A Red Herring Without Mustard

In the horrid silence that followed, we edged farther back along the tunnel. When the first match burned out, Colin took out another.

“How many of those do you have?” I asked.

“One more,” he said, and he lit it.

We had gained some ground, but it was still a long way to the cellars.

Colin held his last match high, moving slowly again, leading the way.

“Good lad,” I told him. “You’ve saved us.”

A sudden gust of cold air blew out the match, and we were plunged once again into blackness.

“Keep moving,” I urged him. “Follow the wall.”

Colin froze.

“Can’t,” he said. “I’m ’fraid of the dark.”

“It’s all right,” I told him. “I’m with you. I won’t let anything happen.”

I pushed against him, but he would not be budged.

“No,” he said. “Can’t.”

I could have gone on without him, but I was incapable of leaving him here alone.

And slowly, I realized that somehow, even in the darkness, I could dimly see Colin’s white face. A moment later, I became aware of a growing light that had suddenly filled the passageway.

I spun round, and there, to my amazement, was Dogger, holding a large lantern above his head. Porcelain peered round him, fearfully at first, and then, when she saw I was quite safe, running to me, almost crushing me in her embrace.

“I’m afraid I ratted on you,” she said.

THIRTY

“AND DOGGER, YOU SEE, had already latched the door at the fountain. It only opens from the outside, so there was no way Tom Bull could get out.”

“Well done, Dogger,” Father said. Dogger smiled and gazed out the drawing-room window.

Daffy shifted uneasily on the chesterfield. She had been torn away from her book by Father, who insisted that both she and Feely be present at the interview. It was almost as if he was proud of me.

Feely stood at the chimneypiece, pretending to be bored, stealing quick, greedy glances at herself in the looking glass while otherwise simpering at Sergeant Graves.

“This whole business about the Hobblers is intriguing,” Inspector Hewitt said. “Your notes have been most helpful.”

I fizzed a little inside.

“I gather they’ve been carrying out their baptisms in the Gully since sometime in the seventeenth century?”

I nodded. “Mrs. Bull wanted her baby baptized in the old style, and her husband, I think, probably forbade it.”

“That he did,” said Sergeant Graves. “He’s told us as much.”

The Inspector glared at him.

“She went to the Gully with Miss Mountjoy—Dr. Kissing saw them together. There might have been other Hobblers present, I really don’t know.

“But something went horribly wrong. They were dipping the baby by the heel, as Hobbler tradition requires, when something happened. The baby slipped and drowned. They buried it in the Palings—swore to keep the truth to themselves. At least, I think that’s what happened.”

Sergeant Graves nodded, and the Inspector shot him such a look!

“Mrs. Bull thought at once of blaming it on Fenella. After all, she had just passed the caravan in the lane. She went home and told her husband, Tom, that their baby had been taken by Gypsies. And he believed her—has gone on believing her—until now.”

I took a deep breath and went on. “Fenella told Mrs. Bull’s fortune at the fête last week—told her the same nonsense she tells everyone: that something was buried in her past—something that wanted digging out.”

Only at that instant, as I spoke, did the full force—the full aptness—of Fenella’s words come crashing into my consciousness: “Told her there was something buried in her past; told her it wanted digging out—wanted setting right.” I had actually copied these words into my notebook without understanding their meaning.

She couldn’t possibly have learned of the Bull baby’s supposed abduction until later—she had been gone from the Gully before the bungled baptism began.

Mrs. Bull, to reinforce her lie, must have been forced to follow through by filing a false report with the police. Tom, because of his shady associations, must have managed to keep well in the background. Hadn’t Mrs. Mullet let slip that he’d had his troubles with the law?

How I wished I could ask the Inspector to confirm my conjecture—especially the part about Tom Bull—but I knew he wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell me. Perhaps some other time …

At any rate, Fenella had almost certainly been tracked down and questioned by the authorities during their investigation of the missing child—tracked down, questioned, and cleared. That much seemed obvious.

So that when Mrs. Bull had wandered unexpectedly into her tent just last week at the fête, it must have seemed as if Fate had sent her there for justice.

“There’s something buried in your past. Something that wants digging out … wants setting right,” Fenella had told her, but it was not the baby she meant—it was Mrs. Bull’s accusation of kidnapping!

“Revenge is my specialty,” Fenella had said.

Revenge indeed!