The Happy Adventurers by Lydia Miller Middleton (best thriller novels of all time TXT) 📖

shed, built by himself and well equipped with shelves, sink, and taps. It would hold six people at a pinch.

“No, I can’t have you all,” Hugh said, “you wouldn’t all see at once, and it is too much of a crowd. I’ll take two at a time. Dick and Prue to begin with.”

The remaining three settled themselves within sight of the garden gate, and discussed the various features of Hugh’s adventure.

“I don’t believe it is half so bad as he thinks,” Jerry said, “because it stands to reason that a dead man could not get up and walk away, especially not across a ploughed field. I doubt if even a man who had lost several pints of blood could walk very far. And if he had been carried off, there would have been a fuss, and the ballooners would have been tackled at once—in fact, I can’t think why they weren’t. I think it looks rather bad for Grizzel’s diamond; worse for the diamond than for the man. I wonder how fast the balloon was going. How fast does a balloon fly?”

“Somewhere from eight to thirty-six miles an hour, according to the wind, Jules Verne says,” Grizzel answered.

“Eight miles an hour! My hat! Fancy crawling through the air at eight—”

There was a sound at the garden gate and the three jumped to their feet. A young man walked up the broad path between the cypress trees, striking across the grass when he saw the children. He was not a policeman, having indeed a very kind and cheerful expression, which he was trying, not very successfully, to hide under a severe frown.

“Does anyone named Grizzel Campbell live in this house?” he asked.

“Yes, me,” Grizzel answered, turning a little pale.

“You!” exclaimed the young man, looking with some astonishment at the small figure before him, with its tumbled red curls. “I don’t suppose you are the owner of a—” he broke off uncertainly.

“She is the owner of a green diamond in a ring, if that is what you wish to know,” Jerry spoke up.

“What on earth is a kid like you doing with a magnificent diamond ring?” the young man asked, forgetting to frown and letting everyone see quite plainly what a nice face he really had.

“Oh—have you got my ring? Has there been a miracle?” Grizzel cried, clutching at the young man’s arm.

“I have got the ring, and there has been a miracle sure enough,” he answered rather grimly. “I suppose that Mr. Hugh Campbell is your brother. Where is he?”

“He’s here all right,” Jerry answered, “but would you mind telling us what happened before I call him? Whatever he did he’s jolly cut up about it, and if it was anything very bad I’d like to—to prepare him a bit, you know. He went to look for his stone and got the fright of his life when he found his hank and the blood.”

“Blood!” the young man ejaculated, with a puzzled frown. “What blood?”

“He said the ground was soaked in blood. All the stones were red. He thinks that the person he hit must have lost pints of blood.”

The young man threw back his head and laughed—a big, reassuring laugh which brought some colour into the three pale and anxious faces turned up to his. “Blood! I see! No, it was not so bad as all that, it only might have been. It was not blood, it was only—but I’d better begin at the beginning and tell you what happened. I was sitting in Macgregor’s Burnt Oak field, working at—well, a little experiment I am interested in, when I saw the balloon had come right over. Of course I had been watching it, but for a bit I was absorbed in my experiment and had not looked up. I looked up then and was staring hard, when suddenly, before I could say Jack Robinson, a whacking stone came hurtling down and cleared my head by less than a foot. If it had hit me—by Jove! I’d have tried the last and biggest experiment before this!”

“A foot is a pretty good miss,” said Jerry, a look of immense relief spreading over his face. “I know a chap who had a parting cut in his hair with a bullet; that’s what I call a narrow shave. That’s what he calls it too,” Jerry added, with a grin.

“No doubt he does. My shave was narrow enough for me, thank you. It all but knocked my precious experiment into the middle of next week. But what I want to know is why Hugh Campbell throws diamond rings about the country. If the stone hadn’t plopped into the middle of my—my little game—which was almost another miracle when you consider the size of the field—the ring would have been lost for ever.”

“It’s a miraculous ring,” Grizzel explained, “and it brings luck. I expect you’ll be ever so lucky now. But how did you know where to look for Hugh?” she added rather anxiously. Mr. Ferguson would not be pleased, to put it mildly, if he knew how nearly Hugh had involved him in a tragedy.

“I know your father,” the young man replied, “he once did me a good turn. So I knew where to look for the owner of the handkerchief without troubling Mr. Ferguson.”

“But what was that mush if it wasn’t blood?” asked Jerry.

“That? Oh—that was merely my little experiment; that is my secret for the present, and I trust you not to mention it. But no one has told me why your brother chucked a diamond ring out of the balloon.”

“It was a mistake; he was trying experiments too,” Grizzel explained. “But, please, may I go and tell him that he isn’t a murderer? He is expecting to be hanged every minute, and it makes him feel perfectly miserable. But I was sure that my ring would bring him luck.”

Grizzel sped off on her mission. She knocked at the dark-room door. “Please put an ear at the keyhole—I have important news.”

An ear was promptly at her disposal. She did not ask whose, but went on:

“The murdered man has come, and he isn’t in the least dead. And his blood wasn’t blood, only his experiment, and he’s got my ring. He is a nice man, and he is forgiving Hugh as hard as he can, and there were two miracles, and I told you so!”

There was a momentary silence within, and then a glad shout. Dick began to sing “God save the King”, which seemed less appropriate when he remembered that the sovereign of the moment was a queen; but no one noticed, and the main point was that someone was saved. A few minutes later the dark-room party emerged, Hugh very pale and shaky as he went to meet his supposed victim. Indeed, for a moment he was incapable of speech, and Jerry, who knew only too well what it felt like to have a lump sticking in his throat just when he wanted to be most manly and soldier-like, filled up what would have been an awkward pause by saying anything that came into his head until Hugh had recovered himself.

“I’ve had a lesson,” he began, as he shook hands with the young man, whose name they now learnt was Desmond O’Rourke. “I am awfully sorry—”

“That’s all right,” Mr. O’Rourke interrupted, “we all have to learn lessons now and then—I’ve learnt some myself—at least I hope I have. How are the photographs turning out?”

“Very well, thank you. Would you like to come and see them? Mr. Ferguson’s is the best portrait I have done yet.” Hugh recovered from his emotion as he spoke, but he was still very pale.

Mr. O’Rourke accepted the invitation with alacrity. “We can exchange experiences,” he said. “I am curious to know what the experiment was that so nearly bowled me out. But first I must return the diamond to its owner.” He drew the ring out of an inner pocket and held it out to Grizzel. As the diamond met the golden glow of the fading day its green rays gleamed and sparkled. “One might believe it was alive!” Mr. O’Rourke exclaimed. “I never saw anything like it. You kids ought not to have a jewel like that to play pitch-and-toss with; someone should keep it for you.”

“I wear it round my neck,” said Grizzel, unfastening the neckband of her overall and showing a slender chain of finely wrought gold. She took it off and slung the ring on.

“I have one almost as good,” Hugh observed, as they watched Grizzel, “but mine is not set yet; perhaps I’ll have it made into a ring some day. Mamma says I should keep it till I want an engagement ring—”

“O bay o’ Dublin, my heart you’re troublin’,”

Mollie gave a violent start—but it was only Bridget singing in the kitchen.

Mr. O’Rourke turned his head and listened. “Who comes from Dublin?” he asked.

“It’s Bridget, our nurse when Baby is here and our cook just now,” Prudence answered. “She’s feeling homesick. She does sometimes.”

“So do I,” said Mr. O’Rourke. “It’s a long time since I’ve seen the bay o’ Dublin. I must shake hands with Bridget.”

Mollie gazed earnestly at Mr. O’Rourke. Was he Aunt Mary’s long-ago lover? No—he was too old. He must be twenty-two at least. But she felt almost sure that somehow he had something to do with that romance.

As they stood at the white gate later on, saying goodbye, their new friend pulled a round white stone out of one of his many pockets. “Shall I keep this or shall I give it to you?” he asked Hugh.

There was a curious silence as the children gathered round to gaze at the innocent-looking missile in Mr. O’Rourke’s hand. It was little the worse of its adventure—slightly chipped and scratched, and on one side an ominous red stain which made Hugh shiver and turn pale again, as it reminded him how nearly his thoughtlessness had cost a life.

“Give it to me,” he said at last. “I will write the date on it, and if it doesn’t remind me to think twice, nothing will, and I will deserve to be hanged.”

“Very well,” agreed Mr. O’Rourke, “only remember that the red stain is only what I told you it was.”

“I’ll remember,” said Hugh, holding the stone in his hand and looking gravely down at it, “but I won’t forget that it might have been what I thought it was.”

Grizzel’s solemn round eyes went from one to the other during this transaction. “Is that what it means in books when it says, ‘marked with a white stone’?” she asked Hugh.

“It is a sort of milestone,” Hugh answered thoughtfully, “and it will mark a new start for me. It ought to have your name on as well as mine,” he added, looking up at Mr. O’Rourke. “Perhaps it means a new mile for you too. You can’t tell.”

The young man laughed: “You make me feel as if it were my tombstone; you are all so solemn. Let me see a smile before I go.”

A nice white smile flashed round the company, but Hugh’s eyes remained thoughtful as he watched the young Irishman walk away down the leafy road.

After all the emotions of that exciting day Hugh was tired, so next morning found the children sitting quietly in the broad veranda. Prudence busied herself with sewing; Grizzel sat at the table happily absorbed in painting a spray of wattle to send to Mamma. She had placed it in a tall, slender vase of Venetian glass, pale yellow flecked with gold. Hugh lay on the floor, his chin in the hollow of his hands, and his feet alternately tapping