'Can't I?' said William. 'Can't I do anythin'? You jus' see if I can do anythin'. I bet I can.'

He walked out of the house and down the village street, scowling darkly.

Couldn't he do anything! He'd caught one German spy at the beginning of the war (more by good luck than good management, as even he had to admit), and didn't see why he shouldn't catch another. This was a different sort of spy, but if the Government wasn't catching ole Grissel well, there was nothing for it but to have a shot himself. Perhaps he was here here in the village or in Hadley or in Marleigh. He'd got to be going round scaring people somewhere all the time, so he might as well be here as anywhere else. His face took on that expression of ferocity that betokened firm resolution. The more he thought about the matter the more convinced he was that old Grissel was somewhere in the neighbourhood. William, in whom the zest of the chase was up-rising fiercely, decided that there was not the slightest doubt that he was here. And if he was here, he'd got to be caught, and, if he'd got to be caught, then William was going to catch him. He realised that he must go very carefully. He had a master criminal to deal with and one who would stick at nothing. But there was not a moment to be lost. He must start at once.

He started by a tour of the village. Much to his disappointment, an exhaustive search revealed nothing suspicious. He was at first tempted to suspect the vicar or the doctor of being ole Grissel in disguise, but after a few moments' reflection, he came reluctantly to the conclusion that their normal routine would leave them little or no time for criminal activities. The doctor, in particular, he was unwilling to cross off his list of suspects. The last draught the doctor had compounded for him, on his pleading that he felt too ill to go to school, had been so nauseous that William considered he had narrowly escaped death by poison.

He turned his steps from the village towards Hadley. There, though he followed several false scents, and annoyed several householders by staring in at their windows, he was no more successful. He retraced his steps to the village and made his way to Marleigh, where he couldn't even find any false scents. Dejectedly and having by now almost but, being William, not quite, given up hope, he went on towards Upper Marleigh.

The main road seemed to be empty except for two women who were approaching each other from opposite directions. William looked at them without interest. He wasn't interested in women at the best of times, and just now he wasn't interested in anything at all except ole Grissel. But, as he pa.s.sed them, he heard something that made him stop and listen attentively.

'What's the code word today?' he heard one of them ask.

He couldn't hear the answer, but the question was enough. A code word. Spies . . . Members of ole Grissel's gang . . . They looked just two ordinary women the sort that went to Mothers' Meetings and Women's Inst.i.tutes and all the time they were members of ole Grissel's gang. It had been careless of him not to have realised that they might be. Naturally ole Grissel's gang would disguise themselves as people like that to put the Government off the scent. Well, he'd found them now and he must shadow them till he ran ole Grissel himself to earth. He studied the two conspirators with interest. One was carrying a shopping basket and the other a string bag full of vegetables, but they'd probably got revolvers and things hidden among the cabbages and groceries and wouldn't scruple to use them. He drew nearer and, stooping down, pretended to be doing up his shoe lace.

'Aren't greens a price?' one of them was saying and the other replied: 'Yes, aren't they! And there don't seem to be half the lettuces about this year. Ours were no good at all I can't think why.'

They'd seen him, of course, thought William, and were talking like that to put him off the scent. Or more probably they were talking in code. Perhaps 'Aren't greens a price?' meant 'Let's kill Churchill,' and 'There don't seem to be so many lettuces about this year' meant 'Heil Hitler' or something like that.

They were separating now each going on her way. For a moment William stood irresolute, wondering which to follow. One was going towards the village, the other the one who had asked what the code word was was turning down a side lane off the main road. He decided to follow the second one . . .

She went down the lane and in at the gate of a large building that William knew to be a school. It was the summer holiday and the building was empty. She went round to the side and in at a small door. It must be the headquarters of ole Grissel's gang. A jolly good idea, choosing an empty school in holiday time down a side lane like this. He decided not to follow her into the building. Peaceful and deserted though it looked, it probably bristled with concealed machine-guns and snipers and b.o.o.by traps. Instead, he would inspect the building as best he could from the cover of a belt of variegated laurel that surrounded it. He dived into the nearest bush just in time, for two other women had just arrived and were going in by the same door as the first. They, too, looked the Mothers' Meeting/Women's Inst.i.tute type. Evidently that was the particular disguise adopted by this particular band of conspirators . . .

CAUTIOUSLY WILLIAM HOISTED HIMSELF ON TO THE WINDOW-SILLAND PEEPED IN.

William made his way round one side of the building, still under cover of the laurels. It was disappointing in that it contained no window. Nothing daunted, however, he started on the second side. And there he was rewarded, for he suddenly came upon a screen of sandbags and, creeping round the screen, found a window, covered with black paint but conveniently open at the top. Cautiously he hoisted himself on to the window-sill and peeped in. He saw a cellar-like room, roughly furnished with a long trestle table and some chairs. The women he had seen entering had removed their hats and were taking their places at the trestle table. Others were putting on their hats and preparing to depart. William's eyes roved round the room. A man, who was evidently in charge of proceedings, sat at a small desk covered with papers. Ole Grissel . . . ole Grissel himself! He didn't look as William had imagined ole Grissel would look he was undersized and stooping and had a small worried moustache but he was obviously in charge and so he must be ole Grissel. On a table just beneath the window a large map was outspread. By craning his neck William could see that it was a map of the district. He could see Marleigh and Upper Marleigh marked on it quite plainly. There were little flags jotted about. Gos.h.!.+ They had everything ready for ole Hitler! He could even see the road marked where his own home was. Going to hand over his own home to ole Hitler, were they, he thought, indignantly with Jumble and his pet mice and his collection of caterpillars and his new cricket bat. The idea of this infuriated him more than any of the previous German outrages. He set his lips grimly. Well, if Hitler thought he was going to get his pet mice and his new cricket bat, he was jolly well mistaken. He realised that two of the women sitting at the trestle table were telephoning. He listened in amazement.

A MAN, WHO WAS EVIDENTLY IN CHARGE OF PROCEEDINGS, SAT AT A SMALL DESK COVERED IN PAPERS.

'Wrecked aeroplane causing obstruction in Marleigh Road . . . Fire raging in Pithurst Lane . . . Houses in Hill Road collapsed . . . Marleigh police station blown up . . .'

His eyes and mouth opened wider and wider. There wasn't a word of truth in it from beginning to end. He'd walked along Marleigh Road less than five minutes ago . . . He'd pa.s.sed Marleigh police station and even exchanged badinage with a stout constable who was sunning himself in the doorway. The school building was in Pithurst Lane, and Hill Road was at the end of it. And all lay peaceful and intact in the summer suns.h.i.+ne, while this gang of Grissel confederates were broadcasting these outrageous lies. Propaganda. That was what it was, of course. Broadcasting lies right and left! Same as old Gobbles. One of the women was moving little flags about on the map.

'I haven't any more incendiary bomb flags, Mr Balham,' she said to the man at the desk.

(William made a mental note of the name ole Grissel was calling himself.) The man opened his desk and gave her a little box, and William, to his intense indignation, saw her put one on the road where his own home was. Huh! Ole Hitler was probably thinkin' he'd get his cricket bat by the end of the summer. Huh! The women at the telephones read out their pieces of propaganda (the latest was 'electric light main, coal gas main and water mains all damaged. No repair parties available. Gas escaping. Fires in vicinity beyond control.') from sheets of paper and, when they had finished, they handed them to the man at the desk, who put them on to a file. William could have watched this absorbing performance all morning, but an incautious movement made him lose his foothold. He fell down heavily and by no means soundlessly to the ground. After that he deemed it advisable to retire to his screen of laurel. At first he was afraid that the conspirators might send out an emissary to investigate and exact vengeance, but, to his relief, no one came.

He sat in the shelter of a particularly luxuriant laurel and considered his next step. He had discovered the nest of traitors, of course, but that wasn't enough. He must bring them to justice. And he knew that this wasn't as easy as it sounded. He hadn't read crime fiction for nothing. He realised that criminals whose meeting-place is discovered simply vanish from it, leaving no trace, and meet somewhere else. No, he must run the arch-traitor to earth find out where he lived and all about him before he attempted to bring him to justice.

He had waited, as it seemed to him, several hours when at last the small, insignificant-looking figure of Mr Balham appeared, coming round the side of the building towards the main gate. William, from his hiding-place, studied his quarry with interest. The drooping moustache was, of course, a disguise. So were the spectacles. The stoop was probably a disguise, too. If he stretched right up he'd be quite a tall man. Well, nearly quite a tall man . . . But he was disappearing down Pithurst Lane now, and William, turning up the collar of his jacket, drawing his cap down over his eyes in the conventional fas.h.i.+on of the sleuth, prepared to follow him. Had Mr Balham chanced to turn round, he would have been much surprised by the antics of the small boy behind him, who dived into the ditch, scrambled along under cover of the hedge, hid behind trees for no apparent reason, and occasionally stopped to place twigs in a complicated pattern by the roadside. (These last were intended as signs to lead future investigators to the scene of the crime if the criminal suddenly whipped round and kidnapped or murdered him.) Happily unaware that he was being shadowed in this sensational fas.h.i.+on, Mr Balham turned into Hill Road (which he and his fellow conspirators had so recently reported bombed) and, opening the garden gate of a small neat newly-built villa, disappeared inside a small neat newly-painted front door. William stood in the road and stared at it, slightly nonplussed. He'd found out where the traitor lived, and so the moment seemed ripe for bringing him to justice, but he realised that even now the enemy might elude him. He had, in fact, come out into the garden in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves and was pus.h.i.+ng a microscopic mowing machine round the microscopic front lawn. It was, of course, all part of the disguise. He was pretending to be an ordinary man, mowing an ordinary lawn, and (he had just stopped to do it) picking ordinary green flies off ordinary rose trees. If he told the police that this man was Grissel, the arch-traitor, they would just laugh at him. No, he must find some actual proof. His eyes wandered over the neat, respectable-looking little house. It was probably full of proof if only he could find it letters and telegrams in code and confidential doc.u.ments. Traitors always had confidential doc.u.ments which they burnt when they saw the police coming. So that, even if William managed to persuade the police to come, the man would see them coming and at once burn all his letters and telegrams and confidential doc.u.ments. Somehow or other William must get hold of the confidential doc.u.ments himself . . .

It would be jolly dangerous, of course. Ole Grissel would stick at nothing if he found him looking for them. In most of the crime stories William had read the hero was caught by the villain, but the police arrived in the nick of time. He must arrange for the police to arrive in the nick of time . . .

Mr Balham, A.R.P. Communications Worker, Supervisor of Marleigh Report Centre, put on his slippers and sank down into his favourite armchair with a sigh of relief. He had had a tiring day. First of all there had been the air-raid exercise down at the report centre, and he always found those rather exhausting. Then he had put in two hours' gardening and he always found that extremely exhausting. He was glad to relax and to lose himself in his detective novel. The hero of the novel was alone in his flat when there came a ring at the door. He went to open it and found a policeman there.

'Sorry to disturb you, sir,' said the policeman, 'but we've just received a message asking us to come round here.'

At that moment Mr Balham's own door-bell rang, and he put the book aside with a little 'Tut, tut' of exasperation. Some interruption always seemed to come at the most exciting point of a story. On his way to the door, he thought idly how strange it would be if he found a policeman there saying: 'Excuse me, sir, but-'

He stopped on his way through the hall to straighten a mat, then opened the front door, a.s.suming the forbidding expression of one who wants to get back to his detective novel as quickly as possible.

A policeman stood there.

'Excuse me, sir,' he said, 'but-'

Mr Balham was so much astounded that he didn't hear the end of the sentence and had to ask the policeman to repeat it.

'We've had a message asking us to come round here.'

The hall whirled round Mr Balham for a moment, but with an effort he caught hold of it and put it right way up.

'I beg your pardon,' he said, wondering if he had dropped off over the book and this were one of those fantastic dreams he had occasionally.

'We had a message to come round here,' repeated the policeman.

'I never sent any such message,' said Mr Balham, looking down at his legs in sudden apprehension and being rea.s.sured by the sight of his neat and decent grey flannel trousers. The oddest things happened to him in his dreams sometimes!

'Well, it was certainly a queer sort of message,' the policeman was saying. 'Wouldn't give no name and sounded to me like a disguised voice. Told us to send round here in half an hour's time. Practical joker, probably you'd be surprised the number we get but it was on my beat so I said I'd look in.'

'Well, I certainly never sent for you,' said Mr Balham firmly, 'so it must be a practical joke.'

'Probably,' said the policeman, 'but now I'm here I might as well have a look round.'

Entering the house he began a tour of inspection, followed by Mr Balham, who had now come to the conclusion that this was no dream, but a coincidence, such as people wrote to the papers about and recount in clubs. He was wis.h.i.+ng that he'd finished the chapter before the police came. It would be interesting to know what the police discovered in the hero's flat.

Well, certainly there was nothing to discover here . . . But he was mistaken. There was something to discover. For at that moment the policeman threw open the dining-room door and discovered a small boy kneeling in front of the open sideboard cupboard, surrounded by silver teapot, jug, sugar basin, spoons, knives and forks and dishes by a choice little collection of old silver, in fact, that Mr Balham had recently inherited from a great-aunt.

After ringing up the police and arranging, as he thought, for them to rescue him from the hands of the villain in the nick of time, William had set out for Mr Balham's house. There, he had effected an entry by means of a drain-pipe and an open bedroom window, and had begun a systematic search for the confidential doc.u.ments. A thorough examination of Mr Balham's bedroom had revealed nothing (though on visiting it later in the evening that mild man was to use language that would almost certainly have induced his great-aunt to alter her will), and so William had crept cautiously and silently downstairs and started on the dining-room. The sideboard cupboard had seemed a likely hiding-place and, finding it full of silver, William had taken it out piece by piece in order to make sure that the confidential doc.u.ments were not hidden among them. It was at this moment that Mr Balham and the policeman entered. They stood and stared at him in silence.

Then the policeman said to Mr Balham, 'That your boy?'

'No,' said the amazed Mr Balham. 'Never seen him before.'

William looked sternly at the policeman.

'You've come a bit too soon,' he said. The policeman looked down at him.

'Yes,' he said drily, 'I can see I have.'

'I've not found anythin' yet,' said William.

IT WAS AT THIS MOMENT THAT MR BALHAM AND THE POLICEMAN ENTERED.

The policeman looked down at the silver.

'You don't seem to have done so badly,' he said.

'The only things of value in the house,' said Mr Balham.

'Oh yes, he knew what to come for, all right,' said the policeman. 'A proper haul he'd got, too. Or would have had if I hadn't come along . . . I don't know who you're working with, my lad, but whoever it is has given you away. We had a telephone call asking us to come along and nab you.'

'Me?' said William in amazement. 'It wasn't to nab me it was to nab him.' He pointed to Mr Balham who was gazing down at him sadly. 'He's the one you've gotter nab.'

'That's a good one!' chuckled the policeman.

'Juvenile crime!' said Mr Balham, shaking his head mournfully. 'I've heard a lot about it, but I little thought to have it brought home to me like this. Why, he's a mere child!'

'Lucky for us we got that call,' said the policeman. 'Ten to one he'd have got away with it if we hadn't. Yes, young feller-me-lad, if someone hadn't rung us up and told us to come along here-'

'It was me rang you up,' said William. 'I tell you, it's him you've gotter get hold of. He's the crim'nal, not me. Look!'

Before either of them could stop him, he had caught hold of Mr Balham's moustache and pulled it as hard as he could.

Mr Balham gave a yell of anguish.

'a.s.sault!' he said, nursing his face tenderly in both hands. 'Add a.s.sault to your charge, constable. Theft and a.s.sault. And I hope the magistrate won't be lenient.'

'He's got it stuck on jolly fast,' said William, 'or else he's grown it. I bet that's it. He's grown it . . . But it's a disguise, all right.'

The policeman took out his notebook.

'I want your name and address, my lad,' he said, 'and an explanation of what you're doing with that silver.'

'Me?' said William indignantly. 'Look here! You don't understand. It's not me what's the criminal. It's him. He's ole Grissel. He's handin' the country over to ole Hitler. I tell you, I've seen him doin' it. He was doin' it all this mornin'. Listen. If you let him go now he'll give the country over to ole Hitler straight away. I tell you I've heard him doin' it telephonin' people an' tellin' 'em that the whole place was blown up jus' to scare 'em. He's got people workin' under him, too, same as he had in Norfolk. They were all telephonin' an' tellin' people the whole place was blown up jus' to scare 'em. They said that Marleigh police station was blown up. Well, that's a lie 'cause I pa.s.sed it. An' Pithurst Lane an' Hill Road an-'

A light was slowly dawning in Mr Balham's mind.

'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' he said, giving his injured lip a rea.s.suring final caress. 'Where were you this morning when you heard all this?'

William walked slowly down the road homeward. Mr Balham was an extremely patriotic little man, and he felt that William's zeal, though mistaken, was on the whole commendable. After dismissing the policeman, he had refreshed William with a large currant bun and a gla.s.s of lemonade and finally presented him with half a crown. Against his will, William had been persuaded of the innocence of his host. He was reluctant to abandon the carefully built-up case against him, but the currant bun and lemonade and half-crown consoled him. He decided to buy some new arrows with the half-crown. All his old ones, having found unauthorised marks of one sort or another, had been confiscated. He would go to the field behind the old barn with the Outlaws tomorrow morning, and they would have a bow-and-arrow practice. It was a long time since they'd had a bow-and-arrow practice. When he reached home, he found his mother still at work on the table napkins.

'Well, dear,' she said, looking up from her work, 'had a nice afternoon?'

'Yes thanks,' said William absently, wondering whether it wouldn't be better, after all, to buy water-pistols.

'What have you been doing?' went on Mrs Brown.

William drew his mind with an effort from the all-important question of the half-crown (he must not decide in too much of a hurry; he could do with another boat; it was some time since they had had a regatta on the stream) to the details of an afternoon that was already vanis.h.i.+ng into the mists of the past.

'Me?' he said vaguely. 'This afternoon? Nothin' much. I caught that man you were all talkin' about this mornin', an' I was arrested for stealin' silver an' someone gave me half a crown.'

Mrs Brown was accustomed to her son's fantastic imaginary adventures.

'Yes, I'm sure you did, dear,' she said. 'Will you pa.s.s me the scissors?'

CHAPTER 3.

WILLIAM THE FIRE-FIGHTER

WILLIAM and the Outlaws were thrilled to find that an A.F.S. 'area' had sprung up overnight in Hadley. At least, it wasn't there when they went into Hadley one week, and it was there the next. It appeared suddenly in a garage on the outskirts of the town, complete with trailers, pumps, and a heterogeneous collection of cars. Added to this were miles of hose-pipe and a glorious spate of water. All behind an imposing erection of sandbags.

The Outlaws could not tear themselves away from the fascinating spectacle. G.o.d-like beings in long rubber boots reaching almost to their waists waded about the swimming garage floor, polished the trailers, tinkered with the cars and did physical jerks. Occasionally they sallied forth with cars and trailers to neighbouring ponds, where they detached the trailers, unwound the hoses, and sent breath-taking sprays of water in every direction.

Forgotten were all the other interests which had once filled the Outlaws' lives. They now went down to Hadley Garage immediately after breakfast and stayed there till it was time to go home for lunch, returning immediately afterwards to stay there till tea-time. A house at the back of the garage was used as cook-house, dining-room and dormitory. Savoury smells came from it. Roars of laughter came from the dining-room when the G.o.d-like beings a.s.sembled there for meals.

At first the Outlaws contented themselves with watching this paradise through the gates. Then, cautiously, they entered and hung about just inside. Nothing happened. No one took any notice of them.

It was William who first dared to give a hand with a trailer that a small man with a black moustache was cleaning. The small man seemed to accept his presence and his help as a matter of course, even addressing him as 'mate', which made William feel dizzy with rapture. The other Outlaws followed . . . No one objected to them. Some of the men even seemed pleased to dally in their work to talk to them and explain the various contraptions to them. One of them let William hold a hose-pipe.

'I don't see why we sh'u'nt join 'em prop'ly,' said William to the Outlaws as they went home, drunk with pride. 'Well, we helped, din' we? I bet we'd be jolly useful to 'm. I don't see why we sh'u'nt join prop'ly.'

'We've not got uniforms,' Ginger reminded him.

William dismissed this objection with a sweeping gesture.

'They don't matter. Anyway, they've only got those A.F.S. letters on ordin'ry suits. We could easy get a bit of red cotton an' put A.F.S. on ours.'

'I bet they wouldn't let us join,' said Henry.

'Well, we needn't 'zactly ask 'em,' said William. 'We'll jus' go same as we did today, an' do a bit of helpin', and they'll get used to us gradual till they won't know we weren't part of 'em right at the start.'

The others continued to look doubtful.

'The little one was jolly nice to us,' went on William. 'I bet they'll all be nice to us once they get to know us.'

'I've known people not be,' Douglas reminded him.

'I bet these will be,' said William, the optimist. 'I bet they'll be jolly grateful to us. Anyway, I vote we jus' go an' join 'em tomorrow an' do all the things they do. We'll have badges same as them an' I bet they'll think we've been part of 'em all along. We'll make the badges of red cotton-'

'We've not got any red cotton,' said Douglas.

'Well, we can get some, can't we?' said William irritably. 'Goodness me! You all go on an' on makin' objections. I bet I find some in Ethel's work-box. She's got every poss'ble colour of cotton there is . . . Anyway,' firmly, 'we're part of the A.F.S. now, an' we'll go there tomorrow morning an' do all the things they do . . . I'll go'n' have a look for the red cotton now.'