For another three-quarters of an hour the Inspector droned on and it was only when Sergeant Bruton had scribbled 'Must look up "interpolate" in dictionary' for the fifteenth time to keep himself awake that Rascombe got back to the nature of the crimes they were supposed to be investigating.
'We have,' he said, 'to be on the particular look-out for any child or children plural being taken into the Middenhall area and hopefully taken out again...Yes, Sergeant?'
'You can't be suggesting that Miss Midden can have anything to do with child abuse, can you, sir?' asked Sergeant Bruton almost in spite of himself. 'I mean she's, well...I mean...' He gave up.
'When you've been in the Force as long as I have, Sergeant,' said the Inspector, who had in fact been in a shorter time than Bruton, 'you will learn that the outward appearance of some of the nastiest villains is in direct contradistinction to their horribleness. Remember that, Sergeant, and you won't be taken in. And of course vice versa.'
By the following night, the various units were in position around the Middenhall. Operation Kiddlywink, the codename Rascombe had chosen, had begun.
Chapter 23
By the time Miss Midden got home that night it was well past midnight and she was exhausted. And elated.
'I think a nightcap is called for,' she said, and took a bottle of sloe gin she had made before Christmas and poured herself a glass. Then she looked doubtfully at the Major. The poor man was looking so wistfully at the bottle, and he had behaved himself with Timothy Bright.
'All right,' she said. 'You too. Get yourself a glass. We've cause for celebration. I don't know how much money is in that hold-all but at a rough guess I'd say getting on for half a million pounds. There's a parcel in there which must contain money as well. He was to take it to Spain and deliver it to someone there. So, cheers. And don't look so stunned. It's only money.'
The Major was stunned, so stunned that he hadn't touched his sloe gin. 'Half a million? Half a million?' he stammered. And she said it was only money. Major MacPhee had never been in the presence of so much money in his entire life. And he had never been in the presence of a woman who could treat such an enormous sum with such disdain. He couldn't find words to express his shock.
'It may be less and it may be more,' Miss Midden went on. 'What does it matter? It's a great deal of money. That's all.'
'What are you going to do with it?' he managed to ask.
Miss Midden sat down at the kitchen table and grinned. It was an exultant grin with a hint of malice. The Major was a weak man and he needed to know that he wasn't going to lay his hands on any of the cash. 'I am going to sleep with the shotgun beside the bed. That's the first thing I'm going to do,' she said. 'And after that we shall see.'
She finished her sloe gin, picked up the hold-all, and went through to her office to fetch the gun and a mole-trap. Mole-traps were useful for catching things other than moles. Like hands.
Once in her bedroom she emptied the hold-all and put the money in a cardboard box on top of her old mahogany wardrobe. After that she stuffed the bag with empty shoe boxes and some old clothes. Finally she put the mole-trap, now set and open, in the middle with a piece of paper over it. She also locked the door and wedged a chair under the doorknob. Then she went to bed.
Outside, the weather had begun to change. A night wind blew across the open fell and with it there came rain, gusts of rain which blew against the window. Miss Midden slept soundly. She had begun to accomplish what she had set herself to do. It had very little to do with money.
It was still raining in the morning when a motorcycle turned up and a man with a brown paper parcel came to the back door. Miss Midden opened the door reluctantly. 'Package for Major MacPhee,' he said and handed it over with a receipt for Miss Midden to sign. She put the parcel on the kitchen table and watched him ride off. Then she went up to the old nursery with Timothy Bright's breakfast.
'I'll get you some clothes,' she said. 'The Major isn't your size. He's too small, but I think there are some things of my grandfather's that will fit you.'
Timothy Bright thanked her and started on his porridge and bacon and eggs. At least the food, wherever he might be, was good. He hadn't eaten so well for ages. And even his terror had left him. He was beginning to feel safe.
Miss Midden returned with a pair of blue dungarees, an old shirt without a collar, and a sweater that had holes in the elbows. There was also a pair of boots that looked as though they had been used in the garden and had rusty studs on the soles. The boots were several sizes too big for him and had no laces.
'But don't think about leaving the house,' she told him, 'or showing yourself at the windows. I want only one other person to know you are here.'
'What other person?' Timothy Bright asked in alarm.
'The one who brought you here,' said Miss Midden, and went downstairs to find the Major standing at the kitchen table looking at the brown paper parcel.
'Well, don't just stand there. Open it and look at the goodies inside,' she said.
'But I don't know what it is. I haven't sent away for anything. I can't think who sent it to me.'
Miss Midden started doing the washing-up. 'One of your admirers down at the hell-hole,' she suggested. 'Some old flame. Mrs Consuelo McKoy, probably. She thinks you're a real Major. That comes from living in California too long. Fantasyland.'
Behind her the Major got some scissors and cut through the parcel tape. For a moment he was silent and then she heard him gasp. She turned and looked at the things lying on the table. They were not goodies. They were anything but goodies. They were revolting. Miss Midden had never seen anything like them in her life. And she certainly never wanted to see anything like them again as long as she lived. She looked up at the Major with utter disgust.
'You filthy animal!' she snarled. 'You utterly revolting...you bloody pervert. Into children. Little children. You are the lowest form of animal life...not animal. Animals don't go in for torturing little children. Bah!'
But Major MacPhee was shaking his head and had gone a horrid patchy colour. 'I never sent off for these,' he stammered, 'I swear I didn't. I really didn't. I don't know where they come from. I don't like this sort of thing. I never...'
Miss Midden said nothing. She was thinking hard. For once she was inclined to believe the Major. If he had sent off for them, he wouldn't have been fool enough to open the parcel in her presence. She was sure of that. He'd have taken it off to his room and gloated over these revolting photographs and magazines in private. On the other hand...Hand!
'Don't touch them,' she said. 'I'll get a box and a piece of cloth. Just don't handle them.'
In fact she used a pair of gloves and put the filthy stuff, the product of sick and profit-conscious minds and a product for sick and evil minds, into a cardboard box very carefully.
The bewildered Major watched her and kept shaking his head sorrowfully. 'Not me, not me,' he repeated, almost on the point of tears.