Five Fall Into Adventure (13 page)

So, when Red came over to the door of the shed, it looked exactly as if the boys still had their hands tied behind them. He laughed.

‘You can stay here till the police come!’ he said. Then he shut the shed door and locked it. He strolled over to the helicopter and examined it thoroughly. Then back he went to the door he had come from, opened it, and slammed it shut. He was gone.

When everything was quiet Jo sped back from the summer-house to the shed. She unlocked the door of the shed. ‘Come out,’ she said. ‘And we’ll lock it again. Then nobody will know you aren’t here. Hurry!’

There was nothing for it but to come out and hope there was nobody looking. Jo locked the shed door after them and hurried them back to the door that led underground. They slipped through it and half-fell down the steep steps.

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‘Thanks, Jo,’ said Dick.

They sat down. Julian scratched his head, and for the life of him could not think of anything sensible to do. The police were not coming because they didn’t know a thing about Red, or where George was or anything. And before long George would be flown off in that helicopter, and Timmy would be shot.

Julian thought of the high square tower and groaned. ‘There’s no way of getting George out of that tower,’ he said aloud. ‘It’ll be locked and barred, or George would have got out at once. We can’t even get to her. It’s no good trying to make our way into the house

- we’d be seen and caught at once.’

Jo looked at Dick. ‘Do you badly want George to be rescued?’ she said.

‘That’s a silly question,’ said Dick. ‘I want it more than anything else in the world.’

‘Well - I’ll go and get her, then,’ said Jo, and she got up as if she really meant it.

‘Don’t make jokes now,’ said Julian. ‘This really is serious, Jo.’

‘Well, so am I,’ retorted Jo. ‘I’ll get her out, you see if I don’t. Then you’ll know I’m trustable, won’t you? You think I’m mean and thieving and not worth a penny, and I expect you’re right. But I can do some things you can’t, and if you want this thing, I’ll do it for you.’

‘How?’ said Julian, astonished and disbelieving.

Jo sat down again.

‘You saw that tower, didn’t you?’ she began. ‘Well, it’s a big one, so I reckon there’s more than one room in it - and if I can get into the room next to George’s I could undo her door and set her free.’

‘And how do you think you’re going to get into the room next to hers?’ said Dick, scornfully.

‘Climb up the wall, of course,’ said Jo. ‘It’s set thick with ivy. I’ve often climbed up walls like that.’

The boys looked at her. ‘Were you the Face at the Window by any chance?’ said Julian, remembering Anne’s fright. ‘I bet you were. You’re like a monkey, climbing and darting about. But you can’t climb up that great high wall, so don’t think it. You’d fall and be killed, We couldn’t let you.’

‘Pooh!’ said Jo, with great scorn. ‘Fall off a wall like that! I’ve climbed up a wall without any ivy at all! There’s always holes and cracks to hold on to. That one would be easy!’

Julian was quite dumbfounded to think that Jo really meant all this. Dick remembered that Jo’s father was an acrobat. Perhaps that kind of thing was in the family.

‘You just ought to see me on a tight-rope,’ said Jo earnestly. ‘I can dance on it - and I never have a safety-net underneath - that’s baby-play! Well, I’m going.’

Without another word she climbed the steep steps lightly as a goat and stood poised in the archway of the door. All was quiet. Like a squirrel she leapt and bounded over the courtyard and came to the foot of the ivy-covered tower. Julian and Dick were now at the doorway that led into the yard, watching her.

‘She’ll be killed,’ said Julian.

‘Talk about pluck!’ said Dick.

‘I never saw such a kid in my life. There she goes - just like a monkey.’

And, sure enough, up the ivy went Jo, climbing lightly and steadily. Her hands reached out and tested each ivy-stem before she threw her weight on it, and her feet tried each one, too, before she stood on it.

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Once she slipped when an ivy-stem came away from the wall. Julian and Dick watched, their hearts in their mouths. But Jo merely clutched at another piece of stem and steadied herself once. Then up she went again.

Up and up, Past the first storey, past the second, and up to the third. Only one more now and she would be up to the topmost one. She seemed very small as she neared the top.

‘I can’t bear to look and I can’t bear not to,’ said Dick, pretending to shield his eyes and almost trembling with nervousness. ‘If she fell now - what should we do?’

‘Do shut up,’ said Julian, between his teeth. ‘She won’t fall. She’s like a cat. There -

she’s making for the window next to George’s. It’s open at the bottom.’

Jo now sat triumphantly on the broad window-sill of the room next to George’s. She waved impudently to the boys far below. Then she pushed with all her might at the window to open it a little more. It wouldn’t budge.

So Jo laid herself flat, and by dint of much wriggling and squeezing, she managed to slip through the narrow space between the bottom of the window-pane and the sill. She disappeared from sight.

Both boys heaved heartfelt sighs of relief. Dick found that his knees were shaking. He and Julian retired into the underground passage below the steep steps and sat there in silence.

‘Worse than a circus,’ said Dick at last. ‘I’ll never be able to watch acrobats again.

What’s she doing now, do you suppose?’

Jo was very busy. She had fallen off the inside windowsill with a bump, and bruised herself on the floor below. But she was used to bruises.

She picked herself up and shot behind a chair in case anyone had heard her. Nobody seemed to have heard anything, so she peeped cautiously out. The room was furnished with enormous pieces of furniture, old and heavy. Dust was on everything, and cobwebs hung down from the stone ceiling.

Jo tiptoed to the door. Her feet were bare and made no sound at all. She looked out.

There was a spiral stone stairway nearby going downwards, and on each side was a door - there must be four rooms in the tower then, one for each corner, two windows in each. She looked at the door next to the room she was in. That must be the door of George’s room.

There was a very large key in the lock, and a great bolt had been drawn across. Jo leapt across and dragged at the bolt. It made a loud noise and she darted back into the room again. But still nobody came. Back she went to the door again, and this time turned the enormous key. It was well oiled and turned easily.

Jo pushed open the door and put her head cautiously round. George was there - a thin and unhappy George, sitting by the window. She stared at Jo as if she couldn’t believe her eyes!

‘Psssst!’ said Jo, enjoying all this very much indeed. ‘I’ve come to get you out!’

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George looked as if she had seen a ghost. ‘Jo!’ she whispered. ‘It can’t really be you.’

‘It is. Feel,’ said Jo, and pattered across the room to give George quite a hard pinch.

Then she pulled at her arm.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We must go before Red comes. Hurry! I don’t want to be caught.’

George got up as if she was in a dream. She went across to the door. She and Jo slipped out, and stood at the top of the spiral staircase.

‘Have to go down here, I suppose,’ said Jo. She cocked her head and listened. Then she went down a few steps and turned the first spiral bend.

But before she had gone down more than a dozen steps she stopped in fright.

Somebody was coming up!

In panic Jo ran up again and pushed George roughly into the room she had climbed into first of all.

‘Someone’s coming,’ she panted. ‘Now we’re finished.’

‘It’s that red-haired man, I expect,’ said George. ‘He comes up three or four times a day and tries to make me tell him about my father’s work. But I don’t know a thing. What are we to do?’

The slow steps came up and up, sounding hollowly on the stone stairs. They could hear a panting breath now, too.

An idea came to Jo. She put her mouth close to George’s ear. ‘Listen! We look awfully alike. I’ll let myself be caught and locked up in that room - and you take the chance to slip down and go to Dick and Julian. Red will never know I’m not you - we’ve even got the same clothes on now, because Joan gave me old ones of yours.’

‘No,’ said George, astounded. ‘You’ll be caught. I don’t want you to do that.’

‘You’ve got to,’ whispered Jo, fiercely. ‘Don’t be daft. I can open the window and climb down the ivy, easy as winking, when Red’s gone. It’s your only chance. They’re going to take you off in that helicopter tonight.’

The footsteps were now at the top. Jo pushed George well behind a curtain and whispered fiercely again: ‘Anyway, I’m not really doing this for you. I’m doing it for Dick.

You keep there and I’ll do the rest.’

There was a loud exclamation when the man outside discovered the door of George’s room open. He went in quickly and found nobody there. Out he came and yelled down the stairs.

‘Markhoff! The door’s open and the girl’s gone! Who opened the door?’

Markhoff came up two steps at a time, looking bewildered. ‘No one! Who could?

Anyway, the girl can’t be far off! I’ve been in the room below all the time since I locked her in last time. I’d have seen her if she’s gone.’

‘Who unlocked the door?’ screamed Red, quite beside himself with anger. ‘We’ve got to have that girl to bargain with.’

‘Well, she must be in one of the other rooms,’ said Markhoff, stolidly, quite unmoved by his master’s fury. He went into one on the opposite side to the room where Jo and

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George crouched trembling. Then he came into their room, and at once saw the top of Jo’s head showing behind the chair.

He pounced on her and dragged her out. ‘Here she is!’ he said, and didn’t seem to realize that it was not George at all, but Jo. With their short hair, freckled faces and their similar clothes they really were alike. Jo yelled and struggled most realistically. Nobody would have guessed that she had planned to be caught and locked up!

George shook and shivered behind the curtain, longing to go to Jo’s help, but knowing that it wouldn’t be of the least use. Besides - there might be a chance now of finding Timmy. It had almost broken George’s heart to be parted from him for so long.

Jo was dragged yelling and kicking into the room and locked in again. Red and Markhoff began to quarrel about which of them must have left the door unlocked.

‘You were there last,’ said Red.

‘Well, if I was, I tell you I didn’t leave the door unlocked,’ Markhoff raged back. ‘I wouldn’t be so fatheaded. That’s the kind of thing you do.’

‘That’ll do,’ snapped Red. ‘Have you shot that dog yet? No, you haven’t! Go down and do it before he escapes too!’

George’s heart went stone-cold. Shoot Timmy! Oh no! Dear darling old Timmy. She couldn’t let him be shot!

She didn’t know what to do. She heard Red and Markhoff go down the stone stairway, their boots making a terrific noise at first, and then gradually becoming fainter.

She slipped down after them. They went into a nearby room, still arguing. George risked being seen and shot past the open door. She came to another stairway, not a spiral one this time, and went down it so fast that she almost lost her footing. Down and down and down. She met nobody at all. What a very strange place this was!

She came into a dark, enormous hall that smelt musty and old. She ran to the great door at the front and tried to open it. It was very heavy, but at last it swung slowly back.

She stood there in the bright sunlight, peering out cautiously. She knew where Timmy was. She had been able to see him sometimes, flopping queerly in and out of the summer-house. She knew that because of his continual barking he had been doped.

Red had told her that when she had asked him. He enjoyed making her miserable. Poor George!

She tore across the courtyard and came to the summerhouse. Timmy was there, lying as if he were asleep. George flung herself on him, her arms round his thick neck.

‘Timmy, oh Timmy!’ she cried, and couldn’t see him for tears. Timmy, far away in some drugged dream, heard the voice he loved best in all the world. He stirred. He opened his eyes and saw George!

He was too heavy with his sleep to do more than lick her face. Then his eyes dosed again. George was in despair. She was afraid Markhoff would come and shoot him in a very short time.

‘Timmy!’ she called in his ear. ‘TIMMY! Do wake up. TIMMY!’

Tim opened his eyes again. What - his mistress still here! Then it couldn’t be a dream.

Perhaps his world would soon be right again. Timmy didn’t understand at all what had been happening the last few days. He staggered to his feet somehow and stood swaying there, shaking his head. George put her hand on his collar. ‘That’s right, Tim,’

she said. ‘Now you come with me. Quick!’

But Timmy couldn’t walk, though he had managed to stand. In despair George glanced over the courtyard, fearful that she would see Markhoff coming at any moment.

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She saw somebody else. She saw Julian standing in an archway opposite, staring at her. She was too upset about Timmy even to feel much astonishment.

‘Ju!’ she called. ‘Come and help me with Timmy. They’re going to shoot him!’

In a trice Julian and Dick shot across the courtyard to George. ‘What happened, Jo?’

said Julian. ‘Did you find George?’

‘Ju - it’s me, George!’ said George, and Julian suddenly saw that indeed it was George herself. He had been so certain that it was still Jo that he hadn’t known it was George!

‘Help me with Timmy,’ said George, and she pulled at the heavy dog. ‘Where shall we hide him?’