Tom Tiddler's Island, стр. 22

“If I said nothing,” Hazel continued, rather reluctantly, as though she now regretted that she had begun, “you might feel—well, mystified, and perhaps a trifle worried by the look of things. There’s nothing to worry about, really. It’s just a kind of kink my uncle’s got.”

At this point Colin’s ear detected less amusement and more vexation in her tone.

“There’s no madness in our family,” Hazel assured them ironically. “But in the last few years my uncle seems to have got a sort of quirk. It started with his fitting our house in London with burglar-alarms. Then more burglar-alarms, until locking up for the night became a regular toil, what with pulling this bolt and pushing that button, and setting something else. And, of course, they all had to be taken off before one could open a window or a door. It was about if one wanted as complicated as escaping from the Bastille, if one wanted to go out in the morning.”

She shrugged her shoulders in thinly-veiled contempt.

“Then he imported Beeston to live in the house—to give him more confidence, I suppose. And a while after that, Zelensky was taken on as a night-watchman. And now we’ve got Natorp, and on top of him the wolf-hound. I wish my jewellery justified all the fuss! It doesn’t, worse luck. My own impression is that it all started with a little fussiness on my uncle’s part, and it’s grown and grown, just by thinking about it. Anyhow, you needn’t worry. Zelensky and Natorp are no company, but there’s no harm in them. They’re just there so that my uncle can sleep quietly in his bed.”

A thought seemed to cross her mind and she laughed gently.

“It is a nuisance, though,” she admitted rather ruefully. “The night before last we had a full-dress rehearsal: everybody waking up and rushing about in the middle of the night, doors banging, the wolf-hound loosed, my uncle in a fearful state brandishing a revolver and telling me to stay in my room. Poor Peter completely bewildered by it all and determined to lay down his life to protect me—such growls! And then, in the morning, it all turns out to be a false alarm. Nothing in it at all. But it unsettled my uncle thoroughly; and as a result he posted Natorp at the gate.”

“ ‘Most disturbing,’ as Jeeves says,” Colin commented in what he hoped was a light tone.

Hazel Arrow had evidently swallowed the tale of a false alarm without the slightest suspicion; but Colin knew too much about the night before last to be taken in so readily. This new evidence hinged too neatly on to what he had learned independently; the false alarm notion was clever enough, but it cut no ice with Colin.

His glance flickered momentarily to Northfleet’s face, but he could read nothing there. Northfleet seemed intent on the girl opposite him, and at the close of her tale he nodded slightly, as though he entirely shared her views about the affair.

“Well, that’s the family skeleton,” Hazel concluded. “I hope it’s made your flesh creep. Honestly, you mustn’t let yourselves think any more about it. It’s just my uncle’s silliness. And quite likely that false alarm was a put-up job on the part of our two Bogey Men. They may have wanted to give my uncle a run for his money and suggest that they were really earning their pay by facing awful dangers. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

Much to Colin’s relief, Jean evidently accepted Hazel’s view of the affair.

“It sounds like something straight from Hollywood, doesn’t it?” she suggested, lightly. “I’m glad you told me all about it, for I was really just a wee bit taken aback by the reception we got at Heather Lodge that morning. It didn’t err on the side of effusive hospitality, to put it plainly. But it’s all right now that one knows what’s what. I’m nervous myself, at times, and I’ve got a fellow-feeling for your uncle about his precautions. Unless I knew our front door was locked at night I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink. I’d be imagining all sorts of things. Why, it’s silly, but I’d hate to sleep on the ground floor. Somehow it seems safer to be upstairs. Anyhow, after this, I shan’t worry even if one of your Bogey Men springs up from behind a rock and shouts: ‘Hands up!’ or ‘Stand and deliver,’ or whatever it is that they do say.”

Hazel seemed relieved that Jean had taken the matter in this way.

“My uncle is really right over the score,” she admitted frankly. “But so long as his fads don’t worry you, it’s all right, I suppose.”

“Well, you may have armed guards and so forth,” Jean retorted, “but Wester Voe can keep its end up too. We’ve got a secret passage on the premises. Did you know that?”

“Have you?”

Northfleet seemed more interested than Colin had expected.

“Oh, yes,” Jean assured him. “Colin will let you see it some time. He knows how to work the spring that opens it. I don’t. But it’s really rather dull. Just a dark hole with some steps going down into it.”

“I’d like to see it, some time,” Northfleet suggested, though without any particular eagerness.

An idea seemed to cross Jean’s mind, making her smile mischievously.

“Have you met the hare-lipped man, Mr. Northfleet?”

Northfleet’s face showed only puzzlement at the question.

“Hare-lipped man?” he repeated. “No, I can’t say I have. Who is he? I thought I knew everybody by sight on Ruffa.”

“Perhaps I’ve got the words wrong,” Jean hazarded, rather put out that her joke had missed fire. “Are you a Freemason?”

“No, I’m not,” Northfleet replied, still with a puzzled look. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” Jean rejoined hastily.

Then, to escape from the situation, she turned to Hazel.

“Suppose we leave them here to finish their smoke, while we go out and take a turn round the garden before starting bridge. Would you care to?”

Hazel acquiesced at once.

“That’s another thing I envy you here,” she said as she