The Box of Delights (2 page)

When he had been taken to school in September he had gone by car. He was now returning home through a country quite new to him by a railway line over which he had never before travelled. The
train passed out of the meadows into a hilly land beautiful with woodlands and glens. In spite of the bitter cold Kay was much interested in this new country. Some of the hills had old camps on
them. On the headlands there were old castles; in the glens there were churches which looked like forts. He took from his bag a cycling map of the countryside. By this he picked out the hills,
castles and churches as the train went past them. Soon all the land to the left of the railway was a range of low wooded hills of the most strange shapes. He read the name on the map –
Chester Hills. ‘What a wonderful place,’ he said to himself. ‘I do wish that I could come here to explore.’

While he was looking through the window at these hills he heard a scratching at the door leading into the train’s corridor and glancing in that direction he saw that the Irish terrier,
Barney, was standing on his hind legs looking at him through the glass. He went to him, opened the door and patted him, and after a minute the dog went scuttering off down the train. ‘I
suppose,’ he said to himself, ‘that the old man is in the train somewhere. I’d forgotten all about him in thinking about the murderer.’ The train drew up at a station.

‘Hope-under-Chesters,’ he read. ‘Then that little river is the Yock. And that is Chesters camp. It must be a Roman camp, from the name. And that is Hope Cross. There must have
been a battle there, for it’s marked with crossed swords. And the map shows a lake only a couple of miles away.’

He stared at the hills. It was a grim winter morning, threatening a gale. Something in the light, with its hard sinister clearness, gave mystery and dread to those hills. ‘They look just
the sort of hills,’ Kay said to himself, ‘where you might come upon a Dark Tower, and blow a horn at the gate for something to happen.’

The train was about to start; the whistle had blown and the station-master had waved his flag, when there came cries from the ticket-office, of ‘Hold-on. Wait half a minute.’ Two men
rushed across the platform and scrambled into Kay’s carriage just as the train moved off.

The men took the further corner-seats; they panted a little, and looked at Kay. Both were in the black clothes of theological students. ‘They didn’t give us much time,’ one of
them said.

‘The news has only just come through,’ the other said. Both were youngish men (about twenty-three, Kay thought). Somehow, he didn’t like the men, nor their voices. They made in
some foreign tongue one or two remarks, which Kay judged to be about himself. After this, as the train went on, they spoke to him. One of them, who was a pale, eager-looking man, with foxy hair,
said, ‘Going home for the holidays, ha-ha, what?’ and when Kay said, ‘Yes, please, sir,’ the other said, ‘And very seasonable weather, too: we are to have snow, it
seems. And no doubt you enjoy snowballing, and tobogganing and making snowmen?’

Kay said that he did: he began to like this other man, who had a round, rosy, chubby face, with fair hair; and yet there was something about him . . . Kay couldn’t quite put it into words
. . . he had a kind of a . . . sort of a . . . It was more in his eyes than in anything else.

‘And are you going far, may I ask?’ the chubby man asked.

‘I’m going to Condicote,’ Kay said.

‘Ah, indeed . . . Condicote Junction,’ the chubby man said . . . ‘And I wonder if, in the Christmas holidays, you will ever do card-tricks?’

‘If you please, sir, I do not know any.’

‘But you are of a studious turn, I see, ha-ha, what? With your maps and food-for-the-mind,’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘I wonder if I might try to teach you a simple trick, since
we are to be fellow-travellers.’

Kay said that it would be very kind, but that he was afraid that he would be stupid at it.

‘I see that you will be very clever at it,’ the foxy man said. ‘Don’t you think, Tristan, that he has the face of one certain to be clever at card-tricks;
what?’

‘The very face,’ the other said.

‘Just the facial angle and the Borromean Index,’ the foxy one went on. ‘Now let me see if I have my cards. I usually carry cards, because I am much alone, and find the games of
Patience a great mental solace. Ah yes, I have my old companions.’

He produced a little packet of green-backed cards in a dull red leather case.

‘Let nothing tempt you into playing cards with strangers in a train or ship or anywhere,’ the chubby man said.

‘I am inclined to agree with you, Lancelot,’ the foxy man said, ‘but there will be no harm in showing him one of the tricks by which sharpers deceive the unwary. Let me show
you the commonest trick. It is often known as “spotting-the-lady”.’

He dealt out three cards, one of which was the Queen of Clubs, the other two low hearts. ‘See there,’ he said. ‘Mark them well. I twist them and shift them and lo, now, which
is the Lady?’

‘That one,’ Kay said.

‘So it is; so it is,’ the man said. ‘What it is to have young eyes, Gawaine, is it not?’

‘It was not his young eyes, but your clumsy dealing,’ the other said.

‘Ha,’ the foxy-faced man said, ‘I lack practice, I see. I must give myself some incentive. I will back my skill. Now, then; prepare: if you beat me this time, you shall have
sixpence, for, indeed, I must be put upon my mettle.

‘Can you tell the Lady, this time?’

‘Yes,’ Kay said. ‘Here she is.’

‘And here is your sixpence,’ the man said. ‘And yet I thought I was discreet. But you have an eye like a lynx. Now may I try once again? You are too young, you are too sharp;
there is no getting round you. Now, no denial: if I beat you this time you shall give me half-a-crown for the Poor Box or next Sunday’s collection.’

Kay was about to protest, for he had promised never to bet, nor to play at cards for money; but the chubby-faced man said, ‘Of course . . . that would be simply sportsman’s
honour.’

‘Agreed, agreed, what,’ the foxy-faced man said, as he twiddled the cards. ‘Hark to Merlin: “Again the fatal sister spins her web. Mark well her hand, the hand of
Destiny; so shoots the weft across the serried warp; and back the sword beats and the shear descends.” Now, which is the Lady?’

‘This one,’ Kay said. ‘I saw her from underneath as the cards went down.’

He was quite certain that he had seen the Queen, but when he lifted the card, it was not the Queen, it was the three of Hearts.

‘Now how did that happen, what?’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘That will be just half-a-crown, please; for the collection in aid of the Decayed Cellarers, poor fellows. A debt of
honour, you know.’

Kay felt very unhappy, but pulled out his purse and paid the half-crown. It may have been suspicion or error, yet it seemed to him that both men seemed very inquisitive, craning over, as it
were, to see what money was in his purse.

‘So you carry your money in a purse,’ the chubby-faced man said. ‘It is always a wise precaution; so much better than having it loose, when it will get pulled out with the
handkerchief or what not.’

The foxy-faced man spread his cards. ‘Now, Sir Lancelot,’ he said, ‘that is two to you and one to me. Won’t you give me my chance to get equal?’

Kay thought that he was already past being equal and a good deal ahead. He was sorely perplexed as to what to say. At this moment, however, the train began to slacken for a station.

‘Ha, we stop here, what?’ the foxy-faced man said. ‘Sir Dagonet, a word with you.’ He tapped his left ear and went out into the corridor; the chubby-faced man followed
him. The train was at a little junction, Yarnton for Yockombe Regis; two or three people left the train and others got in.

‘I won’t play cards any more,’ Kay decided. ‘Nothing shall induce me . . .’

When the train started, the two men returned. Kay was again studying his map. He was afraid that the men would suggest more cards, but they had returned deep in thought. They talked to each
other in low voices in a tongue which Kay thought must be Italian.

He glanced at them sideways from time to time. There was something in the way of their bending their heads together which seemed very sinister. Kay wondered that he had ever thought either of
them nice. They were talking about somebody. They seemed to be looking out for somebody. Whenever the train stopped at one of the little stations: Gabbett’s Cross, Lower Turrington, Stoke
Dever and Radsoe, the men went out into the corridor, and seemed (as Kay decided) to watch all people leaving the train. They had friends (accomplices Kay called them) in the train, for once (at
Radsoe), as Kay was looking out for the landmarks of home, he saw the foxy-faced man, who had got out on to the platform, signalling to a man in a forward carriage.

‘These men are up to no good,’ Kay thought. ‘They’re after somebody. Very likely it’s some farmer, coming home from the beast-market with a lot of money, whom they
are going to rob. I do hope they won’t talk to me again.’

He settled again to his map as they returned to the carriage. ‘Still feeding the mind, what?’ the foxy man said.

‘Yes, please,’ Kay said.

‘And can you tell me what country we are now coming to?’

‘Yes,’ Kay said. ‘If you will look there, you will see Condicote Church . . . Then, that wooded hill is King Arthur’s Court: it’s a Roman Camp . . . Up there, is
Broadbarrow, where there used to be a gibbet.’

‘Indeed,’ the man said. ‘Well, well. Then this next station will be Condicote, I take it?’

‘Yes,’ Kay said.

‘You hear that, Palamedes?’ he said to his companion. ‘Sir Lancelot says that Condicote is next stop, where the hawks get out to wait for the chicken . . . if the chicken is
still on the wing.’

‘Not so loud, not so loud,’ the chubby-faced man said, with a look of alarm. ‘Good heaven, what was that?’

Some slight noise made them all look towards the corridor. It was only the Irish terrier of the old man, ‘Barney Dog’, standing on his hind legs to look in to the compartment. With a
scratching of claws upon the paint, the dog dropped from his post and slid away. Yet Kay felt somehow uneasy, for the dog had looked at him so strangely.

‘A dog, I think,’ the chubby man said, with a warning glance at his friend. ‘One of the friends of man, as they are called. And do you keep dogs at Seekings, Mr
Harker?’

Kay jumped, for how did the man know his name and home? ‘How did you know about me, sir?’ he asked.

‘Magic, no doubt,’ the man said. ‘But there is a proverb:

‘Not that I want you to think that I think you a fool; by no means.’

‘By no means, what?’ the foxy-faced man said, as he put up his cards in their case. ‘He is no fool, but a hawk with the eyes of a gimlet, our young friend from Seekings House.
And this is Condicote Station?’

‘It is,’ Kay said, still marvelling that the men should know him. The train stopped.

There was always a press of people on Condicote platform at the coming-in of that train: there was on this day. Kay was bumped and thrust by people getting in and out. There in the press was
Caroline Louisa come to meet him; then, among other familiar faces, the old bus man, Jim, came forward to help him with his bags. ‘Why, Master Kay, how you have growed, to be sure. Learning
seems to suit ’ee.’

He crossed the line with the crowd. As he gave up his ticket at the exit gate he was bumped and thrust among the company. When he had won through the press and was safely in the car, he found
that he had been robbed.

‘I say,’ he said, ‘there must have been pickpockets in the crowd. They’ve got my purse and my dollar watch.’

‘When had you them last?’

‘A few minutes before we reached the station.’

‘Did you feel any hand at your pockets?’

‘No, of course not. I was pushed and shoved in the crowd, of course.’

‘Did you notice any suspicious person near you?’

‘No . . . Hullo. Here’s my ticket . . .’

‘But you gave it up just now.’

‘So I did,’ he said. ‘Well. That’s a queer thing. I couldn’t find my ticket at Musborough: and an old man who was there said “there lo, it’s on the
platform”; and there it was, right at my feet. I must have picked up some other chap’s ticket, perhaps it was the old man’s own ticket. Why, there is the old man, that old fellow
with the green baize case and the Irish terrier.’

‘What is he?’ Caroline Louisa asked. ‘A Punch and Judy man?’

‘I don’t know,’ Kay said. ‘I’ll ask him. And I’ll ask if I had his ticket. And may I offer him a lift? He’s rather a poor old chap to be lugging those
loads about.’

‘Ask him, if you like,’ she said.

Kay asked him, had he given him his own ticket at Musborough.

‘No, I thank you,’ the old man said. ‘I had my own ticket, thank you, and have now given it over.’

‘Will you please tell me,’ Kay said, ‘if you are a Punch and Judy man?’

‘I am, so to speak, a showman,’ the old man said, ‘and my Barney Dog is, as it were, my Toby Dog, when chance does call.’

‘I was to ask you, would you like a lift down into the town, as it is rather a step, and it is so cold.’

‘No, I thank you, my young Master,’ the old man said. ‘But if you would once more steady my show, why, then I should not stumble.’

Kay helped him a little, so that the case did not overbalance him as he swung it to his shoulders.

‘And I thank you, my young Master,’ he said. ‘Time was when we had power, like the Sun, and could swing the Earth and the Moon, and now our old wheels are all running down and
we are coming to a second childhood.

‘Still, they say,’ he went on, ‘that it begins again, in the course of time. But the secrets of my show, they aren’t to be had by these common ones, now, are
they?’

Kay did not know what to say to this.

‘Hearts, diamonds, spades, clubs, it goes,’ the old man said. ‘And then all the way back again.’