Fallen Into the Pit

Two

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Halfway through the explanation, which was a joint affair, and therefore took rather longer than it need have done, Bunty began to be suspicious that she was missing something, and as the parties involved were merely Dominic and Pussy, she had no scruples about coming in to demand her share in their revelations. Besides, there was a chance that someone would be needed to hold the balance between her husband and her son, who on this subject of all subjects still obstinately refused to see eye to eye. The note of appeasement, however, was being sounded with quite unusual discretion as she entered.

“It was an absolute accident,” Dominic said, “honestly it was. We weren’t even thinking about that business, and it was only one chance in a thousand we ever found them. If the pale hadn’t been loose we shouldn’t ever have gone in, and if Pussy’s torch hadn’t been phoney I shouldn’t have grabbed off in the dark for a hold in the grass, and put my hand down the hole. It was just luck. But we couldn’t do anything except bring them to you, once we’d got them, could we?”

“You’d no business there in the first place,” said George, heavily paternal. “Serve you right if Briggs bad caught you and warmed your jacket for you. Next time I hope he does.”

Bunty remembered certain events of George’s schooldays; but she did not smile, or only within her own mind. Dominic grinned suddenly, and said: “Oh, well—occupational risks! But old Briggs isn’t so hot on running.”

“I’m surprised at you, Pussy,” pursued George, not strictly truthfully. “I thought you had more sense, even if he hasn’t.”

There was really no need to argue with him, for his mind was all the time on the dingy draggle of nastiness obtruding its presence from the desk. Thirteen days now! It could be. And the minute fluff they had harvested from Helmut’s tunic-lining came easily back to mind. On his last evening he had been observed on the edge of the preserves, his body had been found not a hundred yards from the fence, and at about ten o’clock, melting into the shadows with the typical coyness of his kind, Chad Wedderburn had caught a glimpse of what he could only suppose to be a poacher. And among the miscellaneous small belongings found in Helmut’s pockets—

“He had a torch, didn’t he?” said Dominic, his eyes fixed insatiably on his father’s face. “A big, powerful one. I remember—”

Yes, he had had a torch on him, big and powerful, dragging one pocket of his tunic out of line. Trust Dom to remember that! Found practically on the spot, equipped for the job, and dead just about as long as these birds; and as the kids had pointed out, what poacher but a dead poacher would leave his bag cached until it rotted on him? He supposed he had better call at the Harrow, instead of making straight for the pit.

“Can we come back with you?” asked Dominic eagerly. “We could take you straight to it—and there are several holes down there, you might not know which it was.”

“It’s almost bedtime now,” said Bunty, frowning upon the idea. “And Io will wonder where Pussy is.”

“Oh, Mummy, there’s nearly half an hour yet, we came away before any of the others. And we’d come straight back, really, it wouldn’t take long.”

“Nobody’ll be worried about me,” said Pussy, elaborately casual. “I’m not expected home till half-past nine.”

“Better have a look on the spot,” said George to Bunty. “I’ll send them straight back as soon as they’ve told their tale.”

The trouble was, of course, that he would and did do precisely that. As soon as they had collected Charles Blunden from the farmhouse, with brief explanations, and led their little party to the pit in the pinewoods, and indicated the exact repellent hollow from which they had removed the pheasants, the adults, of course, had done with them. Pussy expected it, Dominic knew it. In the pitchy, resiny darkness, even with lights, expressions were too elusive to be read accurately, but dismissal was in the very stance of George, straightening up in the heel of the pit to say briskly:

“All right, you two, better cut home now. Unless,” he added unkindly, putting ideas into Charles’s easygoing head, “Mr. Blunden wants to ask any questions about fences before we let you out of it.”

“Eh?” said Charles, with his arm rather gingerly down the dank hiding-hole, and only a corner of his mind on what had been said, just enough to prick up to the sound of his own name.

“Violating your boundaries, you realize—that’s how the thing began. Knock their heads together if you feel like it, I’ll look the other way.”

“It was my fault,” said Dominic, demurely sure of himself. “We only wanted somewhere new to hide, and we didn’t mean to go far or do any harm. And anyhow, we did come straight back and own up to it as soon as we found the birds. You’re not mad, are you, Mr. Blunden?” He daren’t be, of course, even if he wanted to; Pussy wasn’t Io’s young sister for nothing. Io might call her all the little devils in creation on her own account, but it wouldn’t pay Charles Blunden to start the same tune; families are like that. So Dominic trailed his coat gracefully close to impudence, and felt quite safe. They were about to be thrown out of the conference, in any case, so he had nothing to lose.

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Charles, disappointingly not even very interested. “A fence like that asks to be violated. Not that I’m advising you to try it while Briggs is about, mind you, or even to let my father spot you at it. But there’s no harm done this time. Just watch your step, and we’ll say no more about it.”

“And we did right to go straight back and report, didn’t we?” pursued Dominic, angling for a reentry into council through Charles, since George certainly wouldn’t buy it. “I say, do you think it was really like we worked it out? Do you think—”

George said: “Git! We want to talk, and it’s high time you two went home to bed. You’re observant, intelligent, helpful and reliable people, no doubt, in fact almost everything you think you are; but there isn’t a thing more you can do for us here. Beat it!”

“I suppose it’s something to be appreciated,” said Pussy sarcastically, as they threaded their way out of the wood by the slender gleam of the torch, and went huffily but helplessly home.