Part 4

Pamela went away to her own room and sat down in the low window-seat to puzzle out the position.

There was a girl in Bell Bay so like herself that two people who knew her well had been completely deceived, yet nobody had arrived in the cove--publicly. Indeed, there was no place for them to arrive at, without the inhabitants being aware.

"The queer part is," thought Pamela, "that nobody is worrying with curiosity, because whenever anyone sees her they think it's I, and naturally they don't notice any more. Whatever that girl does will be put on my shoulders, and I can't go and say she's there because I don't know."

She looked at the silver, clear, clean moon, riding so gaily up and up, and at the inky shadows of rocks away down on the white shining sand of the cove. Everything was painted black and white, and the ripple of the sea was a laughing whisper.

Pamela was used to this fairy scene in all sorts of phases, but to-night--probably because of the Mystery Girl--she felt as though something uncanny were abroad, and to shake herself free from the feeling she opened her precious handbook, and proceeded to search through it from end to end. "What should a person do--what would a Patrol Captain, or any experienced Guide do, if she found she had a 'double'? Practical information about making jam tins into candlesticks, or how to meet a mad dog! Splendid directions for camping and tracking--_tracking_!"

Pamela paused and thought about that. She studied the means for finding out a bicycle-track, what sort of bicycle--which way going. That might be useful if the girl rode a bicycle. Footprints might be followed up if she could be sure what sort of shoe the girl wore.

She shut up the book, and began to undress, gazing dreamily out at the moonshine all the time, utterly unconscious what that moonshine was to show her one night--in the near future.

Just before she went to sleep her mind fixed itself again on a previous idea. This business had surely got to do with Woodrising--with the strange motor-car--and with the secret visit of Sir Marmaduke Shard. She had no proof that he went that night to Woodrising, but she was perfectly certain he had done so. The first thing, of course, was to find out if anybody had come to Woodrising.

The next morning, warm, lovely--and far removed from any sort of mystery--arrived, in about five minutes. Mornings do arrive swiftly when you are thirteen and have been out sailing nearly all day before. Everything looked the same downstairs, and Pamela felt it difficult to believe she had a "double" and Bell Bay was the innocent scene of a surprising secret. She found that Christobel and Adrian were already planning a sail of some importance, and was met by a pressing invitation to go too.

"Where?" asked Pam lazily.

"Peterock. Addie wants his hair cut, and it can be cut at Peterock just as easily as Salterne. Besides, it's much nearer."

Christobel said this with intent, for though nearness was nothing to her and Adrian, she knew instinctively that her mother rather cherished the thought of their "keeping near home". So many people who have no experience of sailing believe that the safety is increased by keeping near land, whereas it is just as possible to drown in one fathom of water, as forty fathoms.

However, Christobel threw out the bait with purpose, and Mrs. Romilly, smiling happily, said:

"That would be nice, darlings. Won't you want lunch and tea on board? Ask Jeep for all you need."

Both Pam and Hughie excused themselves from this expedition. The day promised to be unusually hot and breathless, and Pamela, knowing exactly what it would be like, preferred a bathe and a book. Hughie wanted to test the new sails to his model boat.

This division of forces was so often practised that Mrs. Romilly took no notice. She was sure that the two elders could manage the yawl--and for the rest, a day in which there seemed to be neither wind nor waves, was very satisfying to her mind. Pamela liked being alone--she and Hughie spent hours in the cove contented and harmless. All would be well.

The morning wore on in peace, and about midday the voyagers went down, basket-laden, and very happy.

"It will be thunder," prophesied Pam, who was sitting on a low rock, with her back against another, learning certain enthralling rules by heart from a certain book, "it will be quite calm and oily, and presently you'll have a cracking storm. I feel it in my head. Glad I'm not going. Crow, do you remember the day when we couldn't get anywhere, and we threw the slices of beef overboard and they went with us for _miles_--sort of cheek by jowl, sitting on the sea."

"That was before the War," said Crow, evading the thought, "one doesn't have slices of meat now, of anything, thank goodness. Beef and ham pies would sink."

"Not before we've eaten them," put in Adrian calmly, "come along, Crow. I say, Pam--supposing we don't get to Peterock, but go to somewhere down coast beyond Ramsworthy, do you mind suggesting to Mother that we are playing on the sands at Netheroot or Tamerton? Either would do, 'fraid there'll be no wind for Salterne."

"Can you get your hair cut at Netheroot?" asked Pamela.

"No, don't suppose so; why?"

"Only because Mother likes to picture you on shore most of the time, when you go sailing, I mean--it's so nice and dry; and the sea is wet as wet can be! If there is a thunderstorm you'll go ashore, shan't you?"

"Like a shot," declared Adrian, as he pushed against the rocky landing platform, and drove the dinghy dancing over the breaking ripples.

Pamela watched, sleepily, as the boat made for the white yawl. She rejoiced that she had remained on land, when the sails went up under Addie's strenuous hauling, yet admired wholeheartedly as the flop of the moorings' buoy set free the yacht, and, leaning over very gently, she drifted broadside on towards Bell Ridge--the northern headland.

Even as she drifted, silent as a shadow, the far faint rumble of summer thunder murmured from inland, and Pam said "thought so" contentedly. After that she shut her eyes and reviewed a succession of plans; something ought to be done now she had a day to herself, or an afternoon at any rate, no one to ask inconvenient questions either, for Hughie being in the secret required but a hint. He was the most circumspect person living.

Sitting there with her eyes closed Pamela arranged a practical plan. She would go for a walk after lunch, on the pretext of taking her bicycle to Timothy Batt's house at Folly Ho. Timothy was the carrier, and lived with his old horse, at the very small hamlet on the Peterock road beyond the turn to the station--and also, of course, beyond Woodrising. She would leave the bicycle, and coming back she would take stock of that empty house, going round the big grounds encircled by the white wall. Surely something could be discovered that might help to elucidate this mystery.

The plan was excellent; when Pam and Hughie went in to dinner, she asked leave, and got it easily. Then came the thunderstorm--about which all details will be given presently--not only the details, but the results and consequences.

It was an exceedingly unusual and violent thunderstorm, frightening the household not a little; all except Pamela and Hughie, who for their own reasons did not mind in the least. Hughie wanted to test small boats in the water that rushed, seething, into the big horse-trough in the yard, and Pamela pictured footprints of a revealing nature, marking the wet soil all round Woodrising.

Good may come out of anything. And surely advantages might be expected from such rain as fell into Bell Bay on that afternoon.

Mrs. Romilly was certainly worried on account of the yawl, but Pamela told her what Addie had said about Netheroot or Tamerton. Also when the storm had passed she could see for herself that the water was hardly more rough. There was nothing to suggest danger. Later on the telegram came; but not till after Pamela had started off on her delayed walk.

She went after five-o'clock tea, into a wonderful washed world, where every plant, bush and hedge seemed to have been touched with a magic brush, and set in jewels. The sandy soil oozed beneath her feet, and rills of water streamed down the hill in winding gullies.

Pamela whistled softly to herself as she went; it was good to be alive on such an evening, and she felt very hopeful about her chances of making discoveries, chiefly because she felt so buoyantly cheerful.

Folly Ho was perhaps a mile from Bell Bay. Timothy Batt promised--or rather his wife promised for him--that the bicycle should go to Peterock next day but one. Next day was station day. Alternate journeys--Five Trees and Peterock.

"Pity we didn't have it this morning, missie, Batt's gone to Peterock to-day."

Pamela said "never mind", and meant it. Her object was Woodrising.

She sped back along the wet road with eager haste, and checked not till she came to the long hill, and the white wall enclosing those thickly wooded grounds and white buildings. Then she did what she had planned to do--got through the hedge on to the wooded hill above Woodrising, made her way down slowly through the trees till she reached the barrier wall, and then began to follow the course of the wall round the whole of the little estate. She believed there would be some chance, which she could make use of, either to get in, or see in, for surely there must be outlets! Gates, or gaps, or ladders, or something that could be made use of.

However, she went round two sides of it--the wall at the top, and the long side wall down the hill--and found no opportunity. She knew too that she must not count on the wall edging the road, because no burglar even could attempt its slippery height. That was three sides! She was thinking of this, and that she might never see more than the top windows, slate roof, and chimneys of the tantalizing house, when she came on a ladder--a short ladder set conveniently up against the wall--positively inviting her to mount it.

She went up cautiously and looked over. It was at the corner, in the angles of the side and lower walls, and she saw that within was a high rubbish heap that obviously formed a bed for vegetable marrows. Heaped-up straw mould, and softness--the easiest thing in the world to jump down on to. But that was rather an extreme measure, so Pamela went back down three steps and considered the question.

Then she observed that the glass at this point was crushed and scraped till the wall top was smooth enough to pass with comfort. One might have supposed that someone made a practice of getting over just here; Pamela's mind leaped to the thought of Peter Cherry, the boy--it would of course be his quickest way home to the Temperance Tea House. No doubt a secret way.

She went up again and viewed the grounds. Immediately below were the kitchen-gardens--beyond that vistas of long shrubbery walks--lawns, fruit trees--every sort of tree, and everything overgrown and run riot. There was a wild luxuriance about the whole place which was natural to Bell Bay and its sheltered warmth. No one seemed to be about.

After a few minutes' hesitation, Pamela went "over the top" with a swift movement, and jumped down on to the vegetable-marrow bed. It was damp and soft. Pausing to reconnoitre she noticed two bricks missing in the wall on the inner side. The holes had all the appearance of steps made on purpose, and confirmed her opinion about Peter Cherry's short cut.

Then she went into the garden, making for the shelter of the nearest shrubbery. Keeping out of sight of window view she followed the paths in and out towards the house. Everywhere she looked for "tracks", for footmarks in the wet soil, and was pleased when she found the trace of a shortish square-toed boot with nail-studded sole. Certainly Peter Cherry! She felt she was getting on in experience. So absorbed was she that she confused the bush fringed paths, and got mixed up as to which she had inspected. Then, she came on the neat, narrow print of a woman's shoe, and stooped to examine it with intense interest. Here was a plain track, and she followed it some yards between overhanging, very wet apple-trees, till it turned the corner into a cross path. Pamela stopped and looked up and down. Surely she had been this way before. She looked back between the green walls and felt certain the look of it was familiar. A thought struck her and she slipped off one of her own shoes, and compared the sole to the shoe print. Either it was her own track--which she was crossing unawares--or somebody else wore exactly the same sized shoe. It was a maddening dilemma.

She was puzzling over this when she became aware of voices, not far distant, and coming nearer--from the house. Somebody was talking in what Pamela would have described as a "fussy voice". She stood listening, and might have been caught on that instant if the talkers had glanced down between the apple-trees, for two figures passed across the end of the alley she was in, and went on towards the kitchen-garden.

Pamela made up her mind to see who they were, and looked about eagerly for a safe shelter. She reasoned that they would go round the bottom of the garden and back up the south side, so she hastened in the direction of the house, where very thick-growing shrubberies offered screens, and hid herself in the wettest possible bushes by the side of a direct path homeward.

Certainly ten minutes passed before anyone drew near. Then she was rewarded for her damp condition. Two women came along, talking. That is to say, one talked--never ceased to talk. The other, the silent one, was Mrs. Trewby, and she, looking as bilious and despondent as usual, listened with respectful misery stamped on her sallow face.

The person who did the talking puzzled Pamela's sharp examination. She was familiar, yet difficult to place. After they had passed, and the fussy voice chattered on, growing less audible, Pamela suddenly remembered who she was--Mrs. Chipman, Lady Shard's one-time lady's maid, and a well-known person at Crown Hill for some years. Her name had been Emily Baker in those days, when she was just as fussy and talkative. She married the butler at the Albert Gate house in London, and kept a lodging-house on the east coast. The War had done for the lodging-house, and the butler was slain by sickness in India. She had a pension and no doubt Lady Shard was kind to "my good Chipman", as she called her.

Pamela could just remember her at Crown Hill; now, she looked fatter, more dumpy, and more pompous, otherwise just the same. This discovery was a blow, because it was a simple explanation of the visitor to Woodrising--Chipman, sent down to stay with Mrs. Trewby, at the Shards' expense. Of course, but how dull! The girl could have nothing on earth to do with them.

As Pamela shook the wet off her skirt, she realized that she had been so intent on trying to remember Chipman that she never listened to a word she was saying. Rather depressed, she went back along the path to the corner, and as she went she heard Mrs. Chipman calling--"Countess--_Countess_."

"If they are going to let a _dog_ out I'd better run," thought Pamela; and she went over the wall briskly, into the wooded meadow.

*CHAPTER V*

*The Adventures of the Yawl and her Crew*

To go back to the start of the white yawl. After the mooring-buoy had "plopped" into the smooth sea, the sails half-filled, and then, as the pretty craft righted herself, they slackened again in a succession of sleepy rattles. Then followed a period of drifting to leeward, the dinghy drifting also, and bumping softly against the yacht's counter in a stupid manner.

Adrian flung himself on the deck and mopped his forehead; he said:

"I wonder why Mother always rejoices when there is no wind. It doesn't appeal to me as a desirable state of things. Pam looks jolly comfortable over there--wish I was in her place! I say, Crow, don't say we're going to play the fool like this all day."

"Why say anything in such a very short space of time, dear boy," retorted the skipper lazily; "we've hardly started--isn't that thunder, hark?"

"It is thunder, my good woman," allowed Adrian, "which means growlings, heat and stickiness immeasurable. Don't give way to optimistic hopes and picture--first a gentle cooling shower, and then a sweet little breeze that will waft us to Peterock without a tack."

Christobel, obstinately happy, lay back in a comfortable position with one arm thrown over the tiller. Suddenly she sat up. A queer little breeze had dropped upon them from the heights. The slack sails filled, the yawl leaned gently to leeward and, with ever-increasing speed, began to cut steadily through the glassy heaving sea. Straight out they went--out and out into the world of blue--the cordage strained and creaked, the hard sails pulled, and _Messenger_ sped through the water with a delicious bubbling hiss.

"How's that, umpire?" demanded Crow, turning a smiling glance on Adrian, "kindly remember next time occasion rises, that it's never worth while looking on the dark side."

"The hot side, you mean," said Adrian unabashed, "where are we going now?"

"Out," answered his sister briefly.

"Good. Let's get away from our native land for a bit--it's stuffy. Besides I want to look at it from a distance, it enlarges one's mind."

So Christobel, like the master mariner in "The Wreck of the Hesperus", "steered for the open sea", and Adrian, whose appetite was enlarging as well as his mind, decided that dinner was of more importance than anything else, and diving into the saloon began fetching up plates, food, cups and lemonade; as _Messenger_ was on an even keel, and the breeze held, the conditions were ideal and there was nothing to worry about. As they ate, they planned the excursion with precision. They were going out, but the ebbing tide was carrying them northward--Peterock way, that is to say; presently they would tack, and from a distance of some seven miles set a straight course on a "soldier's wind" for the pretty town. They fixed the hour at which they would arrive, how long they would stop, and how short a time it would take them to get back--under the very satisfactory conditions of fair tide and fair wind.

As a rule, this is the way of all ways to upset everything; and to-day the rule held good.

First the wind dropped--dropped--and ceased. One moment the sails were drawing with firm pressure; actually the next moment they hung limp--not a cord stirring. At the same time, as Crow said, "someone blew the candle out".

As it happened she gave an exclamation and looked up. A bank of dense black cloud had covered the high sun that had shone upon them till then. The sky was divided in two by a distinct line. To seaward, blue, clear, exquisite. To landward and above the vivid broken coast hung massed clouds of most fearsome appearance. Clouds above clouds--the lowest, greyish battalions tearing along at headlong speed; above them others of purple black, moving statelily at a different angle; above them again piled heaps of strange shapes, shot and lined with coppery tints. These were moving at a different pace, and in a different direction.

As far as eye could see over the hilly land was black. And the black was devouring the sunny blue.

Christobel looked up, round, and landward. Then she said in rather a small voice:

"How _horrid_!" and turned her eyes seaward.

Adrian contemplated the heavens with a frown, then he got up, saying one might as well put away the things. He put them away, and incidentally made everything snug inside; nothing was left loose to shift or roll.

Christobel heard him doing it and guessed that he expected it would be necessary.

Presently he came up the short companion-way, put his head out and stared at the sky again. The line of black was advancing swiftly over the blue.

"We shall have big rain, old lady," he said. "I don't know how much wind! Of course, it's only thunder, but----"

Low down over the hills shot out a succession of wicked fiery darts. They stabbed downwards into the quiet land as though they would destroy it. Deep ominous rumblings followed.

"I think I rather hate it," said Crow uneasily.

"I'll get the mackintoshes out of the fore lockers, expect we shall find a use for them before we are through with this beano! You'll have to put yours on," Adrian said, then he laughed. "When it comes, it'll _come_."

Then they both laughed, and Christobel as usual found support and comfort in her brother's matter-of-fact way of looking at things. She was no coward. Her courage was of a high order, though she was not aware of it, but certain conditions affected her imagination and made icy thrills run all over her.

Adrian would have said "It's only a few clouds--what does that matter?" Equally he would have said of a dark night and its mysteries, "If it were daylight you wouldn't mind! What's the difference? There's nothing there."

While she gazed at the towering masses that hung over sea and land with dread in her eyes, Adrian thought about mackintoshes.

"When the rain comes I shan't mind," said Crow, "rain is only--well, rain."

"How true," murmured Adrian, "and being rain it wets."

They both laughed again, and the skipper felt better.

But even Addie was quite silent before the wetting part came.

The land was invisible now, except when those stabs of flame tore splits in the barrier; then the two watchers could see the dark breathless combes and the big headlands showing black and rugged. But it seemed as though there was no end to the piling weight of cloud that now almost covered the sea, the vivid contrast of the blue space over the shining horizon making it the darker. The growlings and rumblings had now turned to crashes, the noise adding to the dread.

At this phase Adrian questioned whether it would not be well to get the mainsail in--it would be so wet, he suggested, and they could do with the mizzen well enough; but Christobel did not agree.

"If the wind is bad we can drop the peak," she said, "after all it's not like a cutter mainsail--they are so huge. We've only just enough to send us along nicely. Besides, once we stow it it will take ages to set again. Let's risk it."

So they decided to "risk it", which was an instance of Crow's way of looking at things. She was not afraid to face a possible gale--but she was horribly afraid of the look--the influence--of that overwhelming pile of gloomy cloud.

"I wonder how many 'volts' are playing skittles up there," remarked Adrian thoughtfully, "great Scotland! If one knew how to box it all up and use it for transport power--engines of every sort and kind! Why can't I invent something! It ought to be a British monopoly--we could switch it on to any nations that played the fool--and there we should be---- Hullo--see that tender drop, Crow? A wash-hand basin would hardly have held it--put this thing on."

"This thing" was, of course, the mackintosh.

The brother and sister were busy for a few seconds, then they sat down again armoured--in sticky, shiny oilskins, and sou'westers well drawn over their ears.

"Go inside, Addie, why should two swim?" said Crow, speaking loud through the deafening riot of crashes.

"Oh no," shouted Adrian with weighty sarcasm, "I'll go to bed, and light the stove, and tuck myself up with a hot-water bottle; better still, you could leave the tiller and tuck me up! By the way, that reminds me--aren't you about fed up with steering?"

Crow shook her head, and spread both hands out with a meaning gesture--only her elbow stayed the tiller in place.