Free Sweet Danger by Margery Allingham Page A

this,’ she said. ‘My father was an Englishman, and, although he never talked about it, I knew he came from this part of the world. And some years ago I thought that as I was planning a little globe-trotting I might come down here and see what the home town of the Huntingforests looked like. Well, when I got here I took rooms in the village at first. And then I met these children and I realized, of course, that they must be distant connexions of ours. And so I came to stay here. I hadn’t been in the house a week before I decided that I must take things in hand. There was Amanda, if you please, running about like a Milwaukee Indian, without a mended stocking to her name. It wasn’t nice to have two pretty young girls without a chaperon in the heart of the country like this. It wasn’t nice and it wasn’t safe. I’m emancipated, I hope, but I’m no fool. So I put my foot down and here I am.’
    She drew another great tin of cookies out of the oven as she finished speaking, and Amanda helped herself, motioning them to imitate her.
    Miss Huntingforest beamed at them. ‘If you can eat cakes at eleven o’clock in the morning you’re all right,’ she said. ‘It’s an acid test, in my opinion. If a man can eat two cookies before noon and enjoy them there’s not much wrong with him.’
    â€˜Well, look here,’ said Amanda, ‘I’ll take you round the house and Scatty’ll get your things. I’ll go up with him and cadge a ride back in your car. I’ve never been in a really decent car. Mine goes by electricity, you know.’
    â€˜Goes!’ said Miss Huntingforest with good-humoured contempt.
    Amanda blushed. ‘Aunt Hatt’s very rude about my car,’ she said. ‘But it’s really very useful, and not at all bad, considering that I bought it off a higgler for a pound, andScatty and I made it go. There’s only one thing against it; you can’t go more than five miles in it. Two and a half miles out and two and a half miles back: then the batteries have to be recharged. That doesn’t cost very much because of the mill, you see. There’s as much power as you want there. It means a lot of work in the winter, seeing to the sluices and that sort of thing, but it’s worth it. I left it outside the door this morning because I thought it might impress you. It did, didn’t it?’
    â€˜It certainly did,’ said Mr Campion truthfully.
    â€˜There you are! I had a row with Hal about it. He said it’d put anyone off. I must go and help Scatty push it back to the shed in a minute, because the battery’s being charged and we’ve only got one.’
    â€˜Let’s all go and push it,’ said Eager-Wright, who seemed anxious to serve in some way or other.
    She turned to the door, but was restrained by Miss Huntingforest.
    â€˜Amanda, that’s your one respectable dress.’
    â€˜Oh yes, of course. I forgot. I’ll go and change. They’ve said they’ll stay, anyhow, and I don’t suppose my working clothes will really put them off.’
    Miss Huntingforest seemed to have doubts on this point, but she said nothing and the girl hurried out.
    â€˜If you’re interested in antiquities –’ began Aunt Hatt, but got no further on this subject, for at that moment there was a certain amount of confusion in the hall outside, and Guffy’s voice was heard distinctly.
    â€˜Really, it’s quite all right,’ he was saying. ‘A bit of a scratch – nothing else.’
    At the same time the kitchen door was opened and a girl who could quite clearly be no one else but Mary, Amanda’s elder sister, appeared with Guffy in tow, while a boy about sixteen followed them.
    Mary Fitton had Amanda’s hair, Amanda’s eyes, but not Amanda’s pep. In exchange, Nature had endowed her witha grace all her own and an attractive, but serious,