The students, six of them acting as pall-bearers, carried the box away and down the stairs. The hour was seven-thirty, that magic period at Cartaret when everybody was at dinner and disturbance and interruption were less likely than at almost any other hour of the twenty-four. This was fortunate, since the games pavilion was in full view of the front windows of all the Halls and also could be seen from the College building.
The bearers put down their burden gratefully. They consisted of Laura, Kitty, Alice and Miss Cartwright and also the twin sisters Carroway, who were staunch and trustworthy and had received with a meek look of astonishment the Warden’s pronouncement that they were to hear, see and remember nothing of what passed between the hours of seven and midnight. They did not even ask, as Miss Cartwright had done, what the Warden’s game was. Beyond a vague and hopeful expectation of a moderate amount of entertainment, they seemed to require nothing from this odd business of carrying the College skeleton about the College grounds and presenting it, in due course, to another College.
‘There we are, then,’ said Laura, rubbing her forearms and wrists and looking down at the long box. ‘I told the Warden I thought we ought to mount guard, but she says it’ll be safe enough where it is. Oh, and she’s given me an electric torch, but we’re not to use it unnecessarily. Anybody got another?’
No one had, but Annet Carroway thought she knew where she could borrow one.
‘Better not,’ said Laura. ‘Secrecy is of the essence. We shall have to manage with the one.’
The conspirators separated when they reached the Athelstan dining-hall, and filled in the odd places which were left. Nobody questioned them, since neither Deborah nor Mrs Bradley was dining in Hall that evening, and therefore the fact that they were a few minutes late for the meal was of no account.
After dinner they pursued various occupations. The Carroway twins and Alice Boorman worked, Kitty sketched out a few new hairdressing styles she had thought of and wanted to try at some time, Laura wrote an article for the College magazine entitled ‘The Vote Against Women’, and Miss Cartwright wrote a letter to her young man in Canada.
At half-past ten, after a supper of bread and butter, biscuits and cocoa, it was the custom for students to be in their own rooms with the lights out. This custom was interpreted firmly by Deborah as a rule, and she went the rounds at twenty minutes to eleven each night with persistence and a sharp reminder to lawbreakers. She smiled at the six pall-bearers, however, as, fully clothed and carrying their outdoor shoes in their hands, they slipped past her down the front staircase.
‘All correct?’ whispered Laura, when they had changed their shoes and were upon the doormat. She received a giggling reply from the twins, a solemn one from Alice, who was looking rather pale, a grunt from Miss Cartwright and an earnest ‘O.K., Dog,’ from Kitty.
‘Out lights, then,’ whispered Laura. Miss Cartwright switched them off, and the students stood a moment outside the Athelstan front door to accustom their eyes to the darkness before they set out across the grounds. The night was intensely dark. There was no moon and the stars were hidden by low, black clouds.
‘Cheery sort of evening,’ muttered Laura, feeling her way cautiously down the steps. ‘For heaven’s sake, come carefully. Don’t break your necks.’
She led the way to the left for a few yards along the main drive which ran in front of all the Halls, and then shone the torch on to the steps leading down beside the rockery to the lawns and tennis courts. She switched it off as soon as the others had negotiated the steps, and they followed a path which led towards the College building. As soon as they reached the angle of the wall, which looked strange, a darker darkness against the black night, they turned off the path on to the games field, and, after stumbling on the edge of the bank, came to the pavilion.
Here it was safe to switch on the torch, for the bulk of the pavilion would hide the light from anybody who might happen to be looking out of any of the Hall windows.
‘Forward, the body-snatchers!’ observed Laura. ‘When it’s up and steady I’ll shove the torch in my pocket and take the front right. Ready?’
It had not been easy to make their way to the pavilion in the darkness with no responsibility but the elementary one of remaining on their feet, but the walk, bearing the skeleton in its box over grass, stumbling into borders, on to unsuspected gravel paths which seemed to have lost their bearings in the blackness and to be meandering over parts of the grounds where no path had existed previously, was a nightmare journey relieved from horror by the fact that its object was, to everybody except Laura, who thought she could guess the origin of the bones which they were to receive in exchange for Dirty Dick, sharply humorous.
After what seemed at least three-quarters of a mile of anguished walking, they stumbled on to the main drive in its south-eastern slant to the lane which bordered the College grounds on the south. There were four gates in the wall which formed the actual boundary of the College demesne, and the arrangement to meet the men at the main entrance had been the subject of much argument before it was agreed upon.
‘Suppose the Prin. happens to be out a bit late, and spots us?’ suggested Miss Cartwright.
‘She’d much better spot us at the main entrance than by the gate from the footpath,’ Laura reasoned. ‘Besides, the men will have a car, and they won’t want to carry the thing along the road, and neither do we. The main gates are never locked. They can bring the car to the bend and drive out with nothing showing.’
A cautious caterwauling — the signal agreed upon — directed the girls to where the young men were waiting.
‘Is that you, Teddie?’ asked his sister.
‘In person,’ replied Mr Cartwright. ‘What a row you made carting the thing! Here, Jeffries, lend a hand.’
The skeleton changed hands, and Dirty Dick was propped up against the seat beside that of the driver.
‘Where’s Twister?’ inquired Miss Cartwright.
‘Behind the bushes. Got a torch? Here you are.’ He switched on his torch and disclosed a box similar to that which had just been placed in the car. ‘Help you up with him, shall we?’
The two young men lifted the box and the girls formed up and took it from them.
‘When’s the rag?’ asked Laura.
‘Saturday week, but we wanted a rehearsal of some of the effects, so thought we’d have Dirty as soon as possible. Thanks for looking after him so nicely. Toodle-pip.’
‘Bye-bye,’ said Miss Cartwright. ‘Oh, Lord, my shoulder’s cracking in two. Nighty-night, ducks,’ she added to her brother.
‘Don’t miss your step,’ said he. As the six students began the long and awkward journey back to the sports pavilion they heard the car drive off.
‘Can’t see that it was much of a rag to change them in the first place, really,’ said Miss Cartwright, after a pause, ‘although I lent the affair some slight assistance. But what does puzzle me is how the lads got into that Science Room cupboard. The door’s always locked, and yet they got Twister out and put Dick in.’
The twins, stoutly bearing the hinder end of the box, merely giggled, as usual. Kitty grunted. Only Laura was silent. But then only Laura was suspicious of the bona fides of Twister Marshmallow. She feared that that hero lay elsewhere, and that the occupant of his box was ‘no less a Yorick’, in her own phrase, than poor Miss Murchan.