Free Christmas at Candleshoe by Michael Innes Page A

building and the two piers of masonry and the single perched ball. It suddenly occurs to Grant that, so far as he knows, the only inhabitants of Candleshoe Manor are a couple of ancient eccentrics and this boy. And their situation is a very lonely one.
    An owl hoots, and Grant senses Jay stiffening beside him. ‘Don’t you like owls, Jay? Are they ill-omened birds?’
    ‘Anyone can make a call like an owl. That’s why I don’t like them very much.’
    It is a quiet reply – but it comes to Grant with the effect of a flash of lightning. ‘I can understand that,’ he says. ‘But there’s the car.’
    They turn down the road, and suddenly Grant is aware that Jay has skipped to the other side of it. ‘Have you brought two cars?’ The boy’s voice is sharp, peremptory. He is like a grown man who suspects a trap.
    ‘Of course not, son.’ Grant peers ahead. ‘But there are two cars. Now, that’s certainly strange.’
    A second car – another powerful American car – is indeed drawn up in front of his own. Two men have got out. They appear to be reconnoitring Grant’s car – even to be poking about in it. Grant is indignant and surprised. Perhaps they are car thieves, but the spot is an unlikely one for that. It is an unfrequented road. A single glimpse of two cars standing together on it has instantly struck Jay as queer in itself.
    Their footsteps have been heard, and the two men swing round. There is an uncertainty in their movements that betrays what is surely a criminal purpose. Jay gives a long low whistle on a rising note. This is promptly answered from half-a-dozen places in the wood. The effect is startling, and it startles the two men. They run for their own car, jump in, and drive off. As they go past, accelerating furiously, Grant tries to get a clear glimpse of them. But the light is too bad. As the noise of the engine presently fades, silence succeeds it. There is no sign of the children who have given this odd and effective demonstration. Nor does Jay refer to them. ‘I can find you a way up to the house,’ he says. ‘It means opening some gates – and one or two other things.’
    Grant for the first time notices the boy’s speech. It is of the rustic sort, evolved through generations of slow thinking and slow utterance. But the boy uses it rapidly and nervously, so that the effect is markedly individual. Moreover beneath this or above this is something that strikes Grant as familiar. The accents of Miss Candleshoe and Mr Armigel are at play in the articulations of their young assistant. Perhaps it is only that. Remembering the rabbit pie, he looks at his watch. ‘Never mind the gates, Jay. I’ll just drive the car past the lodge and she’ll be safe enough.’
    ‘No.’
    There has been a moment’s deliberative pause and then the word has come decisively out of the dusk. Grant sees that on the kitchen-boy is some burden of command. It is perhaps from this that he gets both his pallor and his poise. ‘You think those people might come back and take my car?’
    ‘Your car will be better at the house. May I get in beside you and show you the way?’
    It is a reticent reply, but Grant senses that Jay has made some important decision. He is quite sure that Mr Armigel’s practical and unimaginative lad in fact leads a secret life of vivid fantasy, and that to this – or to a part of this – he has admitted some of his companions of the village school. Perhaps Grant himself is going to be approved; perhaps that is the inner meaning of the decision to guide his car by devious ways to Candleshoe Manor.
    They climb in and Jay directs Grant to turn round. He watches as Grant’s hands move over the controls. Grant realizes that Jay has the habit of learning all the time; that he could now, if necessary, have a fair shot at starting this car himself. He may get fancying things, but he is decidedly not what is called a dreamy boy. Grant wonders about his mother, the former housekeeper – where she