The Dragonfly Pool

“I think I know where he might be, Grandfather,” she said, with her most winning smile. “I can’t be sure but I think so. You see, letters used to come for him from that dreadful school . . . from the children he came to England with. I thought Karil was cured, but now I think perhaps he’s run away to be with them.”

The duke shook off her arm.

“What?” he roared. “Those disgusting delinquent brats . . . those nudist anarchists . . . those gutter rats . . . It’s impossible. I won’t believe it. Even Karil cannot have sunk so low.”

But the Scold now came to stand beside Carlotta. “I’m afraid the dear child may be right. I said at the time that they had a most dangerous effect on him. I could . . .” But the Scold fell silent. She had done everything she could to keep Karil away from Tally and her friends—but though she had scolded and bullied the boy for years, she had also loved him. Suddenly she did not want him hounded anymore.

The duke stopped pacing.

“I’m going to hunt the wretched boy down like the criminal he is—if it’s the last thing I do!”

The day began so well.

They were rehearsing the scenes in the Underworld. They had agreed that Hades should be a place of confusion and mist, with the trapped spirits looming in and out of the vapor.

And that meant dry ice!

The blocks of frozen carbon dioxide had arrived the night before, heavily packed in straw—a special consignment as a try-out before the play at the end of term. They had to be carefully lowered into a tin bath and warm water poured over them, and Karil, filling the buckets from the tap in the cloakroom, was in a state of bliss. The more water you poured, the mistier and more obscure the stage became.

The three little girls who were the heads of Cerberus were near the front of the stage; their masks had not been finished yet, but their necks swayed alarmingly. Barney was on a ladder, trying to reach his jet of water. Other spirits dashed about moaning and beseeching.

The ice was going so well that it was becoming harder and harder to make out the characters onstage.

“Isn’t it amazing stuff?” whispered Tally, and Karil nodded.

More mist floated onto the stage. And more figures blundered about. One was very large and used language that was not in the script as he tripped over a rock.

“It’s a policeman!” cried one of the heads of Cerberus.

“Two policemen,” called out the second head.

The men were enormous, looming in and out of the vapor with their arms stretched out in front of them.

For a moment, Karil was turned to stone. Then he threw a last bucket of water into the tub, ran out of the wings, jumped over the end of the stage, and raced the length of the hall.

Straight into the arms of a third policeman, guarding the door.

It was over so quickly, all the hope and the happiness. As he was led away by two of the policemen, it was all Karil could do to walk upright and hold up his head. Knowing what awaited him, he felt a despair so deep that he did not know how he would bear it.

Behind Karil and the policemen came his friends. The officers tried to shoo them away, but they had been through too much with Karil to leave him now.

Apparently he was not to be driven straight back to the hell of Rottingdene House. The policemen were making for the headmaster’s study, and Karil shivered. Had the duke come himself to clamp him in irons? Everything seemed possible.

Daley was seated behind his desk. Yet another policeman stood beside him—a swarthy man with a mustache, holding a briefcase—but this was clearly a high-ranking officer, because the men who had held Karil saluted him.

Karil’s friends had followed him into the room.

“It’s no good throwing us out,” said Tally, “because we won’t go.”

“Your manners are deplorable,” said Daley. “But as a matter of fact I wasn’t going to. Karil may be glad of your support.” And to Karil: “This is Chief Inspector Ferguson from Scotland Yard.”

The inspector nodded at the policemen. “You can let him go now,” he said. He walked over to Karil. “You’d better sit down, Your Grace. I’m afraid I’ve got some very bad news for you.”

He pointed to a chair and Karil sat down, ever more confused and bewildered. Had the duke decided to send him straight to Borstal? The fact that the inspector was being so kind was surely ominous. And why was he calling him Your Grace? That was his grandfather’s title.

“Perhaps a drink of water, sir?” suggested one of the policemen, and Daley poured out a glass from the carafe on his desk.

Karil took it but could not bring himself to drink. His heart was beating so loudly that he thought it must be heard by everybody in the room.

“What is it?” he managed to ask. “The bad news . . . ?”

The inspector laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’d better prepare yourself, Your Grace. It’s as bad as could be. Your grandfather is dead.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The Play