouring breeze rippled the surface of the bay. For rather more than an hour, with occasional intervals for rest, Frank tugged at his oar, b.u.mped his back, and was struck on the side of the head by the boom. He was very much exhausted when the _Tortoise_ was at length brought alongside the slip at the end of the quay. Priscilla still seemed fresh and vigorous.

"I wonder," said Frank, "if we could hire a boy."

"Dozens," said Priscilla, "if you want them... What for?"

"To wheel that bath-chair. I can't walk, you know. And I don't like to think of your pus.h.i.+ng me up the hill. You must be tired."

"That," said Priscilla, "is what I call real politeness. There are lots of other kinds of politeness which aren't worth tuppence. But that kind is rather nice. It makes me feel quite grown up. All the same I'll wheel you home."

She pushed the bath-chair up the hill from the village without any obvious effort. At the gate of the avenue she stopped. Two small children were playing just inside it. A rather larger child set on the doorstep of the gate lodge with a baby on her knee.

"What time is it, Cousin Frank?" said Priscilla.

"It's ten minutes past seven."

"Susan Ann, where's your mother?"

The girl with the baby on her knee struggled to her feet and answered:

"She's up at the house beyond, Miss."

"I just thought she must be," said Priscilla, "when I saw William Thomas and the other boy playing there, and you nursing the baby. If your mother wasn't up at the house you'd all be in your beds."

She wheeled the bath-chair on until she turned the corner of the avenue and was lost to the sight of the children who peered after her. Then she paused.

"Cousin Frank," she said, "it's just as well for you to be prepared for some kind of fuss when we get home."

"We're awfully late, I know."

"It's not that. It's something far worse. The fuss that's going on up there at the present moment is a thunderstorm compared to what there would be over our being late."

"How do you know there's a fuss?"