Bed-Knob and Broomstick (4 page)

   
"Well," said Carey, trying to think quickly.

   
"We brought it from my room," put in Paul suddenly.

   
"Oh," said the policeman heavily. He had adopted a slightly sarcastic
tone to hide his bewilderment. "And where might your room be?"
"Next to Carey's," said Paul. "At the end of the passage."
The policeman, who had switched off his light, switched it on again right into
Paul's eyes. Carey and Charles, who up to that moment had thought little or
nothing of Paul's looks, suddenly realized that he had a face like an angel.
Two little wings could have been tied to his back and they would not have looked
out of place. Even a halo would have suited Paul.

   
The policeman switched out his light. "Poor little shaver," he muttered,
"dragging 'im round London at this time o' night."
This was more than Carey could stand. "Why," she cried indignantly,
"it's all his fault. It was all his idea-"
"Now, now," said the policeman. "That's enough. What I want to
know is, where did you get this 'ere bed? What part o' London, to be exact?"
"It didn't come from London at all," said Charles.

   
"Then WHERE did it come from?" thundered the policeman.

   
"From Bedfordshire," said Carey.

   
The policeman stood up. Carey heard him catch his breath angrily.

   
"Joke, eh?"
"Not at all," said Carey.

   
"You mean to tell me you brought this 'ere bed all the
way up from Bedfordshke?"
"Yes," said Carey.

   
The policeman sighed. Carey felt him trying to be patient. "By train?"
"No," said Carey.

   
"Then how, may I ask?"
"Well-" said Carey. She thought again of Miss Price. "Well, we
can't really tell you."
"You tell me how you brought this bed up from Bedfordshire or you come
along with me to the police station-where you're coming anyway," he added.

   
"All right," said Carey, feeling the tears sting into her eyes. "I'll
tell you. If you want to know, we brought it up by magic."
There was a silence. A terrific silence. Carey wondered if the policeman was
going to hit her with his truncheon, but when at last he spoke, he spoke very
quietly. "Oh, you did, did you? By magic. Now I'll tell you something.
You've 'card of the law, 'aven't you? Well, the law is just and, in a manner
of speaking, the law is kind, but there's one thing the law can't be-"
He took a deep breath. "The law can't be made fun of. Now, all three of
you, get out of that there bed and come along with me to the station!"
With a sinking heart Carey drew her legs from under the blankets.

   
"I haven't any shoes on," said Charles.

   
There was no reply. The policeman seemed drawn away from them in spirit, wrapped
in lofty silence.

   
"Nor has Paul," pointed out Carey. "You'll have to carry him,"
she added.

   
THE POLICE STATION
It was not a long walk, but it was a trying one for Charles in his stocking
feet. Never before had he realized quite how many different kinds of surface
go to make a London street. Paul rode majestically in the policeman's arms,
sharing the policeman's vast aloofness. Carey walked in dark depression. Every
step they took away from the bed decreased their chances of escape. Prison!
"Oh," she thought in desperation, "why didn't I tell Paul to
wish the bed away with us, policeman and all?" But that might have been
even more complicated; arriving back at Aunt Beatrice's with a policeman; trying
to smuggle a policeman out of Paul's bedroom, to smuggle a policeman out of
the house . . . and he wasn't at all the kind of policeman who would lend himself
to being smuggled anywhere. There was, Carey realized unhappily, practically
no reliable method of getting rid of unwanted policemen. No, bad as it was,-this
possibly was the lesser of the two evils.

   
They were in the police station almost before they knew it. There was a long
counter, a green-shaded light, and a gray-haired policeman without a hat. He
had a tired, thin face, a soldier's face. Carey felt herself trembling.

   
"Well, Sergeant?" said the gray-haired officer wearily. "I thought
we were through for tonight."
"Well, sir, these 'ere children, sir. Thought I'd better bring 'em along.
Out in the street, with a bed, sir. Obstructing traffic-public nuisance as it
were."
The inspector was reaching for his cap, which hung on a peg.

   
"Well, take their names and addresses and get hold of the parents."
He paused and turned slowly. "Out in the street with a what?"
"With a bed, sir."
"A BED!"
"Yes, sir, an iron bed like, with brass knobs on."
The inspector looked wonderingly at Carey. Suddenly Carey knew she liked his
face. She liked the screwed-up look of his eyes and the tired lines of his mouth.
She wished terribly that she had not been brought before him as a criminal.
He looked at all three of them for a moment longer, then he addressed the sergeant.

   
"Where is the bed now?"
"There in the street, sir. Markham Square."
"Better send the van to collect the bed." He sighed. "And hand
these children over to Mrs. Watkins till you get hold of the parents. I'm dead
beat, Sergeant. Court at nine-thirty, don't forget. I'll need you and Sergeant
Coles."
"Yes, sir. Good night, sir."
As the inspector passed, on his way to the door, he glanced again at the children.
"He would have talked to us," Carey thought, "if he hadn't been
so tired." She felt very frightened. If only someone had scolded them,
she would have felt less frightened. She felt as if something bigger than a
person had got hold of them, something enormous, something of
which the policemen themselves stood in awe. She guessed it was the "law"-the
law that "could not be made fun of."
The sergeant was speaking into a telephone, which hung from a bracket on the
wall.

   
"Yes, three of 'em. . . . No-just overnight. . . . No, 'e's gone off. Dead
beat, 'e was. . . . Cup o' tea? Not if you got it made, I wouldn't. . . . Righty
oh."
He brought out his notebook and wrote down their mother's address. "Why,"
he said, after some minutes of silent and ponderous calculation. "You was
right by your own 'ouse."
"Mother's away," said Carey quickly, hoping to stop him ringing up.

   
"Did you say you brought the bed up from Bedfordshire?"
"We did," said Carey. "The house is locked up."
The policeman was busy writing. "Right by your own 'ouse," he murmured.
"That's different."
"Well," he said, closing his notebook. "Come along with me for
the time being."
He took the children down a passage, out of a back door into a pitch-dark, courtyard.
"Mind where you tread," he told them.

   
Paul took Carey's hand. "Are we going to prison?" he whispered.

   
"I don't know," Carey whispered back. "I think so."
"How many years," asked Paul, "will they keep us in prison?"
"I don't know," said Carey, "not many."
"Come on," said the sergeant. They felt he was holding a door open.
They squeezed past his stomach into another passage. They were indoors again.
The sergeant switched on a light. "Mrs. Watkins," he called.

   
Mrs. Watkins was a bustling kind of woman, a cross- Carey thought-between a
cloakroom attendant and a nurse. She wore a white apron and a red woolen cardigan
over it. She took them into a room in which there was a bed-like a hospital
bed, thought Carey-two imitation-leather armchairs, a table, and an aspidistra
in a pot. She bustled Paul onto the bed and covered him with a blanket. Then
she turned to Charles and Carey. "Cocoa or tea?" she asked them.

   
Carey hesitated. "Whichever's easiest for you," she said politely.

   
"The sergeant's having tea."
"Well, tea if you've got it made," said Carey timidly. "Thank
you very much," she added.

   
Mrs. Watkins stared at Carey for a minute. "Lost, are you?" she asked
curiously.

   
Carey, sitting on the edge of the imitation-leather armchair, smiled uneasily.
"Not exactly."
"Up to mischief?" asked Mrs. Watkins.

   
Carey blushed, and tears came into her eyes. "Not exactly," she stammered.

   
"Well," said Mrs. Watkins kindly, "you sit there quiet and be
good children and you'll have a nice cup o' tea."
"Thank you," murmured Carey indistinctly.

   
As the door closed behind Mrs. Watkins and the key turned in the lock, Carey
burst into tears. Charles stared at her miserably, and Paul, sitting up in bed
with interest, asked, "What are you crying for, Carey?"
"This is all so awful," wept Carey, trying at the same time to staunch
her tears with her handkerchief.

   
"I don't think it's so awful," said Paul. "I like this prison."
Charles glared at him. "Only because you're going to have a cup of tea,
and you know you're not allowed tea at home."
"No," said Paul rather vaguely, "I like prisons like this."
"Well, it isn't even a prison. It's a police station."
"Oh," said Paul. He gazed about the room, but a little less happily.

   
"Paul," said Carey some time later, when they had drunk their tea
and Mrs. Watkins had left them alone again, "I told you this was a stupid
kind of wish. I tried to warn you. It would have been better to go back into
the Middle Ages or anything than this. This is worse than anything that has
ever happened to us. We've lost the bed. The policeman will ring up Mother.
Mother will be terribly worried. The law may get her too. Aunt Beatrice will
know. They'll make us explain everything. Miss Price will get into trouble.
We shall have broken our promise. It will be the end of the magic bed-knob.
And nobody will ever trust us again. . . ."
Paul looked grave.

   
"Do you see, Paul?" Carey's voice sounded as if she were going to
cry again. "And it's Charles and me who'll get the blame. They'll say we
led you into it, that we're old enough to know better. Do you understand?"
Paul brightened perceptibly. "Yes," he said.

   
"We're locked in here. And there isn't anything we can do."
She broke off. Suddenly outside in the courtyard there was a screech of brakes.
They heard the running engine of a car, and voices shouting.

   
"They're bringing someone else in!" exclaimed Paul excitedly.

   
Charles went jap to the window, but he dared not disturb the blind. "They'll
see us," he said.

   
"I know what," cried Carey. "Switch out this light!"
Charles switched off the light by the door. Then, in the
darkness, he tugged a corner of the blind. It flew up with a rattle. A pinkish
light, faint but clear, shone inwards on the
room.

   
"It's dawn," said Charles wonderingly. "Morning. We've been away
all night." He stared down into the courtyard.

   
"I say, Carey-"
"What?"
"They're not bringing anyone in. It's-" He paused excitedly. "Carey,
it's the bed!"
Carey leapt out of her chair, and Paul threw off the blanket. They raced to
the window. They watched, in that dim early light, two policemen lift the bed
from the van. They heard the legs scrape as it was dragged across the cobblestones.
They saw the policemen push it up against the wall. Then both men stood, rubbing
the strain out of their hands and staring at the bed. They laughed. "I
could do with a nap meself," said one as they walked away indoors. Then
the courtyard became silent.

   
"If we could get to it-" breathed Charles.

   
"If-" said Carey.

   
The pale light shone softly on their faces as, longingly, they stared out through
the bars.

   
6 MAGIC IN THE COURTYARD
At about nine o'clock next morning, the sergeant and the inspector faced each
other across the inspector's desk. The sergeant was standing. His hat was in
his hand and his face was very red.

   
". . . and that's all I know, sir," the sergeant was saying.

   
"But how did they get away?" asked the inspector. "I'm afraid
I don't follow you, Sergeant. How did they get into the yard to start with?"
"Well, Mrs. Watkins took 'em down, sir, to see my garden."
"To see your garden?" repeated the inspector in a surprised voice.

   
"Them dahlias, sir, in pots, at the end of the yard, sir. Mrs. Watkins
calls 'em my garden. I got some sweet peas, sir, too-coming up nicely, the sweet
peas are."
"I didn't know you were a horticulturist, Sergeant." The inspector
spoke rather coldly. "And then?"
"Mrs. Watkins, she quite took to those kids, sir. She thought they'd like
to see the bird, sir, too."
"The bird?"
"I got a canary down there, sir. I was putting it out, like,
in the sun, early this morning."
"Have you got anything else down there in the yard?"
The sergeant shuffled his feet.

   
"Well, sir, only the silkworms."
The inspector glanced out of the window, pursing up his mouth in a rather peculiar
way as if he were trying to keep it still.

   
"And you left the children alone in the yard?" he asked sternly.

   
"Well, sir, the gate was locked, sir. Roberts was on duty outside. I'd
just slipped in the passage to sip a cup o' tea Mrs. Watkins 'ad there waiting."
"Well, go on. How long were you sipping this tea?"
"No time at all, sir. I just took the cup like from Mrs. Watkins, put in
a bit of sugar, stirred it, and came right out to the door-"
"And then-?"
"Well, I couldn't see the children. I thought at first they was round be'ind
the pillars." The sergeant wiped his face with his handkerchief. "But
no," he added.

   
"They'd gone?"
"Yes, sir, they'd gone."
"And the bed, too."
"Yes, sir, and the bed, too. We searched the premises. The yard gate was
still padlocked. Roberts said he 'adn't seen nothing."
The inspector stared at his fingernails. "Very peculiar. Mrs. Watkins bears
out your story?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mrs. Watkins took to them, you say?"
"Yes, sir. They were nice kids, sir, well brought up. I got sort of sore
with 'em last night. 'Urt my leg on that there bed
of theirs. But they weren't bad, not at 'eart they weren't."
The inspector leaned back in his chair. "You took to them yourself, in
fact?"
"Not last night I didn't. But this morning-well, sir, they were so pleased
like to see my little bird."
"You regretted perhaps," said the inspector slowly, fixing the sergeant
with his eye, "having brought them in at all."
The sergeant stared back at the inspector. His eyes became very round and blue
in his red face. He opened his mouth with a gasp. "You think I went and
let them out, sir?" Then his fat face became stern and dignified. He swallowed.
"I wouldn't do a thing like that. I know my duty, sir." He looked
hurt and stared at a spot on the wall above the inspector's head.