“I am going out for the evening,” he informed them. “I advise you to lock up for the night as solidly as possible. Do not expect to see me again until about this time tomorrow. Pleasant dreams…”
On the verge of opening the door, he checked himself, frowning at them.
“The two of you have an undernourished and ill-clad look, which I find distasteful, and will only provoke more neighborly curiosity. Here.” White fingers performed an economical toss; a small coin, glittering gold, spun through the air. Christopher’s quick hand, like a hungry bird, snatched it in midnight.
That night brother and sister slept with full bellies, having gone out foraging amid the early evening crowds, to a nearby branch of the Aerated Bread Company. At a used furniture stall Carrie had also bought herself a nice frock, almost new, and a couple of pillows; it was awkward living in a house where there were no beds or chairs. And Christopher had found a secondhand pair of shoes that fit him well enough. They were going to sleep on the kitchen floor again, but they were getting used to it.
“Where’d he sleep, is what I’d like to know,” said Chris next day, climbing the stairs up from the parlor. The man had said he’d not be back till sunset, so now in midafternoon there was no harm in gratifying their curiosity, never mind that he’d said to keep below.
Both of the bedrooms were as desolate as ever, and the dust on their floors showed only their own footprints, one set shod, one five-toed, from yesterday’s exploration.
“And how’d he get into the house?” Carrie wanted to know. “Didn’t come past us downstairs.”
“You don’t suppose—?”
“The skylight? Why’d a man do that?”
” ‘Cause he don’t want to be seen.”
And they went up the narrow white stair, through the trapdoor.
The skylight was as snugly fastened as before. Out of persistent curiosity they approached the mysterious box again. The lid, once moved, fell clattering with shock and fright.
“Oh my God. He’s in there!”
But none of this awakened Mr. Martin.
After initially recoiling, both children had to have a closer look. In urgent whispers they soon decided the man who lay so neatly and cleanly on the earth in his nice clothes was not dead. His open eyes moved faintly. In Carrie’s experience, people sometimes got drunk, but never had even the drunkest of them looked like this. Some people also took strange drugs, and with that she had less familiarity.
A ring at the front door broke the spell and pulled them down the stairs. A solid workman stood on the step, cap in hand. In a thick Cockney accent he said he had come to inquire about a box, one that might have been delivered here “by mistake.” Carrie, in a clean dress today, and with her face washed, denied all knowledge and briskly sent the questioner on his way.
“I don’t think he believed me,” Carrie muttered to her brother, when the door was closed again. “He’ll be back. Or someone will.”
“What’ll we do? Don’t want anyone bothering Mr. Martin. I like him,” Chris decided.
Quickly the girl took thought. “I know!”
Within the hour the bell rang again. This man was much younger, and obviously of higher social status. Bright eyes, dark curly hair. “Excuse me, Miss? Are you the woman of the house?”
“Who wants her?”
“I’m George Harris, of Harris and Sons, moving and shipment.” A large, clean hand with well-trimmed nails offered a business card. Carrie read the address: Orange Master’s Yard, Soho.
“Oh. I suppose you’re one of the sons.”
“That’s right, Miss. I’m looking about this neighborhood for a box that seems to have got misplaced. There’s evidence it was brought to this house, some days ago. One of a large shipment, fifty in all, there’s been a lot of hauling of ‘em to and fro around London, one place and another. Ours not to reason why, as the poet says. But our firm feels a certain responsibility.”
“What sort of box?”
George Harris had a good description, down to the rope handles. “Seen anything like that, Miss?” Meanwhile his eyes were probing the empty house behind her.
And Carrie was looking out past him, as a cab came galloping to a stop outside. Two well-dressed young gentlemen leaped out and climbed the steps. George Harris, who seemed to know them as respected clients, made introductions. Lord Godalming, no less, but called “Art” by his companion, Mr. Quincey Morris, who was carrying a carpetbag, and whose accent, though not at all the same as Mr. Martin’s, also seemed uncommon even for Soho.
The new arrivals made nervous, garbled attempts at explaining their urgent search. There had been, it seemed, twenty-one boxes taken from some place called Carfax, and so forty-nine of fifty were somehow now accounted for. But this time, Lord Godalming or not, Carrie held her place firmly in the doorway, allowing no one in.
“If there is a large box on the premises, I must examine it.” A commanding tone, as only one of his lordship’s exalted rank could manage.
At that, Carrie gracefully gave way. “Very well, sir, my lord, there is a strange box here, and where it came from, I’m sure I don’t know.”
Three men came bustling into the house, ready for action, Morris actually, for some reason, beginning to pull a thick wooden stake out of his carpetbag—and three men were deflated, like burst balloons, when they beheld the thin-sided, commonplace container on the parlor floor.
“Our furniture has not arrived yet, as you can see.” The lady of the house was socially apologetic.
Quincey Morris, muttering indelicate words, kicked off the scruffy lid, and indeed there was dirt inside, but only a few handfuls. And the two gentlemen hastily retreated to their waiting cab.
But George Harris lingered in the doorway, exchanging a few more words with Carrie. Until his lordship shouted at him to get a move on, there were other places to be examined. On with the search!
At sunset Carrie’s and Christopher’s cotenant came walking down the stairs into the parlor as before. There he paused, fussing with his cuffs as on the previous evening, But now his attention was caught by the rejected box. “And what is this? An attempt at furnishing?”
“You had some callers, Mr. Martin—de Ville—while you were asleep. I thought as maybe you didn’t wish to be disturbed.” And Carrie gave details.
“I see.” His dark eyes glittered at her. “Arid this—?”
“The gentlemen said they were looking for a large box of earth. So I thought the easiest way was to show ‘em one. Chris and I put some dirt in and dragged it up from the cellar.’Course this one ain’t nearly as big as yours. Not big enough for a tall man to lie down in. The gents were upset—this weren’t at all the one they wanted to find.”
There was a long pause, in which de Ville’s eyes probed the children silently. Then he bowed. “It seems I am greatly in your debt, Miss Carrie. Very greatly. And in yours, Master Christopher.”
Mr. de Ville seemed to sleep little the next day, or not at all, for the box in the garret held only earth. In the afternoon, Carrie by special invitation went with her new friend and his strange box to Doolittle’s Wharf, where she watched the man and his box board the sailing ship Czarina Catherine. And she waited at dockside, wondering, until the Russian vessel cast off and dropped down seaward on the outgoing tide.