CHAPTER VII

TIN-TACKS

That night, Warrender was unusually wakeful. As a rule he slept as soundly as his companions; but now and then, when he had anything on his mind, he wooed sleep in vain. The strange incidents of the past two days had affected him more, psychologically, than either of the others. Armstrong, as soon as his doubts were removed, would suffer no more mental disturbance until something fresh, outside his experience, again upset his balance; while Pratt was one of those happy souls to whom life itself is a perpetual joy, and events only the changing patterns of a kaleidoscope.

Envying the two placid forms stretched on either side of him, Warrender was trying to grope his way through the labyrinth of mystery in which they seemed to have been caught, when he was surprised by a sudden slight rattling sound upon the tent, like the patter of small hailstones; it ceased in a second or two. The night had been fine, without any warning of a change of weather; the air was still; it seemed strange that a storm could have risen so rapidly, without a premonitory wind. His companions had evidently not been awakened. Moving carefully, so as not to disturb them, he crept across to the flap of the tent, and looked out. The stars glittered in a vault of unbroken blue; the tree-tops were silvered by the sinking moon; not a wisp of cloud streaked the firmament.

There was no repetition of the sound, and Warrender, thinking that he must, after all, have been dreaming, returned to his sleeping-bag. As often happens in cases of insomnia, the slight exertion of walking had the effect of inducing sleep, and he woke no more until morning.

Armstrong, as usual the first to rise, clutched his towel, and sallied forth barefoot for his dip. He had no sooner passed into the open, however, than he uttered what, with some exaggeration Pratt called a fiendish yell. Hurrying out to learn the cause of it, the others saw him standing on one foot and rubbing the sole of the other.

"Which of you blighters dropped a tin-tack here?" he asked.

"Got a puncture, old man?" said Pratt, sympathetically. "Your skin's pretty tough, luckily. Now, if it had been me--ough!"

He, too, hopped on one foot, and crooked the other leg, his face contorted for a moment out of its wonted cherubic calm.

"Told you so," he cried, picking a blue tack from between his toes. "I'm a very sensitive plant, I can tell you. I see blood. Warrender, I'd have yours if you weren't such a thundering big lout."

"Not guilty," said Warrender, who had prudently stood still. "You had better both come and put your boots on. We haven't any tacks in our outfit, so--I say!"

"What do you say?" said Pratt.

"Last night I heard a sound like a sharp shower of rain or hail on the tent. Just wait till I pull my boots on."

In half a minute he was out again, shod, and began to examine the grass around the tent.

"As I thought," he said. "There's a regular battalion of the beastly things; another trick of that blackguard Rush, no doubt. He's trying frightfulness."

"I'll wring his neck if I catch him," cried Armstrong.

"No, you don't, my son," said Pratt. "The law would say 'neck for neck,' I'm afraid. I shouldn't object to your blacking his eyes. But when you come to think of it, perhaps Rush isn't the culprit after all. We've never seen him on this side of the channel. It may have been the other fellow."

"What's clear is that some one is making a dead set at us," said Warrender, "and I don't like it. It will mean our moving camp."

"You surely won't let this sort of thing drive you away?" said Armstrong.

"What's to be done, then? They first monkey with the boat--by Jove! they may have cut her loose again."

"No, I spy her nose," said Pratt. "They believe in variety, evidently. But I quite agree with you. We shall always have to leave one on guard, and that will spoil the trio. Two's company, three's fun. All the same, the position is so jolly interesting that I shouldn't like to go right away and leave the mystery unsolved--I mean their objection to our company. We haven't had the cold shoulder anywhere else; and here, first old Crawshay, then these unknown--look here, you fellows, I vote we take the job up in earnest, and get to the bottom of it. It will alter the Arcadian simplicity of our holiday, but for my part I'd risk any amount of brain fag over a good jigsaw puzzle like this."

"We'll think it over," said Warrender. "The principal thing is not to lose my boat, and the hundred odd pounds she cost."

On their way down to the river, Pratt espied a greyish object sticking in a bush. Shaking it down, he picked up a broken cardboard box on which was printed a description of "Best quality tin-tacks: British made."

"A clue!" he cried. "Sherlock Holmes would have built a whole theory on this. I don't think I was cut out for diplomacy after all. Criminal investigation is my forte. I'll go down to remote posterity as the most brilliant detective of this Pratt lost no time in taking a first step in his new career. At breakfast Warrender suggested that the tent had better be removed from its surrounding of tacks, which were too numerous to be easily collected.

"Very well," said Pratt. "You and Armstrong are the hefty men. You won't want my help, so I'll scull the dinghy up to the ferry, and start my investigations."

"Don't talk too much," said Armstrong.

"My dear chap, speech was given us to conceal thought. There's an art, some ancient said, in concealing art, and I bet I'd say more and tell less than any old Prime Minister that ever lived."

Leaving the dinghy in charge of the ferryman, he smiled a greeting to Rogers, the innkeeper, whose jolly face he caught sight of at the window, walked on to the village, and entered the general dealer's shop.

"Fine morning," he said to the aproned youth in attendance. "D'you happen to have any tenpenny nails?"

"We've got some nails three a penny, sir."

"No good at all. You couldn't hang a pirate on one of those, I'm sure. I suppose the tenpenny nail has gone out of fashion, but perhaps you have some tin-tacks. I dare say they'll do as well."

"Ay, we've got some tin-tacks--two sorts, white and blue."

"Not red?"

"No; I don't know as ever I seed 'em red."

"Well, I particularly wanted red; they don't show their blushes, you know. If you haven't, you haven't. I'll try blue; they won't look any bluer however hard you hit 'em." The assistant, staring at him like an amazed ox, handed him a box. "Yes," he went on, "now I look at them, I couldn't wish for better. They're a most admirable shade of blue, and exactly match my Sunday socks. I don't suppose there's much demand for 'em; my hosier assured me my socks were a very special line, so, of course, there couldn't be many people wanting tacks of that colour. I dare say you haven't sold a box of these since last season."

"Ah, but we have," said the simple youth, catching at something at last within his comprehension. "Only yesterday one of they furriners up at Red House bought three boxes."

"You don't say so! What an appetite he must have! I suppose it was that big fellow who talks through his nose? He wears a red waistcoat, so I dare say he has blue socks."

"It warn't him. He's the groom. 'Twas the gardener chap."

"Of course. What was I thinking of? He wanted them to tack up his vines. They wouldn't be any good for horse-shoes, and there's no question of socks at all. You needn't wrap it up, the box won't catch cold in my pocket. Sixpence ha'penny? Dirt cheap. I think they're worth quite a guinea a box, but you daren't charge that, of course, or they would haul you up as profiteers. Thanks so much."

He had noticed that the full box exactly matched the broken one taken from the bush.

Elated at the success of his first move, Pratt returned at once to the camp.

"You're soon back," said Warrender. "Changed your mind again?"

"Not a bit. I'm inclined to think diplomats and detectives are of one kidney. I've been magnificently diplomatic, and I've made a discovery."

"Well?"

"My old uncle's as mad as a hatter!"

"A family failing," Armstrong remarked. "But what's that to do with it?"

"Why, this, old tomato. He employs a lot of foreigners; that's mad, to begin with. He goes away, and leaves them in the house with instructions to sow tin-tacks on No Man's Island. If that isn't stark madness, I'd like to know what is."

"Hadn't you better tell us plainly what you've been about?" said Warrender.

"In words of one syllable. I bought a box of tin-tacks. Here it is, and here's the one we found in the bush. You see, they're twins. They were bought at the same shop, to wit, the one owned by Samuel Blevins, general dealer and banjoist, I understand. My uncle's gardener bought three yesterday. Now, I ask you, would any man's gardener sprinkle inoffensive campers with tin-tacks unless instructed to? It's all as plain as a pikestaff. My mad uncle has a morbid horror of trespassers. He leaves word that they are to be chevied away by means fair or foul----"

"But No Man's Island isn't his," Warrender interrupted.

"Certainly. That proves his madness. He thinks anybody who gets a footing here has designs on his property. It's a sort of Heligoland. He employs an ex-poacher to guard his own domains, and the foreigners to clear his outpost. Nothing could be plainer."

"Rot!" exclaimed Armstrong.

"Have it your own way. The facts are undeniable. Rush and the foreigners are in league to get rid of us, and they can't have any motive except their master's interest."

"We don't know that," said Warrender. "Your imagination runs too fast, young man. We don't even know for certain that Rush and the foreigners are working together. All we really know is that some one wants to make the place too uncomfortable for us. The question is, what shall we do?"

"Stick it," said Armstrong. "It means keeping watch by night; we can take turns at that. We'll soon find out if----"

"Ahoy, there!" cried a voice from the river.

Unperceived, a skiff had run in under the bank, and its occupant, a stout old gentleman in flannels, was stepping ashore.

"Old Crawshay!" murmured Pratt.

They got up to meet their visitor.

"Good-morning, my lads," said he, genially. "Surprised to see me, I dare say. We didn't part on the best of terms, but--well, let's shake hands and forget all about that. My daughter told me that you very kindly came to her assistance the other day. I'm obliged to you. I'm only sorry it didn't happen before we--but there, that's wiped up, isn't it? If you knew how I'd been pestered! By the way, one of you is related to my neighbour across the river, I understand."

"Yes, sir, that's me," said Pratt. "We're not on calling terms, though."

"Neither am I," rejoined Mr. Crawshay, with a smile. "We don't hit it together. He's a little----"

"Potty, sir," said Pratt, as the old gentleman caught himself up. "It's a sore trial to the rest of the family. We were only talking about his distressing affliction just before you came. He really ought to be shut up."

"Indeed! I wasn't aware that it was as bad as that. That is certainly very distressing."

"A most unusual form of mania, too. I never heard anything like it before. Of course, there are people who crab their own country and countrymen, but it's more talk than anything else. My poor uncle, however, goes so far as to employ foreigners, who stick tin-tacks into people."

"Bless my soul!"

"Pratt draws the long bow, sir," said Warrender, thinking it time to intervene.

"And hits the bull's-eye every time," Pratt rejoined. "You can't deny that twenty yards away the grass is simply bristling with tin-tacks."

"The fact is, sir," said Warrender, "that some one is trying to annoy us. Yesterday morning our motor-boat was set adrift, and in the night some one showered a lot of tin-tacks round our tent. The motive seems to be the wish to drive us away. And Pratt thinks that his uncle gave instructions to the men at the house to prevent camping either on his ground or on the island. They've chosen a very annoying way of going about it."

"Outrageous! Scandalous!" cried Mr. Crawshay. "He has no rights on the island. It's criminal. I'm a magistrate, and I'll issue you a warrant against the ruffians."

"The difficulty is that we haven't caught any one in the act," Warrender pursued. "I believe that warrants can't be anonymous. We've seen a fellow named Rush hanging about----"

"A notorious gaol-bird. I've had my eye on him."

"But the tacks were bought at Blevins's shop by my uncle's gardener," said Pratt. "I pumped that out this morning. I dare say we could find out the man's name."

"But it's no crime to buy tin-tacks," said Warrender. "We don't know who actually scattered them. Indeed, we've no evidence at all; only inferences."

"Nothing to act on, certainly," said Mr. Crawshay. "It seems to me you had better cross the river, and camp on my ground after all; or, better still, come to the house; I've plenty of room."

"It's jolly good of you, sir," said Warrender, "but it goes against the grain to knuckle under. We'd like to catch the fellows, and find out, if we can, what their game really is. I don't think even Pratt believes his uncle is responsible, even indirectly."

"Not responsible for his actions, unfit to plead, to be detained during His Majesty's pleasure," said Pratt. "We talked it over, and decided to stick it, sir. It's a matter of pride with me. I'm thinking of taking up criminal investigation as a profession."

"Indeed!"

"He's just cackling, sir," said Armstrong, impelled to utterance at last.

"I suspected as much. Well, you've made up your minds, I see. I understand. At your age I should have done the same. If you want any help, you've only to row across the river. My house is about half a mile through the woods and across a field. You must come up one day in any case, and have lunch or dinner with me, and discuss the situation. And, by the way, if you're fond of shooting, my coverts are positively overstocked. I can provide guns, and you're welcome to 'em."

"Many thanks indeed, sir," said Warrender.

"And you'll keep me informed? I'll take action the moment you have evidence. It's atrocious."

They escorted him to his boat, gave him a shove off, and watched him until he was out of sight. Returning to the tent, Pratt remarked--

"D. Crawshay seems to be a dashed good sort after all."