Cat Sitter Among the Pigeons

Chapter 17

ALLADIN'S CAVE

The girls went up to bed that night more quietly than usual. For one thing their numbers were much depleted. At least thirty of them had gone home. The others reacted according to their several dispositions. Excitement, trepidation, a certain amount of giggling that was purely nervous in origin, and there were some again who were merely quiet and thoughtful.

Julia Upjohn went up quietly among the first wave. She went into her room and closed the door. She stood there listening to the whispers, giggles, footsteps, and goodnights. Then silence closed down - or a near silence. Faint voices echoed in the distance, and footsteps went to and fro to the bathroom.

There was no lock on the door. Julia pulled a chair against it, with the top of the chair wedged under the handle. That would give her warning if anyone should come in. But no one was likely to come in. It was strictly forbidden for the girls to go into each other's rooms, and the only mistress who did so was Miss Johnson, if one of the girls was ill or out of sorts.

Julia went to bed, lifted up the mattress and groped under it. She brought out the tennis racquet and stood a moment holding it. She had decided to examine it now, and not later. A light in her room showing under the door might attract attention when all lights were supposed to be off. Now was the time when a light was normal for undressing and for reading in bed until half past ten if you wanted to do so.

She stood staring down at the racquet. How could there be anything hidden in a tennis racquet?

“But there must be,” said Julia to herself. “There must. The burglary at Jennifer's home, the woman who came with that silly story about a new racquet...”

“Only Jennifer would have believed that,” thought Julia scornfully.

No, it was “new lamps for old” and that meant, like in Aladdin, that there was something about this particular tennis racquet. Jennifer and Julia had never mentioned to anyone that they had swapped racquets - or at least, she herself never had.

So really then, this was the racquet that everyone was looking for in the Sports Pavilion. And it was up to her to find out why! She examined it carefully. There was nothing unusual about it to look at. It was a good quality racquet, somewhat the worse for wear, but restrung and eminently usable. Jennifer had complained of the balance.

The only place you could possibly conceal anything in a tennis racquet was in the handle. You could, she supposed, hollow out the handle to make a hiding place. It sounded a little farfetched but it was possible. And if the handle had been tampered with, that probably would upset the balance.

There was a round of leather with lettering on it, the lettering almost worn away. That of course was only stuck on. If one removed that? Julia sat down at her dressing table and attacked it with a penknife and presently managed to pull the leather off. Inside was a round of thin wood. It didn't look quite right. There was a join all round it. Julia dug in her penknife. The blade snapped. Nail scissors were more effective. She succeeded at last in prizing it out. A mottled red and blue substance now showed. Julia poked it and enlightenment came to her. Modelling clay! But surely handles of tennis racquets didn't normally contain clay? She grasped the nail scissors firmly and began to dig out lumps of clay. The stuff was encasing something. Something that felt like buttons or pebbles.

She attacked the clay vigorously.

Something rolled out on the table - then another something. Presently there was quite a heap.

Julia leaned back and gasped.

She stared and stared and stared...

Liquid fire, red and green and deep blue and dazzling white...

In that moment, Julia grew up. She was no longer a child. She became a woman. A woman looking at jewels...

All sorts of fantastic snatches of thought raced through her brain. Aladdin's cave... Marguerite and her casket of jewels (they had been taken to Covent Garden to hear Faust last week)... fatal stones... the Hope diamond... romance... herself in a black velvet gown with a flashing necklace round her throat...

She sat and gloated and dreamed. She held the stones in her fingers and let them fall through in a rivulet of fire, a flashing stream of wonder and delight.

And then, some slight sound perhaps, recalled her to herself.

She sat thinking, trying to use her common sense, deciding what she ought to do. That faint sound had alarmed her. She swept up the stones, took them to the washstand and thrust them into her sponge bag and rammed her sponge and nail brush down on top of them. Then she went back to the tennis racquet, forced the putty back inside it, replaced the wooden top and tried to gum down the leather on top again. It curled upward, but she managed to deal with that by applying adhesive tape the wrong way up in thin strips and then pressing the leather onto it.

It was done. The racquet looked and felt just as before, its weight hardly altered in feel. She looked at it and then cast it down carelessly on a chair.

She looked at her bed, neatly turned down and waiting. But she did not undress. Instead she sat listening. Was that a footstep outside?

Suddenly and unexpectedly she knew fear. Two people had been killed. If anyone knew what she had found, she would be killed...

There was a fairly heavy oak chest of drawers in the room. She managed to drag it in front of the door, wishing that it was the custom at Meadowbank to have keys in the locks. She went to the window, pulled up the top sash and bolted it. There was no tree growing near the window and no creepers. She doubted if it was possible for anyone to come in that way but she was not going to take any chances.

She looked at her small clock. Half past ten. She drew a deep breath and turned out the light. No one must notice anything unusual. She pulled back the curtain a little from the window. There was a full moon and she could see the door clearly. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed. In her hand she held the stoutest shoe she possessed.

“If anyone tries to come in,” Julia said to herself, “I'll rap on the wall here as hard as I can. Mary King is next door and that will wake her up. And I'll scream - at the top of my voice. And then, if lots of people come, I'll say I had a nightmare. Anyone might have a nightmare after all the things that have been going on here.”

She sat there and time passed. Then she heard it - a soft step along the passage. She heard it stop outside her door. A long pause and then she saw the handle slowly turning.

Should she scream? Not yet.

The door was pushed - just a crack, but the chest of drawers held it. That must have puzzled the person outside.

Another pause, and then there was a knock, a very gentle little knock, on the door.

Julia held her breath. A pause, and then the knock came again - but still soft and muted.

“I'm asleep,” said Julia to herself. “I don't hear anything.”

Who would come and knock on her door in the middle of the night? If it was someone who had a right to knock, they'd call out, rattle the handle, make a noise. But this person couldn't afford to make a noise...

For a long time Julia sat there. The knock was not repeated, the handle stayed immovable. But Julia sat tense and alert.

She sat like that for a long time. She never knew herself how long it was before sleep overcame her. The school bell finally awoke her, lying in a cramped and uncomfortable heap on the edge of her bed.