Where the Action Is
Where the Action Is |
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Half an hour later, Juliett and the Irvings arrived at the Folly area. They found the public call box on the side of the Old Coast Road, from where Clarence had called. Clarence was not there, so they went down to the Folly.
‘I wonder what he’s found. Maybe it’s the smugglers’ themselves, all cutlasses and things!’ said Max. Max was keen on old-fashioned smugglers and pirates. He always watched the films on television about them.
‘Oh, knowing him, it’s probably something quite trivial! He’s very impetuous, though, so I hope he hasn’t got into trouble,’ said Juliett. ‘I’m rather worried, he sounded as though it was a matter of life and death.’
Suddenly, as if to emphasise the point, a shot rang out. They all stood still and looked at each other in horror. Then Juliett rushed to the Folly, from whence the shot had come, Jack following close behind. And even as they ran, another shot shattered the still late afternoon air. Max and Impie dashed up, close on their heels, and so they arrived at the Folly to see a man standing there, holding a smoking gun. Another man, with a hard face, joined him. He spoke, and his voice was as hard as his face looked. They did not see the children.
‘Have you done it?’ he asked.
‘Yeah, no more trouble from him!’ said the first man.
Juliett let out a kind of cry. She couldn’t help it, she was afraid something awful had happened to her brother. The men whirled in their direction, and although the children crouched down in the bushes that surrounded the Folly, the men saw them.
‘They’ve seen us, get them!’ urged the hard-faced man. The first man ran towards them, waving his gun.
‘Stop where you are, or I fire!’
But they didn’t stop. They ran, and being younger than the man, they outran him. They ran into a small, overgrown clump of threes, and crouched in the undergrowth in a sort of bowl in the ground. The undergrowth was very thick, and it hid them. Crouched there, Jack whispered to Max: ‘Can you get out of here unseen?’
‘Yes,’ said Max, ‘there’s a secret path through the undergrowth.’
‘Well, take Impie with you and telephone the Police from that call box, and stay away from here for a while. We’ll try and join you up there later.’
‘All right, we’ll try. Come on, Impie, now!’
And the children crept off into the bushes, silently. Just as they went, the crooks came into the copse. They searched about, everywhere, or rather, nearly everywhere, but they did not find the girls or Max and Impie, who had gone.
‘I think they’ve gone,’ said one man, ‘but I know who they are. The three youngers are those kids who are staying up at Grey House, y’know, up on the cliffs there, an’ the other girl is the sister of that bloke in the Folly. Lord Thelstone’s kid.’
‘Well then,’ said the hard man, ‘we’ll get them later than, before they can tell on us. Come on, Bert’s waiting. Let’s go.’
Jack and Juliett sat in the bushes for a while, frozen, until the men had had time to get away. They they got up quietly and went out of the copse. They saw nothing of the men, and so they went to the Folly to see what had happened, dreading the worst. They stopped when they reached the door, afraid to enter, in a way knowing what they would see within. Then Juliett, unable to contain herself any longer, rushed through the door and then stopped short. She screamed. Jack entered the Folly then and she also froze with horror at what she saw.
Clarence was lying on the floor, surrounded by a pool of blood. He was obviously dead. Jack led Juliett gently back out of the Folly She felt sick from what she had seen. Juliett was almost fainting, and they sat down on the ground, crying.
Just at that moment, Max and Impie arrived with two policemen, who had been in a patrol car.
‘What’s the matter?’ cried Max when he saw them.
Jack just looked back, trying to speak, but she could not. Finally, she managed to say, ‘In …. in … the Folly …. Clarence …. Shot!’
The two policemen, hearing this, came up. Seeing the state the two girls were in they went straight into the Folly, and then gasped. There had not been a murder in their area since long before they joined the police force. They went over to where Clarence lay. One of them bent over him, and then straightened up a minute later. He shook his head.
‘Nothing we can do for him. He’s been shot through the heart. You’d better go back to the car and call the station, Fred. This is an important case!’
The glimmer of excitement in his eyes showed that he was rather enjoying this. He had never had a murder case before. Fred, the other policeman, went out of the door of the Folly at more than his usual speed, and ran up the hill to where the Police car was parked.
The first policeman, whose name was Constable Fairhead, also went out of the Folly to where Max, Impie and the girls were.
‘I’ll have to ask you questions about this, I’m afraid,’ he said.
Jack and Juliett just nodded. They felt too ill to do anything else but that. Max and Impie were still not sure what had happened, although they guessed that Clarence was dead, so they were very curious.
‘Now,’ said Constable Fairhead, ‘try to tell me what happened.’.
Jack swallowed once or twice, dried away a tear, and then, in a halting voice, told him what had happened.
As she finished telling him all she could, Fred returned.
‘I’ve radioed the Station,’ he said, ‘and the Inspector will be over, also the surgeon, and CID.’
Constable Fairhead turned to the children. ‘When the others come, we’ll take you back to the Station, and maybe you can help us. We’ll call your parents, and tell them what’s happened.’
‘B…but ….wh…what about Mum and Dad! They’ll have to b…be told about C….Clarence,’ stuttered Juliett.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Fred, ‘we’ll tell them.’
Even as he said this, the squad car carrying the Inspector and a detective, among others, was speeding to the spot from Thelstone.
