‘Maybe they already found it,’ suggested Toffee Bill.
‘No, there’d have been a terrific to-do about it if they had, in the papers, on television, the lot. We should have heard!’
‘Well, we can’t do any searching while there’s parties going round,’ said Ginger. ‘Let alone when he’s about!’
‘No,’ agreed Bossie weightily. ‘Not any time when there’s anybody about there.’ The statement sounded faintly ominous, and he was staring so hard into his own mind that his eyes crossed and remained crossed. ‘I’ve been thinking about that man. You said you’d seen him up at our place. I think I have, too. I think he came with Mr Macsen-Martel the first time, but he’s been to Rainbow’s house since then. He didn’t like us going in there, did he? Maybe he’s like that with all kids, but maybe it was because it was us. If we’ve seen him around, he may have seen us, too.’
‘You don’t think,’ breathed Ginger, open mouthed, ‘that it’s him.’ And they all drew closer, awed and chilled, their voices sinking to secretive undertones.
‘I don’t know,’ said Bossie. ‘I can’t say he is or he isn’t. I just have this feeling about him. He could be. He’s here right on the spot, isn’t he? And he didn’t like us showing up at the abbey at all, and he specially didn’t like us poking around by that wall, did he? He followed us in, and he took the first chance to order us out, and he talked about barring school parties altogether, though that may have been just cover, it’s us he didn’t want there.’ Bossie made up his mind, instantly and irrevocably, as he usually did. ‘I’m going to get in there after they’re closed!’
They were stricken mute, and could only stare and doubt.
‘That’s the only chance! And it’s got to be tonight. If he’s installed there, like this, then maybe he knows already where he has to look, he’s just playing it easy and taking his time. It’s now or never for us, if we’re going to get there first. No,’ he corrected himself heroically, ‘for me. I started this, and anyhow, it’s better only one should go.’
‘But how will you get in?’ they protested, shaken, half wishing themselves bold enough to go with him, half thankful that he was bent on going alone, and that it was he who habitually called the tune. ‘And what about your folks? They’ll go up the wall if you don’t show up with us.’
‘No, they won’t, because I’ll fix that.’ He had a friend with whom he occasionally stayed overnight here, when the school had evening events arranged; and though he hadn’t involved Philip in this adventure, since it belonged exclusively to Abbot’s Bale, he knew he could pop in at the Mason home and ask to use the phone to call his mother. A telephone box, of course, would be a complete give-away. With luck he might not even have to let Philip into what he wanted to say, or turn him into an accomplice. Let him go on serenely believing that his friend was merely calling to let his mother know he’d be home by a later bus. While she, naturally, accepted the version that Philip’s mum had asked him to stay overnight and go with Philip to the birthday party of another classmate, here in Mottisham. With every possible safeguard, of course! Bossie had a rudimentary conscience where his friends were concerned, but it had elastic properties, too. So even if he had to let Philip into his deception, Philip could be terrorised into secrecy, and Philip’s mum would be entirely innocent.
‘Anybody got a torch on him?’ demanded Bossie, getting down to details. ‘And any lunch left? But I’ve got some money, I can buy a pie at Cough’s. And if you like to stop over one more bus, you can come along and help me find the right place to get inside the fence. It’s long enough, there must be half a dozen good places. And we know the layout now.’
He rubbed his hands, already in action.
‘But, lamb,’ protested Jenny mildly, blissfully unaware that she was talking rather to a tiger on the prowl, ‘you can’t just dump yourself on Mrs Mason without notice, like that. Now don’t kid me, I know she’d have called me before if she’d had any idea she was going to have to find you a bed.’
‘But, Mummy,’ fluted the distant voice of her offspring, ‘nobody expected me to be back at school today, that’s why. But I was, and so I could go with Philip, do you see? So can I, please? You know I’ll be all right here.’ That was a stab to the heart, signalling his awareness that his parents might well worry on his account, recent events considered.
‘Well, I know birthdays don’t occur every day, and can’t be shifted, but…’
‘Ask Dad, though,’ entreated Bossie.
‘Dad is off scouring the library for a reference he couldn’t find, you devil. It’s me you’re putting on the spot. And listen, you don’t know the whole of it! We’re expecting Toby tonight! He rang through early this morning from Comerbourne, they’ve got a three-day theatre stand there. You surely want to see Toby, don’t you?’
Dead silence and dismay on the line for a moment. Then the voice, very much chastened: ‘Oh, Mum, you know I do! But if he’s got three days… Look, you’ve got to tell him to come again. And we could go and see what they’re planning, couldn’t we? They want customers! I’d love that, I really would.’
Bossie was really aggrieved. Fate ought not to do such unkind things to him. His idol would arrive only to find himself deserted by his most faithful admirer. But he stuck to his guns. ‘Still, I would like to stay tonight. If I can?’
‘If Mrs Mason can put up with you, why should I complain?’ At least she knew he’d be under safe-conduct with the Masons. ‘All right, stay, and mind you make time to do your homework. And telephone tomorrow, to let us know you’re OK and on your way to school, you hear me?’
He heard. He said: ‘Yes, Mum!’ with unaccustomed docility, and rang off rather abruptly.
How he was going to get out of this, in the end, he didn’t know, but now he knew past any doubt that he was in it, up to the neck.
‘I don’t like it!’ said Ginger rebelliously at the last moment. ‘We ought to go with you, at least some of us. It isn’t right!’
‘Don’t be daft! One can get by, but if there was a crowd of us we’d be sure to get caught.’
‘We could hang around here, though, within call. If you were in trouble, you’d only have to yell.’
‘I’m not going to be in trouble, and I don’t want you hanging about, you’d attract attention, lurking about here in a quiet back lane like this. What you’ve got to do is get on the bus and go home, and keep everything looking normal, otherwise it’s all wasted. If I’m lucky, and find something out in time to nip out again before night, I will, and I’ll go straight home and tell them. I’m not looking for trouble, all I want is a chance to go over the ground without anyone else knowing, and then it’s up to the police. Now I’m going. And you’d better push off, too.’
And in the end, unhappily and reluctantly, they did as they were instructed. They were so used to thinking of him as the brains of the outfit that they feared to make any alteration to his planning, in case they wrecked the show. Ginger looked back from the bend in the lane. The loose pale in the tall manorial fence was back in position, there was no rustling or movement among the bushes of the shrubbery within. Bossie had vanished, with his pocket torch, borrowed from Philip Mason under fearful oaths of secrecy, his collection of left-over sandwiches, one apple, and a pork pie from Cough’s, in case he really had to stay out all night. Ginger shook his head forebodingly, and all the way home on the bus he said never a word, and even Spuggy Price caught the habit of silence, and stared glumly out of the window.