The Box of Delights (20 page)

We ask all the inhabitants of the Diocese to come forward at once in aiding the Police by reporting the movements of all cars likely to have been concerned in the removal of the reverend
gentlemen. The car is reported to have been a large black, dark blue, dark brown, or even dark green or grey saloon, with a clean-shaven driver in a dark suit. Anyone who may have seen such a car
in any of the country roads in the hours between five and seven-thirty this morning are asked to telephone at once to the Chief of the Tatchester Constabulary: telephone number, Tatchester
7000.

In the meantime we would convey to all the members of the Cathedral Establishment our heartfelt sympathy with their anxiety. We would also reprehend in the strongest terms all those who venture
to criticise the work of our splendid Police Force. We are sure, what indeed we have never doubted, that they have the matter well in hand, and though it is against the public interest that they
should divulge at this juncture the point to which their investigations have proceeded, it is an open secret that they are in the possession of certain clues which may lead to startling
dénouements in the near future.

‘Now what d’you think of that?’ Maria said.

‘Wait a moment,’ Kay said. ‘There’s some ‘Stop Press’ news here at the side:

The rumour current that the missing Prelate was seen near Chester Hills last night turns out to be without foundation. The gentleman mistaken for the Bishop was the Reverend
Father Boddledale, of the Ecclesiastical Training College, who has long been known as the Bishop’s double. Father Boddledale went yesterday afternoon with the Clergy’s Christmas
offerings to the children in the village school of Hope-under-Chesters and, wearing clerical dress, was again mistaken for the Prelate. No reliable information has reached the Authorities about any
of the missing dignitaries.

‘Well, what d’you think of that?’ Maria repeated.

‘Well, I know what I think of it,’ Kay said. ‘They’ve got the Bishop, the Dean, the Punch and Judy man, the two Canons and Peter in that den of theirs at Chester
Hills.’

‘Well, if I were you, I’d telephone to the Yard,’ Maria said. ‘It’s no good going to your champion rabbit man, or whatever he is: go to the sleuths whose job it is
to sleuth. Let’s telephone the Yard.’

They telephoned to the Yard, who referred them to the Chief of the Tatchester Constabulary: telephone number, Tatchester 7000. When they did this they were told that the matter would meet with
every attention and that, though no news had come about any of the missing gentlemen, they expected developments before the evening.

At lunch-time Kay was called to the telephone. Caroline Louisa’s sister wanted to speak about her brother who was now better. Kay explained that Caroline Louisa had not returned from
London and had left no word: had neither written nor telegraphed.

‘Well,’ the sister said, ‘she set off from here two days ago. Whatever can have happened?’

Kay had a very shrewd suspicion of what had happened. He said, ‘Perhaps she’s been kidnapped like the Cathedral staff.’

The sister said, ‘That doesn’t sound very likely to me, but I will telephone to the hospitals to find out whether anybody has been brought in as the result of an accident.’

She said that she would telephone later if she heard anything. She did telephone later to report that she could learn nothing of her sister whatsoever. Kay went back to lunch feeling very
miserable. After lunch it came on to rain. There was no news of Peter. It wasn’t possible to go playing in the garden. He went upstairs to his room; locked the doors; put caps over the keys
as before; climbed under the valance of the dressing-table and looked again into the Box of Delights.

This time he looked into an entirely different scene. There was a little hill with a beech clump upon it and a vixen playing with her cubs on some tumbled chalk outside a burrow. A badger was
padding about; from the glow upon the wood it seemed to Kay to be about sunset on a fine May evening. The cubs rolled over and over, playing with themselves or with a bit of rabbit-skin, and
presently Kay was aware that some of the glow upon the trees was due to the presence of multitudes of butterflies of the most brilliant colours – painted ladies, red admirals, peacocks,
purple emperors, chalk blues, commas, tortoise-shells, purple and green hairstreaks: and besides these there were others – Camberwell beauties and swallowtails – and all these began
moving suddenly towards him; he noticed that they were drawing an airy chariot made out of rose leaves from some sweet-briar rose. It was liker a basket than a chariot and, although it looked very
fragile, it was held together with silk; Kay said to himself, ‘Silk is really the strongest of all stuffs,’ and he stepped into the chariot. At once the butterflies lifted him up high
over the treetops, going much more swiftly than he would have thought possible and, although their flight wavered now up, now down, it was extraordinarily delightful.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘we are going to Chester Hills,’ and very soon they were indeed flying over the very wood from which Peter had disappeared, but inside the wood and
all round the great house, as Kay drew near it, there were wolves running and snarling with their hackles up and with their teeth gleaming: he had never thought it possible that there could be so
many. He saw them leaping and snapping, trying to reach the butterflies, who kept well out of harm’s way. They floated up to the great house and then round it, though the wolves came out of
the chimneys and through trapdoors on to the roofs and yapped and snarled and showed their teeth.

Then, at one little window, as Kay floated past, he saw Caroline Louisa stretching out her hands to him, calling, ‘Help me, Kay!’ Then, instantly, two great she-wolves dragged her
from the window and pulled down an iron shutter.

The butterflies changed their direction and floated away, and away from Chester Hills, and at last brought Kay to a bare mountain which he had never before seen. In the mountainside there was a
little door with a knocker. Kay knocked at the knocker and a little old man opened the door and said,

‘Will you please to walk in, Master Kay? And what would you like to see: the treasures or the work?’

‘I should like to see both, please,’ Kay said.

The little old man opened a door and there was a little furnace with a bellows and an anvil, with little men hard at work making extraordinary things out of metals and precious stones. In cases
on the wall were the most marvellous weapons and knives, coats of armour, crowns and jewels. And there were also strange things shaped like hands and, when the little man pressed a button, these
hands took hold of hammers or tongs, plucked molten metal from the furnace and beat it into whatever shape the little man ordered. Kay was so delighted with these things that he stared and stared
and, at last, one of the pairs of hands plucked a piece of gold, beat it rapidly into the shape of a little rosebud and thrust it into Kay’s buttonhole. Then the little old man said that it
would be time for him to be going and led him to the stone door on the hillside, and there was a sort of boat harnessed to wild duck.

When he got into the boat the wild duck flew with it high into the air over the dark woods, then down and down and down, till, at last, the boat was just over Seekings House and Kay had only to
drop down the chimney, as it seemed, into his room. And there he was in his room, snapping-to the Box and putting it back into his pocket.

Just as he snapped it to in his pocket there came a clattering at the door.

‘Kay! Kay!’ Maria cried.

‘What is it?’ Kay said.

‘What isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Come on down at once.’ In the study, she showed him a paper. ‘Look at this,’ she said. ‘There’s a special
edition of the paper. They’ve got the whole of the Cathedral staff.’

‘No,’ Kay said, ‘they can’t have!’

‘They have, though,’ Maria said. ‘Look here.’

The special edition was a single sheet still damp from the press; the big black headings easily smudged.

And there was a note:

We had thought that the mystery attached to the disappearance of the eminent Clergy of the Tatchester Establishment would by this time have been cleared up with the return of
the Bishop, the Dean and Canons to their functions. We regret to say that our confidence was gravely misplaced. Tonight we have to report the complete disappearance of the Precentor, the Vesturer,
the Bursar, the Canons Minor, the Archdeacon, Vergers, Organist, and, it is feared, other members of the Cathedral staff.

These gentlemen, according to their custom on the afternoon before Christmas Eve, were proceeding in a motor bus to the Tatchester Alms Houses laden with suitable offerings for the old Men and
Women Pensioners. They set off, according to custom, at half-past three and, it is thought, were beguiled into entering a motor bus other than that sent for them. From that moment no word has been
received from any of them.

Anyone able to throw the slightest light upon this very dark mystery are adjured to communicate at once with the local Police (Telephone, Tatchester 7000) and to spare no pains in bringing the
offenders to justice.

‘But what time is this?’ Kay said.

‘It’s nine o’clock,’ Maria said. ‘We’ve been wondering where on earth you’ve been.’

‘Oh,’ Kay said, ‘I suppose I fell asleep.’

‘What a very pretty shiny buttonhole you’ve got,’ Maria said. ‘What is it?’

‘Oh, that’s a little rose,’ Kay said, looking down; and indeed, there in his buttonhole was the little golden rose that had been made for him in the mountain.

‘I suppose you got it from a cracker,’ Maria said. ‘But just think of their bagging the whole Cathedral staff at one swoop! They must have had the brains of buns. You see,
they’ve had warning: the Bishop went, the Dean went and then the Canons went. And then, the whole of them go and plunge into a motor bus and are whirled off, very likely into
eternity.’

‘Well, I hope they’ve not been whirled into eternity,’ Kay said. ‘They were awfully nice to us, some of those clergy: we had a lovely party there the other night. What on
earth will they do for the Christmas services? We’ll get the news on the wireless. We’d better wait up till then.’

They waited up until the news on the wireless. They heard that the Archbishops were determined that, in case of need, the services should be held in the Cathedral in spite of the absence of the
regular staff and that certain clergy had been asked to proceed to Tatchester to officiate there if the need arose. The announcer said that the matter was viewed with the greatest seriousness and
that the public was asked to co-operate with the Police by giving instant, accurate information of a red, white, blue, grey, brown or black motor bus – the colours had been variously given by
various observers – proceeding at a frightening pace in the direction of Tatchester some twenty minutes before the alleged outrage. He asked that those who had any information to give should
telephone at once to the Chief of the Tatchester Constabulary: telephone number, Tatchester 7000.

‘Well, I should think,’ Maria said, ‘that even the sleuths at Scotland Yard will begin to think that they are up against a gang by this time. I should think the gangsters are
dropping them biting postcards: “Don’t you know my methods, Watson?” etc. However, I should think we’d better get to bed. We’ve not heard the end of this yet: some
more of them will be gone, you’ll see.’

‘They’ve got the whole boiling,’ Kay said. ‘I don’t see how many more they could get.’

‘The choirboys aren’t there,’ Maria said.

‘I think you’ll find they’ve got the choirboys,’ Kay said.

‘Well, I know who they’ll get,’ Maria said, ‘and those are all the clergy who have gone to Tatchester to take office in case. Blithering asses they were, to let the gang
know that.’

‘I say!’ Kay said. ‘There’ll be a fine old twitter in Tatchester.’

‘Well,’ Maria said, ‘if they survive they’ll have something to talk of as long as they live. Next to being martyred I should think being scrobbled would be the greatest
joy a clergyman could have. I should prefer it to being martyred myself, but tastes differ.’

With that she went to put some holly in Jemima’s bed and then retired to rest.

K
ay went back to his room, sorely perplexed. It was time for bed, but the sight of Peter’s bed without Peter reminded him that the Wolves
were Running; he could not think of sleeping. ‘Oh, if I could only find out where Cole Hawlings is,’ he thought, ‘then I could give him back his Box, and put an end to all this
kidnapping.’

He stayed, looking at the fire, without any thought of undressing. At last, in his misery, he opened the Box, thinking, ‘Perhaps I may see Herne the Hunter. He might be able to give me
some advice.’

When he opened the Box, it seemed to him that he opened it at a stone gateway, through which he passed to the waters of a lake, where a boatman sat in a little green boat. ‘Going
across?’ the boatman asked. ‘Step in.’

So Kay stepped into the boat, the boatman thrust her off and rowed her over the lake, which was so clear that Kay could see the golden and scarlet fishes on the pebbles at the bottom. Kay landed
at the other side of the lake, and walked up an avenue of fruit trees all glowing with the ripe fruit, apples, pears, plums, apricots, peaches, those five, all golden, scarlet, blue and
orange-coloured. At the end of the avenue was a Castle surrounded by a lawn of the greenest grass with the whitest daisies. Some gazelles were nibbling the grass; they ran up to Kay to be petted.
There were many little goldfinches flying about. Kay walked towards the steps of the Castle. All sorts of birds were there, herons, white ibises and scarlet flamingoes on the steps, and many
finches flying. Out of the Castle, to meet him, came the Lady who had feasted him in the oak tree. She still wore the ring with the ‘longways cross.’ She seemed to be about twenty now,
and more beautiful, Kay thought, than even Caroline Louisa.