The Serial Garden: The Complete Armitage Family Stories (42 page)

This was just what Harriet had hoped. Mark had oboe lessons from Professor Johansen who as well as teaching music ran a holiday home for dogs with owners overseas, and knew exactly the kind of airs and harmonies to please the canine taste. Harriet was not too easy in her mind about Bobbie-Dob; a Pit-Bull-Mastiff cross might, she thought, be rather a tough proposition.

Nightwood Park lay about half a mile downhill from the Armitage house and was partly wooded, partly open grassy land. A graveled track ran as far as the house, and beyond that a muddy footpath and right-of-way cut through the woods to a heathery common.

Since nobody had occupied the house for fifteen years it was in a very run-down condition, with ivy creeping up the walls, tiles missing from the roof, and several broken windows. The woods, too, were a tangle of brambles and undergrowth, a paradise for birds, badgers, and foxes. Otters had established a colony in the fast-flowing little river that crossed the path.

Harriet had expected that the Hall would be a scene of activity, with builders bustling about, but this was not the case. A builder's skip stood outside the front door, filled with rubble and odds and ends. At some distance round the circular, weed-grown gravel sweep an aged Morris car was parked. Harriet could not decide whether there was a person sitting in the car, or was it simply a blanket folded over the driver's seat? No one else was to be seen, but when Mark and Harriet and her seven satellite dogs reached the rusty wrought-iron gates that separated the sweep from the approach road, a deep, threatening bark could be heard from inside the house.

Harriet's troupe of dogs bristled, and several of them set up a hostile chorus of counter-barks.

"I'll just tie them up here,” said Harriet, looping the lead handles over the latch of the gate, leaving the dogs on the outside. “No sense walking into trouble."

She and Mark approached the house slowly and with caution, not wishing to run foul of Bobbie-Dob. Nightwood Park Hall was large and gray, with six pillars set across its front facade and twelve large windows on each storey. There were three stories.

"Rather a big house for Lady Havergal-N and her Jimbo,” said Harriet. “Unless they have dozens of children."

The barking inside grew more and more menacing.

"How about playing a tune?” suggested Harriet. She wished that Lady Havergal-Nightwood would appear. There was a brass bell handle at the side of the two large double doors (from which the paint was peeling; a mess of crumbled paint lay on the cobbles inset on the steps that led up to the door).

Mark took his oboe from its pack and played “Oh Where Is My Little Dog Gone?"

There was a startled silence from inside the house.

Harriet gave another couple of vigorous tugs to the bell handle.

After two or three more minutes one of the double doors opened. Lady Havergal-Nightwood stood there. On a short, tight leash she held one of the most disagreeable-looking dogs that Harriet thought she had ever seen. It was the size of a large mastiff, brindled, with very large feet and a low-slung tail, and it had the squashed face of a pit bulldog. The face wore a thoroughly mean and hostile expression and the dog tugged at its leash as if it yearned to leap out and make mincemeat of these troublesome callers.

Mark played his little tune again.

Bobbie-Dob suddenly sat down as if he had booked a seat for a musical recital, showed his ticket at the door, found his place, and now wanted nothing more than to sit, listen, and enjoy himself.

"Gid hivens, dulling,” said Lady Havergal-Nightwood, “you mist be a bit of a genius if you can charm my old Bobbie so cliverly! Will it last?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think so, not for more than five minutes. I'll have to keep playing while my sister walks the dogs."

"Jist like the Pied Piper!” said Lady Havergal-Nightwood gaily. “Here's the leash, dulling. And I'd keep him on it. There are roe deer in the woods, I believe, and—and—and he'd be after them in no time if you let him go."

"This is going to be a well-earned wish,” thought Harriet, as, controlling Bobbie-Dob with all the strength of her right hand, she returned to the gate and collected her seven other customers. Mark meanwhile kept up a series of mellifluous tunes on the oboe, which attracted the interest of several birds, wood-doves, peckers, and warblers as they walked along the muddy cart-track between the trees.

Harriet let the other clients off their leads as soon as they were well into the wood; the dogs were used to the path and trotted along rather soberly—it was plain that they were justifiably nervous of Bobbie-Dob and not at all anxious to provoke him in any way. He wandered along like a dog in a trance, only flicking up his ears, jerking up his head, and letting out a displeased growl if the music stopped for more than a moment.

His growl was particularly impatient when Mark broke off playing to say, “Can you hear a car coming along this track?"

"Yes I can,” said Harriet. “Whoever is driving along here surely must be crazy."

"Well, I suppose it's the only way to get to the house if they are coming from the east side of the park. Otherwise they'd have to go all the way round, which would be about ten miles. They do have a four-wheel drive,” he added, as the car came into view. It was a white wagon of massive stocky build.

"Good heavens, it's Chinese!” exclaimed Harriet. “I never saw a Chinese registration plate before. Do you think they are friends of the Havergal-Nightwoods paying a visit?"

"No, they are police,” said Mark. “Chinese police."

"What makes you think that?"

"Their faces. And their uniforms. And the sign on the door."

The sign on the car may or may not have said POLICE in Chinese. The two men, with serious faces and dark blue uniforms, certainly looked like police.

The car stopped. The door nearest Mark and Harriet opened, and the blue-uniformed driver asked them, very politely,

"Is this the way to Nightwood Park Hall?” His careful, correct English was certainly that of a foreigner.

Mark stopped playing his oboe for a moment, which threw Bobbie-Dob into a frenzy. He hurled himself at the white car and Harriet just managed to jerk him back before he assaulted the driver.

"Oh my!” said the driver. “Oh my! I discover that you possess a Chinese police dog. But he does not appear to be very well trained."

"He's not trained at all,” said Harriet, hauling on the leash. Mark hurriedly began playing “Oh Where and Oh Where."

"Now, this is quite interesting,” said the driver, carefully observing the struggles and furious snarls of Bobbie-Dob. “He is not your dog?"

"NO—thank goodness!” agreed Harriet.

"He has recently come to this country from China?"

"Has he? I mean—I don't really know anything about him. He belongs to Lady Havergal-Nightwood. I'm just here to take him for a walk. But if he has just come from China—shouldn't he be in quarantine somewhere? For six months?"

The driver—his name on a bilingual badge was given as Captain Tim Thing—studied Bobbie-Dob carefully. As soon as the music had exerted its tranquilizing effect, he lifted the dog's massive front leg and displayed a tattooed number. “See? Chinese police dog registration number. He is for sure one of ours. Purloined!"

"Gracious!” said Harriet. “Why would anybody
want
to?"

"Aha! But such dogs are most useful—for guarding some prisoner perhaps. Human or animal."

"Animal?” said Harriet. “You mean—like a lion? Or something fierce?"

"Just so. We are come in pursuit of this stolen dog all the way from China."

"You came after him? He's yours? But what about Lady Havergal-Nightwood? He's supposed to belong to her."

"She resides up at the Hall yonder?” He pointed. The house could just be seen past the trees.

"Yes, she's there. But do you mean to say,” said Harriet, “that she may be keeping some other creature—or person—up there in the house? Is that why she hasn't got any builders there working? She's using this dog to guard something—or somebody?"

"Perchance. It may be so. Or—maybe—her other captive is somewhere in these woods. Such a small forest as this might well be a place of security for the retention of, mayhap, a modest-sized dragon."

"A
dragon
?” said Mark, growing interested. He stopped playing for a moment and Bobbie-Dob let out a warning snarl.

"I pacify him,” said Captain Thing, and he took from the car glove compartment a small case which contained tiny darts. One of these he neatly jabbed into Bobbie-Dob's shoulder. The result was even more immediate than Mark's music—the great dog's eyes shut, and he sagged smoothly onto the muddy track.

"He's not dead?” said Harriet anxiously.

"No, no. Asleep merely."

"But what's this about a dragon?"

"We are missing a young one from our dragon sanctuary at Pa'ta'Chu. We know this lady and her husband were there. A fledgling dragon was stolen. We have followed them across Asia and Europe; we greatly hope they have our dragon-cub. Such are not easy to rear. I have with me Professor Tom Wrong—a great expert in the care of dragon broods and other offspring of winged reptiles."

"Is so!” agreed Professor Wrong, vigorously nodding.

"(His English is not so good as mine.) But now,” Captain Thing pursued, “it is most fortuitous, most opportune, that you have these other dogs with you. I ask your cooperation that we make use of them for half an hour to search this covert for our abducted tadpole-dragon. The weather in your land is not comforting. In this cold damp climate he may likely have taken a chill. We are concerned for him."

"Shouldn't you go and ask at the house first? He may be there?"

"But as we are here—in the grove—with dogs—"

"Oh, very well!"

In truth, Harriet felt slightly uneasy at allowing the use of the dogs—who, after all, did not belong to her—for this unprogrammed purpose. Suppose the dragon was warlike? Irascible? Suppose some harm came to the dogs?

But Mark was definitely interested in the possibility of finding a dragon in Nightwood Copse.

"Let's go!” he said, parked his oboe in the Chinese police car, and relieved Harriet of four of her charges—she had hooked them onto their leads again while they were being approached by the car.

"I make a signal,” said Captain Thing, and he took from his pocket an elegant little metal triangle the size of a playing-card and struck it with a slender metal rod. The resulting ping! could only just be heard—but it
was
heard, for it was followed by an instant's total hush in the wood, and then by a soft and wondering chorus of chirrups, whistles, tweets, twitters, coos, croaks, carols, and warbles.

Captain Thing listened to these so attentively that Harriet wondered if in China the police ran Schools of Listening for their recruits. He repeated the signal—twice—and the third time, after the birds had finished their responses, held up a finger, and said, “Hark!"

Harriet thought she heard a faint sound, between a croak and a bleat.

"Ah!” Captain Thing beamed in triumph. His colleague gave an emphatic nod. “That is S'an Ch'in. But he sounds weak—not well—not in good order. It is well time we came.” He glanced at the group of dogs and his eye fell on the Jack Russell, who was straining at the leash and looking very alert and keen.

"Come. We follow him."

The Jack Russell—whose name was Mickey—led the six other dogs and four humans along a difficult, bumpy, muddy, and tangled trail across the patch of brambly woodland to the river that divided it in half.

"Is there a bridge?” inquired Captain Thing.

"Only a fallen tree—but the river isn't deep,” Mark assured him. “You can wade it."

Captain Thing looked less than eager at this suggestion, and began to make his way upstream along the mossy and rocky bank. The river—hardly more than a brook—was clear and fast-running with small islands in it that were merely grass-grown rocks, and sandbanks that would be submerged when the stream was at its winter level but were now dry and clear.

On one of these lay a small dragon.

It would be plain, even to person who had never seen a dragon before, that he was not in good health. His scales, which ought to have been crisp and shining green, were grayish in colour, damp and limp, like those of fish that have lain too long at the fishmonger's.

"S'an Ch'in!"

The little dragon bleated. It was a faint, pitiful sound. He opened one gummy eye. Then—as if he could hardly believe what he saw—he opened the other eye and feebly raised his head. A wispy flicker of pale flame spurted from his nostrils.

Simultaneous volleys of Chinese admonitions poured from Captain Thing and Professor Wrong. Plainly they were urging the dragonlet to save his strength, not to overexert himself. Professor Wrong pulled a little silver flask from his pocket, scrambled down the bank to where the dragon lay, and tipped its contents onto the long pale tongue and in among the curved razor-sharp fangs.

"Ginger cordial,” murmured Captain Thing. “Best by far for sick dragon."

The dogs, meanwhile, were evidently thunderstruck and wholly discomposed at the sight of this creature that had turned up in their accustomed playground. They stood in a row like a firing squad, panting, tongues lolling out, eyes trained on the dragon, as if they were waiting for a word of command. Harriet was thankful that Bobbie-Dob had been left in the police car.

Professor Wrong now unpacked from his knapsack a kind of canvas carry-all, and into this he and Captain Thing carefully and tenderly rolled the dragon, who was about the size of a well-grown twelve-year-old boy. He had been chained to some tree-roots on the bank; Captain Thing, with an expression of total disapproval, brought out a pair of metal-cutters and snipped through the chain.

"Who can have done that?” exclaimed Harriet. “What a foul thing to do!"

"The Lady Havergal, no doubt,” said Captain Thing. “Or her husband."

"But why should they want to steal a dragon? And keep it tied up?"

"You want a Himalayan bear,” Mark pointed out. “Some people want dragons."

"And pay much money for them,” nodded Captain Thing. “The lady may be a dealer in dragons."