The Case of the Spellbound Child Read online

  But they found exactly nothing.

  They met at the northernmost point of the reservoir, and from the look of the other two, neither were going to be good for much more tonight. Sarah capped that observation by saying, “I am knackered. We’ve done all we can for now.”

  “You’re right,” Nan agreed.

  “Time for real bed,” said Suki.

  The one good thing about all this spirit-world travel was that they did not have to fly back to where they had left their bodies, they merely had to will themselves out of their respective trances, and they were snapped back into those bodies in an instant.

  Which was a good thing, because Nan, at least, fell into a real sleep as soon as she had.

  16

  JOHN’S map was spread out on the table in the Watsons’ room after they had finished breakfast, and they were all studying it. Red dots for the missing. Blue dots had been for hauntings, but last night Sarah, Nan, and Suki had eliminated all of them. There had been ghosts—fewer than were reported—but the three of them had persuaded or tricked all of them to the other side.

  All those blue dots had been erased, and now blue stood for blanks—places the sylphs reported they could not see into nor enter. Green for purported witches . . . and that was where things got interesting, because three of those were also at the same location as blue dots.

  Which was, of course, exactly what you would expect if the purported witches were real witches, perhaps ones who had magic running in their families for a very long time, and had carefully protected their working places for generations, until the protections layered on top of protections had become permanent.

  The question was . . . were any of them up to no good? Or more to the point, were any of them kidnapping children?

  “You know,” Sarah said, something suddenly occurring to her. “What if whoever is taking these children is doing so to save them from neglect, starvation, and privation? What if we’re entirely wrong about this, and the children aren’t being used, they’re—”

  “And how likely is that?” Mary Watson asked dryly.

  “And if so, why take the Byerly children? Their parents love them. They’re poor, but not starving. Maryanne had a single moment of losing her temper, and did the right thing by sending them out of the house,” John added.

  Sarah sighed. “You’re right, of course. There are no Fair Elves or Good Witches who only kidnap neglected or abused children. That would make a lovely story, though.”

  There had been no word from Sherlock, although they really didn’t expect any. He would work according to his own methods on his own mysterious case, and he would make contact with them only when he thought he had something that pertained to theirs as well. Sarah did wonder where on earth he was staying, though. One generally did not use “Post Office General Delivery” for an address unless one did not actually have an address, and he wasn’t at any of the hotels or inns in or around Yelverton. Not even at the Drake, which did not have individual rooms, only the exceedingly old-fashioned custom of paying for one in a double line of beds lined up in the single upstairs room. Such accommodations were generally used by farmers who were too distant from Yelverton to make it home before sundown on market day. There were fewer and fewer of those nowadays; with the railroad coming to Yelverton, it was more profitable for even small farmers with a couple bushels of produce or a few dozen bundles of flowers to sell all their goods to a wholesaler who would take them to Plymouth, rather than taking them to a local market and risk going home with goods unsold.

  “Do we divide up, or do we go as a group?” Sarah asked aloud. “There are hazards to both options.”

  John and Mary looked at each other. “We . . . could do both, in a way?” Mary replied for both of them. “We go as a group, but we approach the area with no more than two of us at a time.”

  “Or we let Suki do the initial approach,” Nan suggested. “By saying she’s lost, perhaps. . . .”

  John opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. “I can’t say I like that idea, but Suki volunteered, all four of us—six, counting the birds—will be there with her, and given that children are the targets of this unknown person, she does stand a better chance of flushing the villain out.”

  Suki looked as if John had just gifted her with a new silk gown. “I’ll go get ready,” she said, and darted out the door.

  Sarah’s feelings on this were decidedly mixed. Suki was as prepared as she could be. She was as prepared as an adult would be. They could send Neville to go sit on the roof, or over the cottage door before she approached, and woe betide anyone who opened the door and tried to snatch Suki. Between Neville’s beak and Suki’s knife, any kidnapper would have a very bad few moments, and then the adults would have reached them.

  But Suki was still just a child. Granted, she had volunteered, but did that give them the right to use her as bait?

  Memsa’b and Sahib used us like that. Though I’m sure they had just as many qualms then as we’re having now.

  In the time it took her to think all this, Suki was back, dressed in an old, worn smock-dress with a patched apron over it, her hair tucked under a straw bonnet with a faded ribbon holding it on. When Suki was inclined to, she could get changed faster than anyone Sarah had ever seen.

  “I think that’s the best plan,” Sarah said, finally. “We send Neville first, and put him on the roof. Then Nan and I can come set up with our easels and begin sketching. Then you and Mary, John, can stroll by and pause to gawk at us. Then Suki can make her approach.”

  “Wouldn’t it seem odd to just set up and start sketching someone else’s house without a by-your-leave?” Mary wondered.

  Sarah gave a delicate snort. “Every one of the artists I know would not hesitate for a moment to set up and sketch anyone or anything he thought was interesting. I’ve seen them do it a hundred times. They seem to think they have the right to make a picture out of anything they please. It’s not unlike the tours well-to-do people make of the slums; they simply don’t think about it at all. I suppose in their eyes the poor are not entitled to the finer things, like feelings.”

  John winced. Mary shrugged.

  “At any rate, I am fairly sure they get enough artists and would-be artists and painting dilettantes around here that this is something they have seen before,” Sarah continued. “I would love to be able to eavesdrop on some of the over-the-fence gossip about such encounters, however.”

  “Well, in that case,” John said, “That does seem to be the approach that will arouse the least suspicion.”

  “I’ll get the sketching kits,” Nan volunteered. “There are two locations that we can reach this morning, here and here.” She pointed to one spot within Yelverton itself, though just barely, and another between Yelverton and Milton Combes. “Then this afternoon we can get the horses and try this one, here, south of Sheepstor.”

  “A-hunting we shall go,” agreed John. Nan left for the kits, Suki snatched up her hat, and Sarah took Grey on her hand.

  “Will you be all right coming with us, but hiding in the trees?” she asked the parrot. “We’ll be making enough of a spectacle of ourselves as it is, but it will be an expected spectacle. With you on my shoulder, we might attract a crowd.”

  “Yisssss,” Grey replied, and bobbed enthusiastically. Sarah got the wordless impression from her that the parrot was as impatient of results as any of the humans were.

  She picked up Neville on her other hand and took them both to the window. “Stay out of sight, and Neville, watch for danger to Grey,” she cautioned them, and tossed Neville out first, so he could guard Grey from crows or hawks, then let Grey take flight.

  Then she retied her straw hat firmly just as Nan arrived back with the two sketching kits. These were clever wooden boxes about the size of a lawyer’s briefcase, with easel legs built into them that could be slid out and clamped into place. No really se
rious artist would use them for anything; a real collapsible easel, bulky as it was, was the only thing that would stand up to vigorous painting or sketching, and most real artists would carry one along with their palettes and paints or charcoals, crayons, and pencils regardless of its bulk. But the kits were exactly the sort of thing that “ladies on a painting holiday” would use.

  “Fellow painter?” Sarah said with a little bow, as she took one kit from Nan.

  Nan made a face. “It’s a good thing we’re unlikely to run into any actual artists, that’s all I can say,” she replied, and gestured to Sarah to precede her out the door.

  They made what Sarah thought was an admirable show as they walked down the street, of considering this Tudor building, or that one that clearly dated to the Civil War, absolutely oblivious to the feelings of the people who actually lived in the places they were “considering.”

  The only fear for their ruse that Sarah had was that their destination would prove to be much less “paintable” than anything in the area, thus casting a great deal of doubt as to why they were setting up there.

  But her fears were completely cast aside when they turned the corner of the lane, and there it was. It was a small, single-storied stone cottage with a thatched roof. There was an actual rose bush spreading along the front wall, and two potted geraniums, one on either side of the door. The tiny window behind the rose bush had its shutters flung wide open, and a pair of muslin curtains fluttered half in, half out of it. It looked as if it had sprung straight out of a fairy tale.

  “Oh look, Sarah!” Nan exclaimed needlessly. “That’s perfect!”

  They set up their kits, side by side, across the lane on the verge, chattering away about “light” and “chiaroscuro” (Sarah had no idea what that meant, but Nan threw the word out so they tossed it between them for a while) and “aspect,” doing a great deal of talking and a lot of fussing over getting the position of their easels just right. Sarah had actually just started something like a color sketch of the place when John and Mary came strolling up, arm in arm, and exclaimed to find them there. At that point, Sarah thought she saw someone moving in the shadows behind the curtain, but no one came out.

  They chattered aimlessly for a while, and then Suki appeared, coming from the opposite direction, carrying a basket of pears. Where she had gotten them Sarah had no idea, but it was a very clever ruse. She stopped at the house next to the cottage, while Neville positioned himself on the roof above the door of the target, and Grey fluttered into the branches of the tree above Sarah. Suki actually managed to sell the householder half a dozen pears before proceeding to the target, marching boldly up to the door and knocking.

  It was answered by a very old, stooped woman in a fustian skirt and worn linen blouse, with a canvas apron over it all. She had a very old-fashioned cloth cap over her perfectly white hair. She was honestly just as “paintable” as her cottage, and Sarah found herself hoping that this wasn’t the kidnapper.

  John says she’s definitely a magician of some kind. Fire, he thinks, she heard in her mind.

  “How d’ye fadge, Ganmer?” Suki said politely. “Would ’ee try me pears? Penny each!”

  The old lady laughed, and reached out—

  —Sarah held her breath—

  —and patted Suki on the head. “Bless’ee, child,” she said indulgently. “Chave nobbut three teeth in me head! Try Gatfer Flint, two cots adown. Or ast t’ fine leddies crost road, there.” And she nodded at Nan and Sarah and laughed. “Reck they still got all their teeth!”

  Suki looked up—she didn’t have to look far—into the old woman’s face, then did a quick rummage in her basket and came up with a very yellow pear with brown speckles on it. She held it up while Sarah and Nan sketched. “This un’s soft, but nay aprill’d nor deef,” she said. “She’ll go bad afore Es can sell ’er, so please, have ’er! Tha’ can et ’er with a spoon!”

  The old woman smiled broadly, showing that she did, indeed, have but three teeth, two above and one below. She bent down further. “A trade then? Fancy a fresh scone?”

  Sarah held her breath. Was the old woman about to try to lure Suki into the cottage?

  “Iss, please,” Suki said with enthusiasm.

  “Bide ’ee,” said the woman, and took the pear and vanished into the dark interior of the cottage, returning with a scone, which she handed to Suki, who took it. “Fair trade, little coney, and now tha’s got somethin’ fer nummet, aye?”

  “Aye Ganmer, an’ thank ’ee!” Suki exclaimed, and the old woman chuckled again and shut the door. Suki put the scone in her basket and crossed the road to where they were standing. “How d’ye fadge, leddies?” she asked. “Fancy a pear? Penny each!”

  You little monkey, that was a clever ruse, Nan told her, then said aloud, “I do believe I do.”

  Suki grinned broadly at her, and sold each of them a nice, juicy pear, then sauntered on down the street, bold as Neville, who followed her. Mary and John strolled on, Nan and Sarah put their pears aside and “finished” their sketches, then with many exclamations of admiration for each other’s work, packed up and followed after the Watsons.

  As prearranged, they all met on the outskirts of town a few hundred yards away, well out of sight of the cottage they had just been watching. Suki came last, swinging her now-empty basket and munching her scone. “Wherever did you get the notion to sell pears, you little monkey?” Sarah exclaimed as Neville and Grey landed on a branch overhead.

  “Bought ’em off a boy that was doin’ the same,” Suki replied. “’E was right by the Rock, I saw ’en as I come out, an’ bought the whole basket. ’E didn’ want t’ sell the basket at first, but then I ast as ’ow I was gonna carry ’em elsewise, an’ made ’en a fair offer.”

  “Did you make a profit?” John asked, highly amused.

  “By one scone, an’ the pear I et meself, so reckon I’m ahead,” she retorted. “I didn’ think that ‘Help me, I’m lost’ was going to work in the middle of town, ’cause why would I knock on that door of all of ’em around?”

  “That was shrewd thinking; Holmes would be proud of you,” Mary Watson said warmly. Suki blushed with pleasure at the praise. “And how was the scone?”

  “Worth a pear!” she replied, and licked her lips. “Was currants in it!”

  “Well, what ploy are we going to use on the second target?” John asked.

  “‘Hev ye got any work? I’ll take me pay in nummet,’” Suki said, promptly. “That’s the sorta thing what’ll tell some’un I wouldn’ be missed.”

  “And what will you do if the person actually does have work for you?” John countered.

  “Same as when I run that in the Irregulars. Do it,” she replied.

  John nodded. “All right, then. This time Mary and I will keep ourselves concealed. Nan and Sarah will set up again. Neville will come get you when they are ready.”

  Neville quorked agreement, and they were off.

  The second target was just far enough outside of town up Dousland Road that Yelverton itself wasn’t visible, only the top of the church above the treetops, off in the distance.

  Like the first, this was another small stone cottage, this time with a wall around it, but with slates instead of a thatched roof. There was a big garden, much larger than the one the Byerlys had, and Sarah wondered if this, too, was a “freehold” cottage. It looked as if it was small enough to have been built in a single day by a crew of determined workers, and the plot of land was certainly near enough to Yelverton that quite a few people could have been recruited to help construct it—certainly far more than the couple dozen houses at Sheepstor could hold!

  This one was much, much older than the Byerlys’ cottage, though. Ivy clambered over the walls and up onto the roof, and the gray stones were green with moss and white with patches of lichen; time and weather had eroded the stones until every mark of man’s hand on them was
gone.

  “Earth Magician,” John muttered. “If this is the one . . . well, the prospects are ugly. When Earth Magicians go bad, they go very, very bad, and even a minor mage can do major harm. Tell Suki to be very, very careful, Nan.”

  Suki, of course, was nowhere to be seen, which was the point. John and Mary stepped off the road into a screening of bushes. Nan and Sarah carried on.

  They set up without all the fuss this time, playing the part of serious artists rather than silly dilettantes. They also set up a bit slantwise from the cottage, so that their compositions would have it as a part of the landscape rather than the focus of the sketch. With all of Yelverton to choose to draw, they’d needed to make excuses for that particular cottage. This prospect was a bit more natural, as if they had been looking for a “moorland with cottage” scene and this was about as far from the village as they cared to walk.

  There was a lot less in the way of tree cover for the birds to choose from, so the other reason they had picked the spot they did was because there was a nice big tree to offer shade for themselves and a landing spot for Grey. Once they stopped moving, Grey and Neville came flying out of a tree where the Watsons were hiding, and divided, Grey coming to roost above the girls, and Neville looping around the cottage once to make sure it was the right one, then heading back to get Suki.

  A moment later, and Neville came back, more or less following the road, passing them and landing on the roof of the cottage, disturbing a flock of sparrows. Sarah, whose eyes were very good, saw with astonishment that he managed to snap one as it took off and swallow it whole. She’d had no idea he could do that—she’d seen him take mice before, but never sparrows!