As so often happens in such matters, the pendulum of public esteem suddenly swung just as far the other way, and gnomes were suspect creatures once more. And all because of what happened at Covent Garden on the Gala Night of the Royal Ballet.
The scene here bore no resemblance to that at the Albert Hall on the occasion, ten days earlier, of the interrupted concert. The Opera House was full. There was not an empty seat in the house. The Royal Box was a bower of selected blooms and lovely jewels. Tier upon tier of the little rose-coloured bracket lights shone down upon the assembled company, and the illuminated Exit signs glowed encouragingly for those ticket-holders who did not particularly care for ballet.
As the conductor turned to face his players, came a hush. Then, three minutes and thirty five seconds later, the great curtain rose and, half drowned by the tidal wave of the orchestra, the occupants of stalls, boxes, circles and amphitheatre found themselves magically transported into a fairyland of Prince and Peasant Girl, lacy branches and woodland glades.
The Prince, an ex-member of the Communist Party and an emigré from Nova Sibersk, and the Peasant Girl, the daughter of a Cheltenham dentist, were the acknowledged stars within their sphere. Already the partnership had become world-famous, and the Prince’s one fear was that the authorities back home might one day answer his wife’s impassioned pleas for a visa and that he would have her beside him once more. In the meantime, the Cheltenham dentist’s daughter had acquired a rather stronger Russian accent than her companion’s, and she and her Prince were regularly seen about together in places frequented by gossip-writers and the better class of Press photographers.
On the night of the Gala the ex-Party member had, by universal consent, never been more ethereal, more inspiring. Effortlessly he had already held his loved one in his arms and made half-a-dozen full-speed rounds of the stage, with the Peasant Girl held either upright in crucifix position or wrapped around his neck like a boa constrictor. Throughout, his feet had seemed scarcely to touch the boards and, in all parts of the house, the name ‘Nijinsky’ was being discreetly whispered. The dentist’s daughter, too, assumed a magical, almost unearthly quality and after each sauté she was caught in mid-air as gently as if she had been a dream-child made of gossamer and swan’s down.
The moment for which the audience had been waiting was about to come. The Prince was standing, stage right, his body braced like concrete ready for the impending impact. The Cheltenham girl, stage left, was looking down demurely at her feet, breathing deeply in preparation for the headlong rush and spell-binding leap upon his bosom. Otherwise the stage was deserted. A deep, impenetrable silence had fallen upon the house for the second time. The instant, imprisoned within the eternity of space and time, had become sacred.
Then without warning, three small, incongruously dressed figures emerged from behind one of the canvas trees. The Prince, transfixed in his stance and too rigid to move a muscle, remained entirely unaware of what was happening. The Peasant Girl, on the other hand, could see only too well. With a gasp she let out all the air that she had been conserving and sank, deflated, where she stood. The conductor held his baton aloft. Not a note was struck. Violin bows remained frozen in mid-air and only the trembling of the baton showed that the conductor was breathing and still among them.
Meanwhile the three small figures had arranged themselves in line abreast, marched purposefully down-stage, bowed to the Royal Box, and proceeded to link arms. There was a neatness about the whole operation that showed that the whole thing must have been intensively rehearsed. And this was apparent in the first ten steps of the number, all backwards and all faultless. Then, with a rolling side-to-side movement, distinctly nautical in effect though bucolic in intention, they broke into the opening steps. And immediately it showed itself for what it was – a perfectly executed version of the old North Country favourite, Fred Fazackerly’s Ride Even the audience, waving their free copies of the advertisement-infested programme, applauded.
The trio, as the dance demanded, were all wearing clogs, and Prince and Peasant Girl withdrew tactfully into the woodland while the clatter-clatter-clatter continued. It may indeed have been the noise as much as the visual shock that temporarily disarmed the Management. It is admitted that they faltered. But what, they asked themselves afterwards, could they have done, even if it had not been a Gala Night? Curtains are not lowered lightly in the face of distinguished audiences. And it is to the credit of the Assistant Stage Manager that he should have succeeded in restraining the indignant stage-hands from forming a posse and charging onto the stage in force. What he had not remembered was that the Chief Electrician was a Welshman and an impulsive one at that. Otherwise occupied at the time of the incident, as soon as he was informed he gave the order that the main switch should be thrown and, behind the proscenium arch, primal darkness, nothing less, prevailed.
It is scarcely surprising that, in the resultant obscurity and confusion, the clog dance team should have been able to make their get-away without hindrance. Even the Stage Doorkeeper failed to stop them. Nor can he be held blameworthy when it is borne in mind that they were all below eye-level as they passed his look-out. They were observed later scampering noisily down Floral Street, spotted again for a moment in Long Acre and reported, unreliably, at the corner of St Martin’s Lane and Cecil Court, and then lost sight of completely.
Five roughly carved and scarcely worn clogs, all children’s size, were recovered next morning from a refuse bin on the other side of Regent Street. Despite appeals in all the media, however, the sixth and missing clog was never located.
The letter columns of The Times immediately became full once more of correspondence devoted entirely to the gnome menace. And this time it tended to concentrate on the Police Force, and the Metropolitan Police Force in particular. Why, the angry readers demanded, had there been no arrests, no round-ups? If shooting was out of the question because of the possible danger to random passers-by, could not the little fellows be painlessly lassoo-ed? It was even suggested that large nets of the kind used for tuna fishing should be installed in the entrances and exits of all public halls and Underground Stations and brought into operation, scoop-fashion, as soon as an alarm was raised.
The whole of the correspondence, however, was by no means confined to consideration on the physical level. Theology vied with it. Satanism was put forward as the probable cause of the common nuisance and days of intercession were proposed for all the Churches. A retired Archdeacon in Dorset composed a special prayer for the nation’s use, and the superstitious were warned by clergy of all denominations of the uselessness of wearing a hare’s foot or a sprig of herb-gentle as protection against demonic manifestations.
It was, however, left to the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Neasden to put the whole thing into perspective. His was a cold, lucid sort of letter. The writer accepted everything that had happened as perfectly explicable, even familiar. He cited the numerous examples of a similar nature from all countries and in all centuries. His list of such happenings extended all the way from the doings of Cat-Goddesses in pre-Christian Egypt down to a fortune-telling horse in Nova Scotia as recently as 1972. The letter, nearly a column long because of the number of scholarly references, concluded with these solemn words; ‘Satan is not a name that should be uttered lightly or cited ignorantly. Nor should the concept of demons be invoked when there is no clear evidence of demonism. The happenings in this country in recent months have shown no evil intent whatsoever, no campaign waged against the spirit of the human soul. Rather, they have been thoughtless, playful, mischievous. In short, they may confidently be ascribed to the work of imps, an order so much lower in the infernal hierarchy that no profound or lasting significance need be attached to it. The events,’ the Auxiliary Bishop added confidently, ‘will cease as suddenly as they began.’
Much as he disliked the priesthood of what he always referred to as the Italian Mission, the Reverend Woods-Denton found the letter greatly comforting and of deep consolation.
Mrs Mewkes, as might be expected, was not a regular reader of The Times and therefore had no such consolation. All that she knew was that there was something fishy going on within the Vicarage, and she made up her mind to find out what it was.
This was not so easy because Hilda continued to take every precaution. Little Nelson’s pretend meals were all prepared before Mrs Mewkes got there in the morning and cleared away after she had left the house at lunch time. Even his fresh milk, carefully poured to avoid any signs of spilling, was emptied down the sink each time, and the medicine glass washed up and put back afterwards. All personal laundry was carried upstairs by Hilda herself and the vacuum cleaner, modern and ultra light-weight at the time of purchase but ponderous and old-fashioned by today’s standards, was returned to its alcove on the landing the moment Hilda had finished with it. And she was particularly careful about the door, locking it from the inside whenever she was there and turning the key behind her if ever for a single moment she had to leave the room unattended.
On her part Mrs Mewkes was just as thorough. She noted every detail of the household arrangements. Mondays and Tuesdays were hopeless: Hilda simply shut herself up in her room like a meditating nun. Wednesdays were more promising because, in the old days, Hilda had always made a point of visiting the Meals on Wheels organizer, not actually to do anything, more to show the flag as it were. But, of late, even that banner had remained undisplayed. Thursday was another dies non, with the bedroom door locked and the extraordinary sound as of something on wheels coming from within. Friday was, then, the only day. Every Friday at 10.30 the Reverend Woods-Denton went round to the local C. of E. Primary to put some backbone, to use his own expression, into their Religious Instruction classes; and he was never back much before lunch time. That, too, was the day when Hilda went round to the church to see about the flowers. Her brother was a Low-Churchman, an Evangelical. Ritual and display were obnoxious to him, and it was essential that someone who knew his mind should supervize the decorations. The browner sort of chrysanthemums were, when available, what he preferred with, of course, holly (no mistletoe) at the appropriate season.
On the following Friday, therefore, Mrs Mewkes was in the front hall as Hilda left the house and, stepping round to the sitting room, Mrs Mewkes stood watching her go down the path. Even then she did not move. By the presentation clock on the mantelshelf she gave Hilda a full ten minutes to get clear. Then she began to mount the stairs.
She had the whole foray worked out. The Vicarage was builder-built rather than architect-designed, and the upper landing had no natural light at all. That was why a plain glass fanlight had been let into the wall over Hilda’s door. It was towards this vantage point that Mrs Mewkes was now making. A Gothic, vestry-looking chair stood outside Cyril’s door and this was to be Mrs Mewkes’s vantage point, her look-out. Stealthily, cautiously, she dragged the chair along the landing.
She could, in fact, have saved herself the trouble of so much stealth. She was a large and heavy woman, and Little Nelson had been following her every movement. He was, indeed, right up against the key-hole when on the other side of the panel the chair was placed there. And he had an unimpaired view of Mrs Mewkes’s massive foreleg as she lifted her skirt and began to climb into position. Then, for the first time, Little Nelson realized his peril. Not since last winter’s heavy falls of snow down beside the pool had he felt such waves of cold run through him. He began to shake. To shake, but not to panic. Going down flat on his stomach, he squirmed his way under the bed and, keeping his head below mattress level, wormed his way into the wardrobe.
And only just in time. A moment later, Mrs Mewkes’s flat, expressionless face appeared at the fanlight. And she let out a gasp of sheer astonishment. It was all that she had feared, and Little Nelson could hear the chair creak as she rocked back upon her heels. There, down below on the carpet, she could see an untouched plate of bread-and-butter fingers, a medicine glass of milk filled nearly to the top, and a low-built four-wheel truck with a battered teddy bear sitting upright as though he were driving it.
Then Mrs Mewkes realized the truth. Poor Hilda, broken at last under the strain of Meals on Wheels, church decorations and all the rest of it, had reverted to second childhood. She was now helpless, a pathetic dependent invalid. And the Vicar, true Christian soldier that he was, had rallied to conceal the awful truth from her friends and his parishioners.
Concealment of the truth, however, was some thing that stuck in Mrs Mewkes’s gullet. She had an abhorence of hanky-panky in any form, and here it was flowering at its most flagrant. It was all too clear that she would have to go on keeping an eye on things. Sweating slightly, she lowered herself by degrees from the high Gothic chair. Again it creaked protestingly during her descent. Breathless and panting, she began brushing herself down.
Inside the wardrobe Little Nelson was sweating, too. A faint mist of perspiration was now clinging to his forehead. Nor was this surprising. The consciousness of being spied on is always unpleasant. But Little Nelson’s mind was working fast. Already, he had his own plan of counter-espionage.
It would take time, but he was determined to make it work.
The intricacies of inter-sectarian theology had proved too much even for The Times. For a full week, impishness had not even once been mentioned. What had taken its place and was being just as angrily debated, was the identity of the three gnomes. The Albert Hall and the Covent Garden incidents were both closely analysed. Indeed, as the enquiry went on, the question arose as to whether they were the same three gnomes who earlier in the year had set Mr Meehan’s milk-float in motion – to say nothing of those who had taken part in that unseemly race through the Chamber of the Commons while the House was still in session.
An animal behaviourist from Bristol University suggested that, just as hunting lionesses move off in three or fours when in pursuit of their prey, so a trio in gnome society could be assumed to be the natural zoological unit. On the other hand a music lover, writing from St John’s Wood, contended that it was improbable that the barbarian attitude shown to both Vaughan Williams and Ballet would extend throughout the entire species and that the three miscreants were probably mere gnome drop-outs, miniature misfits, the sort who could be relied on to disrupt gnome football matches, if there were such things.
And poor Cyril, so painfully dependent on his Times, was growing hopelessly confused again. His mind was now full of hunting lionesses and delinquent threesomes, and his work in the parish began to be affected. He visited some of the sick twice in a single day, even, in one instance, twice in a single morning. Services of marriage and baptism became noticeably vague and perfunctory as though his thoughts were elsewhere – as indeed they were.
The actual breakdown, the public demonstration of pastoral incompetence, took place during a Civic Week sermon delivered to a congregation of neighbourhood tradesmen and borough councillors. It had already been a long and more than usually rambling sermon when the preacher happened, in passing and purely by accident, to mention the credal belief in the Trinity. Why he should have done so he could not remember but, once he had uttered the words, they triggered something off and he was away again.
‘Are they, we ask ourselves,’ he demanded rhetorically, ‘necessarily the same three, or could they not be a different three? Are they the three we keep reading about in the papers or another three who may crop up again at any moment? How many threes there are we may never know. And do we really need to know? Is it not perhaps better that we should leave to others what we do not know ourselves? Remember that hunting lionesses setting out as dusk
That was when the verger mounted the pulpit steps, and touched him gently on the arm. At first the Reverend Cyril Woods-Denton did not appear to understand. He insisted on finishing his next sentence, which was all in praise of Vaughan Williams. But the verger, though gentle, was firm. He switched off the pulpit light and unplugged the microphone. Then taking a firm grip on his charge, he led him down the twisting staircase and returned him, still audibly protesting, to his seat above the choir stalls.
Throughout the whole of this distressing incident Hilda had not moved. She had sat, isolated and rock-like. Indeed she did not leave her seat until the church had entirely emptied. Even then, with Cyril beside her, she insisted on leaving by the vestry door. Her brother was quiet by now. Every so often he would mutter something about threesomes and gnome football matches. But, for the most part, he was entirely silent.
Once back home it came as a relief to Hilda to be in her own bedroom, alone with Little Nelson once more. Not that she had been neglecting him. He now had on a thick pullover in Fair Isle design that she had just finished knitting for him, and she was glad to see that he was wearing his admiral’s hat.
It had been her great discovery, that hat. She had felt all the time that it must be lying about somewhere. It was, however, only on the second thorough search through the boxroom that she came upon it. And, sure enough, in the old trunk that had been Cyril’s while at Oxford there it was, crushed flat, the gold of the braid reduced to a dull russet, and the plumes all tangled up and dishevelled. By the time she had ironed it out, however, going over each of the festoons with a tooth brush, it certainly once again looked very high-ranking and important.
And as soon as she saw him in that hat, Hilda decided she must have a photograph of him wearing it. This was not easy, however. She had not even got a camera of her own. There was, of course, her brother’s. It was a large box-like affair that, as a curate, he had taken with him on school treats and summer outings. But Hilda could not bring herself to ask him.
She decided therefore to do the daring thing: she would buy a camera of her own. It was not easy. There turned out to be so many different kinds of cameras and, in the end, she chose an automatic one because the assistant told her that she could not go wrong with it. The assistant, however, spoke in error. Things kept going wrong all the time, like accidentally pressing the button before she got the camera out of its case, or holding it back to front while taking a picture, or simply forgetting to remove the little rubber lens cover. But she persevered. It was made all the easier by the fact that Little Nelson simply loved being photographed. Tilting his admiral’s hat, Beatty-fashion, he would cock his head back, put on a half-smile and stand there, smirking.
Hilda used up three new rolls of film on that one pose alone. There would, indeed, have been a fourth had not Little Nelson got hold of the camera first. He had blazed away with it at waist height. In consequence when the roll eventually came to be developed there was a whole album-ful of chair-leg studies, snap shots of the underneath of tables, and glimpses of skirting boards and bottom drawers.
As for Little Nelson himself, he could not have been happier or more occupied. Chess was now his favourite pastime and he sat for hours intent upon the game. It was not, of course, played according to Federation rules. The pawns and pieces were all set out in their correct places, and he never forgot to make sure that there was a white square on the near righthand side. But there the resemblance ended. With him it was a game of charge and countercharge, combat and confrontation. The knights were the principal antagonists, bearing mercilessly down on enemy king and queen alike, scattering hostile pawns and bishops in their passage. Only the castles were left unassaulted.
It was clear, however, that the new rules were being every bit as rigidly enforced as the old. The black and white distinction was closely observed and never once did the charging knight make an attack on one of his own colour.
The one thing that worried Hilda about Little Nelson’s chess games was their intensity. Once bent forward over the board he became a different person, ruthless and destructive. It was like having a twenty four inch Genghis Khan with her in the bedroom. The casualties were certainly alarming. Here a chip off a black mitre, there a portion of the black queen’s crinkly crown left lying on the board after play. The knights were, of course, the ones that suffered most and Hilda noticed that, at bed time, when Little Nelson came to put the pieces back in their box, he was always careful to conceal that one of the injured animals had already lost the tips of both ears through charging into battle too impetuously.
Even when he agreed to play with her, his chess games were not without their tensions. Trying to restrain him from snatching both kings off the board simultaneously, she could not prevent an imitation gold button from being ripped off her cardigan. Little Nelson could not have been more helpful, going down flat on his face, tunnelling under things, in search of it. But somehow it was never recovered. Hilda took it as a warning that in future she must do nothing to excite him.
It was because he seemed so ready otherwise to lead an entirely sedentary life that Hilda was delighted when he wanted to take his truck out onto the landing. She encouraged him. She was sure that it would do him good. It had to be arranged, of course, on those afternoons when Cyril was out on his duties and, even then, she was afraid that her brother might notice the scratches on the paintwork, even the small chunks of wood snicked out of the bannisters. Much as she was ready to indulge him, she had to admit that he was careless; careless, and unashamedly boisterous. He would get the truck going at full speed, then leap into it from behind and career down the length of the landing, ending up with a bump against the high Gothic chair at the far end. She did not mind much about the chair because it was a piece of furniture that she had always disliked. But she could not help being afraid that Little Nelson might hurt himself, might damage his other eye or something.
And it was the same when he climbed up on the chair itself. He treated it like a steer in a rodeo. He would rock violently backwards and forwards until first the front legs and then the back legs left the floor completely, and then bring it down, rein it in as it were, with a jolt. This worried her, too. The chair was far from new, almost an antique, and she could not help noticing how it creaked when, at the end of the game, she put it back in its place.
Not that she need have bothered. Little Nelson was at the moment far too busy listening to the wireless to go near the chair. And for good reason. There had been three more gnome incidents – though only two of them were recognized as such at the time – and they were in every bulletin.
The first concerned the intended despatch of a flight of homing pigeons from Didsbury. Cooing contentedly, the birds had been delivered, six to a basket, all carefully labelled and stacked ready for the guard’s van. They were highly trained and experienced birds, and they had all travelled by rail before. They knew that there was no cause for hurry or alarm. Allowing for staff shortages, industrial action, faulty rolling stock, points failures and non-functioning of signals, they reckoned that they had three, four, even possibly five hours of rest and relaxation ahead of them. The older birds had, indeed, already tucked their beaks into their feathers and were asleep. Then, to their bewilderment, the bolts on all three baskets were simultaneously slid back and small, impatient hands were pulling them out onto the platform. Within seconds, and to the tumultuous clapping of wings, the birds became airborne. Airborne, but still confused. In close formation they shot down towards the Arrivals side, veered sharply, narrowly missing an in-coming commuter train, and made their way towards the main Exit. Then they soared. Soon they were at tree-top height and still circling. Ten minutes later, and no more than half awake, they were back in the loft that they had left less than half an hour before.
Station Master and Goods Porter alike were reprimanded, and it was only an eye-witness account of three mannikin-size figures, in green and scarlet uniform and all whistling like canaries, that had been seen scuttling across the footbridge that saved them from suspension; even possibly from dismissal.
The theft within the same week of a van left standing outside the Despatch Department of the Coronation Firework Corporation, Broxbourne, Herts, passed at the time unrecognized for what it really was. At Scotland Yard, Transport, Larceny, and Road Offences were all kept informed, but the National Emergency Headquarters was left entirely un-notified. The vanload had been a full one. And it was valuable, It contained Sky Rockets, Catherine Wheels, Roman Candles, Thunder Flashes, Big Bangers, Celestial Fire, Golden Showers, Jumping Jacks and assorted Sparklers.
At the time of the theft the driver was in the staff canteen building up his strength in readiness for a trip to Reading and back, some thirty-six miles each way. He was a large man, and his consumption was correspondingly heavy. About to start on his mince tart and custard – he had already finished his second helping (free) of Chef’s Special – he was interrupted and informed that his van had gone missing. Not at first believing what he had been told, he finished the tart and the cup of strong Indian tea that had been waiting at the side. Then, when he had paid, he went out into the yard to find himself faced by the empty spot where the load of fireworks should have been. By the time that he was satisfied that there was nothing there, the Corporation’s delivery van was already far off and speeding up the motorway.
It was not until a full forty-eight hours later when the van – a total write-off by now – was discovered upside down in a small ravine in Cheshire, that the truth became apparent. The fireworks had all been removed, but certain significant clues remained. No fewer than four plastic cushions on the front seat had been removed and stuffed up against the back padding of the driver’s seat, as though otherwise the driver might have found it impossible to reach the steering wheel. Moreover, skilfully carpentered blocks of wood attached to the pedals confirmed the impression that extreme smallness had been one of the problems that had to be overcome by the hijackers.
The third incident carried its signature upon it from the outset. An articulated lorry belonging to Allied Egg Distributors had left the Company’s West Country Depot at Taunton to begin its long journey to the metropolis. It was early morning, and the roads were still empty. Everything proceeded smoothly as far as Devizes. It was then that the driver became aware that one of the rear doors must have become loose and was banging against the side of the trailer. He pulled in at the next lay-by and re-secured the door, pulling down the closing handle with all his weight. By Trowbridge, however, the door was banging about again – clearly opened from the inside. And worse. Cardboard egg crates, each containing one gross of Grade A free-range farm-house eggs, were leaving the lorry at the rate of one every few hundred yards. In consequence, the traffic had built up by now, and other vehicles were swerving wildly to survive the bombardment. There were skids, jack-knifings and crashes. For more than half a mile the roadway was one long shining carpet of custard-coloured confusion. And, all the while, so other motorists attested, three smaller-than-school boy figures could be seen working flat out like heavy camp labour, shoving the crates out one by one, and whistling cheerfully as they pushed and heaved.
Little Nelson appeared unusually pensive and preoccupied. His games of chess were as fierce and intense as ever but less frequent, and he did not always seem to be listening properly while Hilda was reading to him. Even Swiss Family Robinson, hitherto his favourite story book, no longer gripped his attention.
What Hilda had, of course, not appreciated was that it was still only the early part of the week. Mondays to Fridays were all the same to her. But not to Little Nelson. Friday was set entirely apart. It was the day when Hilda and the Reverend were both out and Mrs Mewkes, evil and inquisitive, would continue with her spying.
But this Friday Little Nelson was ready for her. From 10.30 onwards he had everything prepared and, as eleven o’clock approached and he could hear her ponderous footsteps plodding up the stairs, he was all keyed-up and alert.
First he heard her drag up the Gothic vestry chair. It made an unmistakeable creaking noise as it was pulled along the worn strip of carpet. Then Little Nelson recognized the heavy laboured breathing as Mrs Mewkes hauled herself up onto the red velvet seat cushion. He waited. And he knew just how it would be. It would take at least a full minute for her to get her breath back. And then would come the final effort, the climax when she would stand up so that she could achieve her aim at peeping in through the fanlight.
This was the moment for which Little Nelson had been waiting. He was already in the wardrobe with the pillow slip pulled down over his head. Through the gap by the hinge he could see everything. And as Mrs Mewkes’s disagreeable face came slowly into view, he leapt out. His good arm was held out in front like a rhinoceros horn and, on the other side, he had painted two staring eyes with Hilda’s shoe polish. Head down, he charged towards the door.
It was all precisely as he had predicted. From Mrs Mewkes’s side of the glass came a hoarse intake of breath. A prolonged ‘Ooaagh’; then, a moment later, with the release of the same breath, a scream so loud that Little Nelson could not help feeling proud to think that he should be the cause of it. The house seemed to be split into two.
But it was not the house: it was the chair. The noise of shattering furniture mingled with the last notes of the dying scream. There could be no doubt about it. Those high speed games with his four-wheel trolley had done their work. The left rear leg of the high Gothic chair had now detached itself completely and Mrs Mewkes was already flying through the air like a collapsed caryatid. Then came the dreadful moment, the thunder of the fall. Little Nelson pulled the pillow slip tight around his head so that he should not hear. It was getting on for 11.30 when he removed the pillow slip altogether. By then there was one long unbroken silence.
Little Nelson gave himself another five minutes by Hilda’s bedside clock. Then he folded up the pillow slip and put it back in the linen drawer and got out his chess set. It was an altogether quieter game than usual. That was because his mind was at peace within him. He had succeeded in what he had set out to do.
He had protected Hilda.