CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Feeling rather sick from the swift, swirling ride, Sirius was delivered at the Duffields’ house. Kathleen ran at him and hugged him. “Oh, Leo!” Robin pounced on him from the other side. “Shamus, you are brave!” Basil tweaked his tail. “You silly old Rat! What did you get lost for?” Even Mr Duffield patted his head and called him a good horse. Duffie sniffed. “Sentimental idiots! What are dogs for, if not to keep off burglars?”

Sirius discovered, to his acute embarrassment, that he was supposed to have saved the house from burglars. The burglars were supposed to have been armed. New-Sirius had not been careful. Perhaps he could not be. Sirius knew that it was not easy for a high effulgent to use force without heat. At any rate, all the Duffields had seen the yard full of vivid green flashes as he struck at Sirius. Some of them had burnt grooves in the gate. Indoors, the broken chair had been smouldering. And there was the queer wound on Tibbles.

Tibbles was sitting in a basket lined with a blanket, and the electric fire was on specially for her. Sirius ran to her delightedly. Tibbles put a rather shaky nose up to greet him. She looked ill. “Hallo,” she said. “I thought you were dead.”

“I thought you were, too. What happened?”

“I think I would have been dead if you hadn’t shouted at me,” Tibbles said. “I was in the middle of jumping down off the sofa when he hit me, and the sofa got most of it.”

Sirius looked at the sofa. There were large lumps out of its back, from which greenish fluff and horsehair were oozing. He looked at Tibble’s back. There was a raw, slanting weal on her. The fur round it was singed green. “Shall I lick it better?” he asked.

“It hurts when it’s touched,” she said. “It’s a wrong kind of hurt. I don’t think those were real people.”

“They weren’t,” he said. “That’s why I may be able to lick it better for you.”

“Try,” she said.

Sirius waited for a moment, while he tried to draw on any virtue there might be left in his green nature. He was not sure he had any. But he knew he now had as much of his green nature as could be crammed into a dog, and he was sure that only that could heal Tibbles. Then he bent and licked the weal.

Kathleen hurried to stop him. “No, Leo. Leave!”

“Let him,” said Mr Duffield. “Animals know what they’re doing.”

“Romulus and Remus wouldn’t touch it, though,” Basil objected.

Tibbles winced at the first lick, but, after the third, she began to purr. “Oh that’s better! It’s gone cool. Go on.”

Duffie threw herself on the battered sofa and announced that she was worn out. “I suppose we’d better have breakfast,” she said. Kathleen, who looked quite as tired, hurried away to the kitchen. It seemed that the whole family had been up ever since Sirius woke them by barking. They had spent the rest of the night explaining things to the police, describing their dog, trying to describe two burglars no one had clearly seen, hunting round the house to see what had been stolen, wondering about the peculiar damage, and nursing Tibbles.

When Kathleen had breakfast ready, Mr Duffield switched the radio on for the early news and remarked that the horse should have some cornflakes, too, as a reward. So Kathleen put down a snickering golden plateful. Sirius loved cornflakes. He left Tibbles purring sleepily, with her back the proper colour again, and attacked the plateful in sloshy gollops. Through the noise he was making, he suddenly gathered that something strange had happened. The whole family was leaning towards the radio, looking tense and surprised.

“Isn’t that the prison where your father is?” Robin said.

“I think one of them’s him,” Kathleen answered in a queer, subdued voice. Sirius could not tell if she was very sad or very happy. He did his best to follow for once the flat monotonous voice from the radio.

“Two of the escaped men,” he heard, “were recaptured by the army in the early hours of this morning. O’Brien, the third man, is still at large.” The radio went on to talk of other things, leaving Kathleen looking so excited, joyful and frightened that Sirius wished he had heard more. He went pensively back to his cornflakes, remembering that letter Kathleen’s father had sent her a month before. Perhaps Kathleen’s father had not meant he was going to be released. Perhaps the letter was so crumpled and dirty because it had been smuggled out to warn Kathleen he was going to escape. He could see Kathleen thought so.

She was not the only one. As soon as Mr Duffield had gone upstairs to shave, Duffie rounded on Kathleen. “I warn you, Kathleen, I don’t intend to help that father of yours to break the law. I never wanted to get mixed up with convicts. I told Harry I wasn’t having you. I knew how it would be. And I was right. If that man tries to come here, I shall have him back in jail again before he can say knife. You can tell him I said so.”

It was doubtful if Kathleen heard her. She was in a daze of happiness and anxiety. “I know it’s my Daddy they haven’t caught!” she whispered as she was tying Sirius up in the yard as usual. “I do hope he gets away. He’s awfully clever, so maybe he will.”

Sirius sat half inside his shelter and pondered about it. He decided he was glad. Kathleen’s father could not have escaped at a better time. That night, Sirius himself would have to leave. Whether he found the Zoi or not, he would not dare to go on living here now. But, now he came to think about it, he was sad and uneasy at the thought of leaving Kathleen alone. It was not kind. So it made a great deal of difference that her father had escaped. He could look after Kathleen in future. Sirius was quite aware that Ireland was some way away, over some water, and that the police did not allow people to remain escaped from prison. But he comforted his slightly uneasy conscience by telling himself that Kathleen had said her father was very clever. No doubt he would manage to come and fetch Kathleen somehow. Then Kathleen would be happy again.

“Don’t think you’re going to jump that gate again while I’m here!” Duffie said, stumping out into the yard to make sure Sirius was there. Lack of sleep had made her restless, and more than usually bad tempered. She stumped into the yard six times that morning.

Each time, Sirius gave her that sarcastic look from under one eyebrow. He knew it annoyed her. He had no intention of leaving yet. The time to go was when everyone would least expect it, just before Kathleen was due home from school. But it was a pity, Sirius thought, settling down to sleep, that he would not be able to say goodbye to Kathleen properly.

About midday, Sol flicked a beam of light over his muzzle and woke him up. “Were you intending to go somewhere else tonight?” Sol asked.

Sirius opened one eye. “Yes. To find the Zoi if possible.”

“Then I’d better warn you,” said Sol, “that you may want to change your mind. I wish I knew how to advise you. Things are going to be very difficult now.”

“What are you talking about?” said Sirius, opening both eyes.

Sol did not answer. He simply spilled a bright golden wedge of light on the back door. Kathleen came out into it. Sirius sprang to his feet in amazement. He had never known Kathleen come home at this hour before. His tail wagged madly. He was delighted. Now he could say goodbye as he should.

Kathleen crossed the yard in an odd blundering way, as if she could not see where she was going very well. A strange lady came out after her and watched Kathleen anxiously. She seemed worried about her. Sirius saw Kathleen’s face was a yellowish white, almost the colour of his coat. Something was the matter with her. Kathleen put out her hands in a vague fumbling way to untie the rope, and Sirius stood on his hind legs with his paws on her arm and tried to see what was wrong.

Kathleen said, in a peculiar, flat voice, “This is Leo, Miss Marples. I told you he would look after me.”

“He looks a beautiful dog, dear,” Miss Marples said. Sirius knew she was nervous of him and kindly trying to hide it from Kathleen. “Why don’t you bring him indoors with you, dear?”

She led the way back through the kitchen. Kathleen followed, keeping her hand tight on Sirius’s collar, and sat listlessly down on the battered sofa. Very puzzled and worried, Sirius hopped up beside her and sat watching her pale, stiff face.

“Now, dear,” said Miss Marples, still trying hard to be kind, “can I get you a cup of tea?”

“No thank you,” Kathleen said flatly. “I’m quite all right. I’ve got Leo.”

“Well, in that case—” Miss Marples said, dubiously hovering. She seemed to give Kathleen up. It was an obvious relief to her. “Then if you think you’ll be all right with Leo, dear, I’d better go and have a word with Mrs Duffield.”

Kathleen did not answer. Miss Marples, giving her a nervous look, went and tapped timidly on the door to the shop. Nobody answered the tap, but she nevertheless opened the door, tiptoed through, and closed it again so softly that Sirius hardly heard the latch click.

“She’s the school secretary,” Kathleen explained to him, in that odd, dull voice, staring stiffly in front of her. “She’s doing her best to be kind, but I don’t think she’s had much practice. They’ve all been like that, ever since—” She put out an arm and clutched Sirius against her. After three minutes, Sirius had to wriggle. His back was twisted. He nosed her face apologetically and squirmed into a more comfortable position.

Kathleen leant her head on him. “Oh Leo,” she said. “My Daddy’s dead. The police got Uncle Harry out of work and they came round to school. The other side found him before the army did. They shot him dead this morning. And, Leo, the worst of it is, I can’t remember what my Daddy looked like properly – not after all this time. I keep trying to remember, and it gets in the way of being sad.”

Sirius nosed her again, truly sorry. He saw what Sol had meant. He had no idea what to do now.

“I’d no idea what a muddle being sad is,” Kathleen said. She sounded much more like her usual self, saying it. Sirius was glad. “I almost keep forgetting my Daddy’s dead. And then I wonder if it hurt, and hope it didn’t, and I hope he wasn’t horribly frightened. Then, in the middle, I remember how annoying he could be sometimes. He was quite like Uncle Harry. If he didn’t like something, he didn’t want to know about it. But he was funny and kind, too. And I know all that, but I can’t remember what he looked like.”

Still hugging Sirius, she went back to staring straight ahead again. He wondered if he should nose her. Or not. He did not know what to do.

The door to the shop burst open. Duffie trampled in, high and cold and furious.

“What on earth does that woman mean, bringing you back here in the middle of the day?” she demanded. “I pay a small fortune for you to have school lunches. Am I supposed to pay for it twice today, or what?”

“It’s all right,” Kathleen said, still staring at nothing. “I’m not hungry.”

But Duffie had only said that to warm herself up for her real diatribe. “Then starve if you’d rather,” she said. “I know by now you do everything just to annoy me. You don’t care! Look at you, sitting there with that great useless dog messing up the sofa, with not an ounce of consideration for me! And, to crown it all, that woman tells me to comfort you! Let me tell you, Kathleen, it should be the other way round. I’ve put up with you for nearly a year, and you’ve been nothing but trouble and expense the whole time. I only agreed to have you on the understanding that you’d go back to that father of yours as soon as he came out of jail. Now look what happens! He gets himself shot, and I have to put up with you for the rest of your life! Harry’ll be trying to make me adopt you next. Well, that’s one thing I won’t do. I told that woman to her face I wouldn’t. The wretched child can go to a Home, I told her. As for the father, he only got exactly what he deserved!”

“He didn’t deserve to be shot,” Kathleen said drearily. “Nobody does – even you.”

“I’m not going to stand here and be insulted! said Duffie. “Since they thought fit to send you home at this unreasonable hour, you can make yourself useful for once. Go and turn out Robin’s room. It’s a pig-sty. You’ve not touched it for weeks.”

“No,” said Kathleen, without interest. “Do it yourself it you want it done.”

“Don’t you take that tone with me!” Duffie said. It did not seem to occur to her that a great calamity had just fallen on Kathleen, nor that even Kathleen could be pushed too far. “I’ve taken you in. I’ve lavished kindness on you. Do as I tell you.”

Kathleen stood up. Sirius could feel her trembling.

“No,” she said. “You’ve never been kind to me, not for a minute. Why should I do your dirty work?”

Duffie stared at her, coldly outraged. Kathleen was standing so still, apart from the trembling, and she spoke in such a dead, calm voice, that Duffie still did not see she had gone too far. She said, “I’ve had about enough of you, Kathleen!”

Kathleen said quietly, “And I’ve had about enough of you.” Very slowly and deliberately, though she was still shaking, she walked to the broom-cupboard and took out a broom. Sirius ran anxiously after her along the sofa, wondering what she was going to do.

“Take the broom upstairs and get to work,” said Duffie. “I’m going to get myself some lunch.” She aimed a slap at Sirius as she tramped off to the kitchen. “Get down, you filthy creature!”

The slap did not hurt much, but two pink places appeared on Kathleen’s face, under her eyes, making her eyes look dark as the night sky. She looked as if she had come alive again. “Don’t you hit Leo!” she shouted at Duffie’s back. “I’ll show you!” And she dashed into the shop waving the broom.

“What’s she doing?” Tibbles asked anxiously from her basket.

A great crashing of pots was the answer. Sirius arrived in time to see Kathleen put the broom to the second shelf of pottery and sweep sideways. Pots rained down, pots by tens, twenties and thirties, smashing, crashing, smashing.

Bits flew across the floor. Dust rose. Sirius jumped, wincing, among them and tried to nose Kathleen to bring her to her senses.

Kathleen’s broom swept along another shelf, and another. Her hair was wild and her face bright red. “Hurray!” she shouted, above the crashing. “I’ve always wanted to do this!” With Sirius still dancing uneasily about her, she jumped on a pile of pieces. Sharp bits flew. She raised the broom and brought it down on a stack of pots by the saleroom door. Smash! Parangrash! Crunch! She jumped on them. By this time, there was not a whole pot in the workroom. Kathleen whirled her broom and rushed towards the shop itself.

Duffie pounded in and caught her in its doorway. There was a brief, fierce struggle. Then Duffie was hitting Kathleen with the broom, with both bulging calves braced to hold her, and Kathleen was screaming.

Sirius did not think. As soon as Kathleen screamed, his teeth went into Duffie’s left calf, almost of their own accord. He brought his jaws together vehemently.

Duffie yelled. She tasted horrible. Sirius let go, disgusted, and leapt away, not quite in time. The broom caught him across the head, and he yelped. He dodged. Duffie hopped furiously about after him, crushing shards of pot under her right sandal, aiming swipes at him with the broom and raving.

“That does it! That’s final. The filthy brute! I shall die of blood poisoning!”

“You’ve probably poisoned him,” Kathleen said.

Duffie leant on the broom like a crutch and tried to see her leg. “I’m bleeding like a pig!”

“No you’re not,” Kathleen said scornfully. “It’s only a trickle. He could have bitten a piece out if he’d wanted.”

“He’s not going to have the chance again!” raved Duffie. “As soon as I’ve got some plaster on, he’s going down to the vet’s. And as for you, you’re going to pay for every single pot!”

“All right,” said Kathleen. “But you’re not taking Leo to be put down.”

“Oh, yes I am!” said Duffie. “This very afternoon. We’re none of us safe from the brute!”

Kathleen turned away and walked over the scattered pottery to the door. “Come on, Leo. Mind your feet.” Sirius picked his way after her, trembling. He could tell Duffie meant what she said. He hoped Kathleen would put him in the yard, so that he would have a chance to escape.

“Where are you going?” Duffie screeched, hobbling after them.

“I’m taking him down to the vet myself,” said Kathleen. “You’re not doing it.” She went to the broom-cupboard and fetched the lead. “Here, Leo.”

Sirius stood in the middle of the living-room, appalled. He supposed Kathleen had little choice, but he still could not believe she could do it. Kathleen called to him sharply. He did not go to her. Kathleen went to him and grabbed his collar, unusually roughly, while she wrestled to get the lead clipped on. Sirius only let her do it in the end because he knew he could slip out of the collar.

“Now, come on!” Kathleen said peremptorily and lugged him to the side door.

“He’ll be closed for lunch,” Duffie said, limping to the kitchen for plaster.

“I’ll wait outside till he opens,” said Kathleen, and shut the door with a slam. Sirius could still hardly believe it. His back bristled, his tail was low, and he refused to move. Kathleen backed up the passage, heaving at him. “Don’t be an idiot!” she snapped. “Come on!”

A lorry passed in the road beyond. Under the noise of it, Kathleen leant down and whispered, “Of course we’re not going to the vet, you idiot! But she wouldn’t have let us out of the house if I hadn’t said it. Now, do come on.”

Hugely relieved, Sirius surged forward. By the time they reached the end of the street, it was he who was pulling and Kathleen who was hanging back. He looked round to see why. Tears were rolling down her face.

“I don’t know where to go, Leo,” she said. “I’ve just noticed there isn’t anywhere. If I go and tell Uncle Harry, he’ll only take us back. Then she’ll have you put down. I don’t know what to do.”

It was certainly a problem. Sirius tugged Kathleen on again and thought about it. He owed it to Kathleen to make sure she was safe before he left her to hunt for the Zoi. She had looked after him. He must do the same for her. But where could he take her?

A little doubtfully, he thought of Miss Smith. He liked Miss Smith. He was sure she would like Kathleen. But he knew that people would take in a dog far more readily than they would take in a fellow human. It was odd, but it was true. Still, he could think of nobody more likely than Miss Smith, and he found he had set off unconsciously dragging Kathleen towards Miss Smith’s house anyway. He began to drag her faster. Kathleen’s feet hurried and stumbled behind.

“Where are we going, Leo? The Town Hall? But we can’t just go and complain to the Mayor, can we? Would he listen?”

The idea appealed to Kathleen. Before long, she had it so firmly in her head that they were going to the Town Hall to complain to the Mayor, that Sirius had great difficulty in leading her any other way. As they got near Miss Smith’s house, he had to prod and push her at every corner.

“Where are you going? This isn’t the way,” she kept saying.

In the end, Sirius put his shoulders forward, braced his hind legs and heaved Kathleen bodily up the street where Miss Smith lived. He heaved her past the stack of dustbins and up the steps to Miss Smith’s front door. He put out a paw to the mark he had made knocking on it every day, and just managed to batter on it while Kathleen was pulling him down the steps again. The door opened almost at once.

“Oh, now the lady’s coming!” Kathleen said, horribly embarrassed. “Really, Leo!”

“Do you call him Leo?” said Miss Smith. “I call him Sirius, because of his eyes. Hallo, Sirius. So you’ve brought your mistress now, have you?”

“I’m awfully sorry. He pulled me here,” Kathleen explained.

Miss Smith looked up from Sirius to her stiff, tear-marked face. “Would you like to come in and perhaps have a cup of tea while you tell me what’s happened?” she suggested.

“Well, I—” Kathleen began. Sirius heaved again and they went up the steps and in through the door in a rush.

“That’s right,” said Miss Smith, shutting the front door behind them. “Now, tea and bones.”

At this moment, Bruce, who, like Sirius, was not much given to barking, cautiously put his face round Miss Smith’s sitting-room door to see who was there. Sirius had forgotten Bruce would be here. He heaved Kathleen forward again to greet him. “She let you stay? I am glad to see you!”

“You’ve got a dog just like Leo!” said Kathleen.

Miss Smith looked a trifle guilty. “Actually, he’s not mine at all. His collar says he’s called Bruce, and he seems to come from those houses down by the river. He turned up this morning before I was up and begged me to let him stay. I suppose he has his reasons. I think he’s a friend of your Leo’s.”

“He must be,” Kathleen agreed, watching the waving tails of both dogs.

Before long, they were all four in Miss Smith’s sitting-room, Bruce and Sirius with a bone apiece, and Kathleen with a strong sugary cup of tea.

“Now,” said Miss Smith, “what did your Leo do? Or was it both of you?”

Kathleen began to cry. “Both of us. I took a broom and smashed all Mrs Duffield’s pots—”

“Mrs Duffield’s pots?” said Miss Smith. “You mean that awful little shop in Mead Bank? Then I congratulate you. Those are quite the most hideous things in town. There ought to be a law against them. Then what?”

“Duffie hit me with the broom and Leo bit her,” Kathleen said despairingly.

“Good dog!” said Miss Smith. She bent down and patted Sirius so heartily that his ribs boomed and he all but swallowed his bone whole. “A dog’s not much good if he doesn’t look after you,” she told Kathleen.

“Yes, but Duffie was going to have him put down,” said Kathleen. “So we had to run away.”

“I see,” said Miss Smith. “But you’ve left an awful lot out, my dear. Neither you nor Sirius are the kind of people who break pots or bite people without good reason.”

“No,” said Kathleen. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to break them, because I think they’re ugly too, and I’m sure Leo must have wanted to bite Duffie all his life, only—” She took a deep gulping breath and began to talk very fast. The teacup shook between her hands and tears rolled into it, until Miss Smith took it firmly away. She told Miss Smith her father had been shot, and what Duffie had said. Then she went on to all the things she had not been able even to tell Leo. “I can’t say things while they’re happening,” she confessed. “It just makes them worse.” She told Miss Smith how homesick and miserable she had been when she came to live with the Duffields, and how lonely, and how none of them liked her except Robin, and how Duffie did not want her and complained at spending money on her.

She went too fast for Bruce. He only understood one thing, and that shocked him. “Did you really bite someone?” he asked Sirius.

“Yes,” said Sirius, “for being horrible to Kathleen. Wouldn’t you have done? What would you do if someone started hitting your master?”

“It would worry me awfully,” said Bruce. “But everyone likes my master, so I don’t think it would happen.”

“Everyone ought to like Kathleen too,” said Sirius. “She’s been unlucky.”

Miss Smith seemed to agree. She shook her head repeatedly while Kathleen told her how angry Duffie had been when she brought home the nearly-drowned puppy, and how she had agreed to do all the housework if Duffie would let her keep Leo instead of a birthday present.

“And she’s always hated him,” Kathleen said. “But I suppose it was fair, because dogs do make a mess. But she scolds me and scolds me. And I don’t always remember things, and then she says she’ll have Leo put down. And I dried the turkey out at Christmas, because I’d never cooked one before. Then Leo got fleas and I had to spring-clean. It was awful hard work, and when I got back to school I was so tired I couldn’t think, and of course a lot of the boys said that was because I was Irish and didn’t have a brain. And they chased me every day and called names, until Leo frightened them off. Only that was no good because they complained to the police and said Leo was a savage creature, and Duffie said I’d let him out on purpose.”

“This doesn’t sound fair to me at all,” said Miss Smith. “Is there a Mr Duffield? What does he think?”

“Yes, he’s quite kind,” said Kathleen. “But he doesn’t notice unless something makes him uncomfortable.”

“I see,” said Miss Smith.

Kathleen was suddenly conscience-stricken. “I shouldn’t be complaining to you, Miss Smith. It’s nothing to do with you. I’m a perfect stranger.”

“Nonsense!” said Miss Smith. “It was clever of Sirius to bring you. I wish he’d brought you before. Now, we must see what’s to be done.” She thought for a while. There was no sound except the loud ticking of the clock that would only work on its face and the crunching as Bruce finished his bone. Kathleen took an uneasy look at Miss Smith’s stern old face. Then she picked up her cup and pretended to be drinking cold tea.

“The real difficulty,” Miss Smith said abruptly, “is your Leo. Somebody has complained about him before, you see. Not that I blame him. Luckily, I used to teach the Mayor, and Inspector Plum, and that Superintendent Higg – naughty child, he used to be – so something might be done. But you’re a much simpler case, Kathleen. We mustn’t let you stay with the Duffields a moment longer. I’d better see about that at once, before this Mrs Duffield starts complaining to people about her pots. You’ll stay quietly here with me for now—”

“Oh, I can’t do that!” Kathleen said.

“Yes, you can,” Miss Smith said fiercely. “I’ve been very lonely since my Lass died, and I’ve not felt much use to anyone since I retired. I shall be glad to have you. And what I was going to say was, if we find we get on – and we may not, because I am a highly independent and crotchety person, you’ll find, Kathleen – then perhaps you might like to stay here for good. Would you like to give it a trial?”

Kathleen put down the cold tea and seemed about to cry again. “Oh, I can’t really? And Leo?”

“And Leo, of course,” said Miss Smith.