‘No!’ I told him. ‘Absolutely not. Donald, you are responsible for getting all these little ones safely inside, do you hear me?’
‘Aye,’ said Donald. ‘Will I tell my daddy that the demon -’
‘Tell him that Willie Brown killed your uncle Robert and he’s trying to run away.’ Donald nodded, already shepherding the smallest brothers and Lila before him.
‘Come on then,’ I said and, taking Randall’s hand firmly in my own, I led him and Alec back into the trees.
‘You’re telling the truth about this?’ said Alec to Randall.
‘They always were,’ I said. ‘A demon, Randall, wasn’t it? A bad man with a bottle of the demon drink went into Auntie Chrissie’s house when no one was there?’ Randall’s head was nodding furiously.
‘He shouted that he’d come back and kill us in oor beds if we telt on him,’ said Randall in a voice struggling with the bravado of a ten-year-old boy who fears nothing and the horror of a small boy, only ten years old, who wants to run to his mother’s knee. ‘But Lila telt Daddy and Daddy said he was real.’ I tightened my grip on his sweaty little hand.
‘Monster,’ Alec whispered.
‘And the ghost of the soldier who was living in the den until Lila’s accident there?’ I said to Randall. ‘He was real too.’
‘Aye,’ said Randall. ‘But he wid nivver hurt us.’ There was a pause. ‘He’s like a ghostie doon the shell holes.’
I felt a shiver run through me from head to toe and I was aware of Alec moving in a little closer towards me. If the demon and the soldier were flesh and blood, then what were we to make of these holes that we were heading straight towards, not to mention the ghosties that lived in them? We hurried on, silent except for the quick thump of our steps on the soft forest floor.
It almost beggars belief, but so intent were we on our progress, threading our way as quickly and quietly as possible through the trees, that we heard nothing and one can only assume that the same was true for him, for the first we knew of Shinie Brown was the sudden flash as he flitted across our path not twenty feet in front. Randall and I both shrieked and at that Brown broke into a run and began crashing forward, all thoughts of stealth abandoned. Alec took off after him like a hound. I hesitated for a second and looked at Randall, who looked back at me, then of one mind we plunged into the trees.
Covering the ground more rapidly than I could have believed – Randall was, of course, as fit as a flea and there was no way I could hold him back and no way on earth that I would let him go – we were at Alec’s heels in an instant, Shinie Brown ten yards ahead of us and going strong. We were gaining on him all the time, though; he was struggling through thickets of bramble leaving it clear for us behind him. He was darting and twisting looking for a path and we could save seconds following. And as well, most curiously, he was not only running, but was also shrugging himself out of his jacket, ripping off his shirt, as he raced on. At first I thought he was caught on thorns and would leave the things behind him, but he held on to them as he ran, and with his shirt off he began to struggle out of his braces too.
‘What’s he doing?’ I panted.
Shinie threw a desperate glance over his shoulder at us. He stopped running. Then, just as suddenly, he was off again. He had changed direction. Now he was making his way to the right, to the west, out of the woods. We surged after him. It was easier going now, heading out of the trees, but all that meant was that Shinie started to pull away. We passed his coat on the ground and then his shirt and, unencumbered, arms pumping like pistons, he sprinted ahead. By the time we gained the edge of the park he was across the ha-ha and well on his way to the castle rise. I kicked off my shoes and, ignoring my burning lungs, trusting that the jellied muscles in my legs would keep working even though I could no longer feel them, I let Randall pull me along, concentrating hard on Alec’s back and refusing to think. We saw Shinie Brown scale the slope, digging his hobnailed boots into the glossy grass, and then unbelievably we saw him wrench the door open and disappear.
‘They didn’t,’ I managed to pant on one breath. I could not believe it, even of Buttercup and Cad. They had a door of oak so thick I could hardly move the thing on its hinges and yet, knowing there was a murderer on the loose, they had not locked it. And now he was in there with them.
Reaching the start of the slope, Alec dug into Brown’s footsteps and, slipping a little in his light shoes, he scrambled up. Randall and I dropped to our hands and knees and crawled after him. At the top, Alec tugged on the iron handle of the door but could not budge it.
‘He’s locked them in with him,’ I wailed and began to pound on the door. ‘Buttercup! Buttercup, can you hear me?’
From deep inside the castle there was a shuddering clang. I clutched Alec’s arm and pulled Randall in close behind me.
‘Was that a shot?’ Alec said, thundering his fists on the door.
At that moment, the sound of a police klaxon came clearly across the park from the woods and, as we turned to look for it, the iron bar scraped and the door swung open behind us. We reeled round again and gaped.
There was Cad, beaming from ear to ear, and twirling an enormous sword like a showman with a silver-topped cane.
‘We got him,’ he said. Alec and I rushed inside with Randall at our heels and made for the staircase.
‘This way,’ said Cad, at the kitchen doorway. ‘In here, of course.’
In the kitchen, Buttercup and Mrs Murdoch stood arm-in-arm and panting, leaning on two more swords as though they were rolled umbrellas. From the doorway in the corner we could hear the faint scrabbling sounds of Shinie Brown trying in vain to climb the slick walls of the oubliette.
‘We saw him coming,’ said Cad. ‘We were watching for him. Only he didn’t see us through the arrow slits, of course.’
‘And Mrs Murdoch was waiting in here,’ said Buttercup. ‘In there, you know, at the back, in the dark, with the grille open.’
‘And when he got too close to see,’ went on Cad, ‘we stood in the Great Hall doorway and watched him through the murder hole.’
‘To see if he would come up the stairs or go straight to the kitchen.’
‘And he came up the stairs. So we hid.’
‘In the fireplace, behind the fire. He couldn’t see us, standing behind the light.’
‘And we waited and waited and waited.’
‘And then, when he went back downstairs at last…’
‘We followed him, with our swords.’
‘And he went into the kitchen and Mrs Murdoch made a little whimpering noise as we had agreed she would.’
‘And he come right over like a salmon on hook,’ said Mrs Murdoch. ‘He lookit in and saw me, but he didnae look down. Well, you dinnae, dae ye?’
‘He just stepped towards you, didn’t he, Mrs Murdoch?’ said Buttercup.
‘And down he went,’ said Cad. ‘And then clang!’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘So we heard.’
‘I think an apology is in order, Dandy,’ said Buttercup.
‘For what?’ I asked.
‘For telling us we were silly,’ she said. ‘Or at least for thinking it and for all the smirking. You said this castle was impractical. Impractical. Huh!’
‘Is he all right?’ said Alec, as the sound of the police motor car stopping and doors slamming shut came from outside.
‘He’s fine,’ said Cad. ‘Come and see.’
In the oubliette, with the grille firmly closed and a barrel resting on top of it just in case, Shinie Brown stood defiantly in his string vest with his braces hanging down and stared up at us.
‘Ye’re a very bad man,’ shouted Randall, which pretty much summed things up for me.
Chapter Eighteen
There was close to a party atmosphere in Mrs Murdoch’s kitchen once Brown had departed with a sergeant and two constables; except that Buttercup had only got as far as uncorking the cherry brandy when Flaming Donald Lamont arrived in search of his son. She finessed the bottle and corkscrew into a convenient breadbin with a sleight of hand born of many speakeasy raids and Mrs Murdoch put the kettle on instead. I noticed, nevertheless, that a good slop of something went into our cups which did not go into Donald’s (Mrs Murdoch’s broad back hiding the operation from all except me) and when I took a tentative sip I felt as though a hole had opened in the top of my head and let out a jet of steam.