Daisy and Pip were getting on very well indeed. As they had stood outside Mr. Hick's garden, debating what excuse they could make for going to the kitchen door, they had heard a little mew.
Daisy looked to see where the sound came from. "Did you hear that?" she asked Pip. The mew came again. Both children looked up into a tree, and there, unable to get down or up, was a small black and white kitten.
"It's got stuck," said Daisy. "Pip, can you climb up and get it?"
Pip could and did. Soon he was handing down the little creature to Daisy, and she cuddled it against her.
"Where does it belong ? " she wondered.
"Probably to Mrs. Minns, the cook," said Pip promptly. "Anyway, it will make a marvellous excuse for going to the kitchen door, and asking!"
"Yes, it will," said Daisy, pleased. So the two of them set off down the drive, and went to the kitchen entrance, which was on the opposite side of the house to the garage.
A girl of about sixteen was sweeping the yard, and from the kitchen nearby there came a never-ending voice.
"And don't you leave any bits of paper flying around my yard, either, Lily. Last time you swept that yard you left a broken bottle there, and half a newspaper and goodness knows what else! Why your mother didn't teach you how to sweep and dust and bake, I don't know! Women nowadays just leave their daughters to be taught by such as me, that's got all their work cut out looking after a particular gentleman like Mr. Hick, without having to keep an eye on a lazy girl like you!"
This was all said without a single pause. The girl did not seem to be paying any attention at all, but went on
sweeping slowly round the yard, the dust flying before her.
"Hallo," said Pip. "Does this kitten belong here?"
"Mrs. Minns!" shouted the girl. "Here's some children with the kitten."
Mrs. Minns appeared at the door. She was a round, fat woman, short and panting, with sleeves rolled up above her podgy elbows.
"Is this your kitten?" asked Pip again, and Daisy held it out to show the cook.
"Now where did it get to this time?" said Mrs. Minns, taking it, and squeezing it against her. "Sweetie! Sweetie! Here's your kitten again! Why don't you look after it better?"
A large black and white cat strolled out of the kitchen, and looked inquiringly at the kitten. The kitten mewed and tried to jump down.
"Take your kitten, Sweetie," said Mrs. Minns. She put it down and it ran to its mother.
"Isn't it exactly like its mother?" said Daisy.
"She's got two more," said Mrs. Minns. "You come in and see them. Dear little sweets! Dogs I can't bear, but give me a cat and kittens and I'm happy."
The two children went into the kitchen. The big black and white cat had got into a basket, and the children saw three black and white kittens there too, all exactly alike.
"Oh, can I stay and play with them a bit?" asked Daisy, thinking it would be a marvellous excuse to stop and talk to Mrs. Minns.
"So long as you don't get into my way," said Mrs. Minns, dumping down a tin of flour on the table. She was going to make pastry. "Where do you live?"
"Not far away, just up the lane," answered Pip. "We saw the fire the other night."
That set Mrs. Minns off at once. She put her hands on her hips and nodded her head till her fat cheeks shook.
"What a shock that was!" she said. "My word, when I saw what was happening, anyone could have knocked me down with a feather."
Both the children felt certain that nothing short of a bar of iron would ever knock fat Mrs. Minas over. Daisy stroked the kittens whilst the cook went on with her talk, quite forgetting about the pastry.
"I was sitting here in my kitchen, treating myself to a cup of cocoa, and telling my sister this, that and the other," she said. "I was tired with turning out the larders that day, and glad enough to sit and rest my bones. And suddenly my sister says to me, 'Maria!' she says, el smell burning!'"
The children stared at her, Mrs, Minns was pleased to have such an interested audience.
"I said to Hannah - that's my sister - I said 'Something burning! That's not the soup catching in the saucepan surely?' And Hannah says, 'Maria, there's something burning terrible!' And then I looked out of the window and I saw something flaring up at the bottom of the garden!"
"What a shock for you!" said Daisy.
" 'Well,' I says to my sister, 'it looks as if the master's workroom is on fire! Glory be!' I says. 'What a day this has been! First Mr. Peeks gets tie sack and walks out, baggage and all. Then Mr. Smellie comes along and he and the master go for one another, hammer and tongs! Then that dirty old tramp comes and the master catches him stealing eggs from the henhouse! And now if we haven't got a fire!' "
The two children listened intently. All this was news to them. Goodness! There seemed to have been quite a lot of quarrels and upsets on the day of the fire. Pip asked who Mr. Peeks was.
"He was the master's man-servant and secretary," said Mr. Minns. "Stuck-up piece of goods he was. I never had much rime for him myself. Good thing he went, I say. And I shouldn't be surprised if he had something to do with that fire either!"
But here Lily had something to say. "Mr. Peeks was
far too much of a gentleman to do a thing like that," she said, clattering her broom into a comer. "If you ask me, it's old Mr. Smellie."
The children could hardly believe that any one could be called by such a name. "Is that his real name?" asked Pip.
"It surely is," said Mrs. Minns, "and a dirty neglected old fellow he is too! What his housekeeper can be about, I don't know. She doesn't mend him up at all - sends him out with holes in his socks, and rents in his clothes, and his hat wanting brushing. He's a learned old gentleman, too, so they say, and knows more about old books and things than almost any one in the kingdom."
"Why did he and Mr. Hick quarrel?" asked Pip.
"Goodness knows!" said Mrs. Minns. "Always quarrelling, they are. They both know a lot, but they don't agree about what they know. Anyway, old Mr. Smellie, he walks out of the house muttering and grumbling, and bangs the door behind him so hard that my saucepans almost jump off the stove! But as for him firing the cottage, as Lily says, don't you believe a word of it! It's my belief he wouldn't know how to set light to a bonfire! It's that stuck-up Mr. Peeks who'd be spiteful enough to pay Mr. Hick back, you mark my words!"
"He would not," said Lily, who seemed determined to stick up for the valet. "He's a nice young man, he is. You've no right to say things like that, Mrs. Minns."
"Now, look here, my girl! " said the cook, getting angry, "if you think you can talk like that to your elders and betters, you're mistaken! Telling me I've no right to say this, that and the other! You just wait till you can scrub a floor properly, and dust the tops of the pictures, and see a cobweb when it's staring you in the face, before you begin to talk big to me!"
"I wasn't talking big," said poor Lily. "All I said was..."
"Now don't you start all over again!" said Mrs. Minns, thumping on the table with the rolling-pin as if she was hitting poor Lily on the head with it "You go and get me
the dripping, if you can find out where you put it yesterday. And no more back-chat from you, if you please!"
The children didn't want to hear about Lily's faults, or where she put the dripping. They wanted to hear about the people that Mr. Hick had quarrelled with, and who might therefore have a spite against him. It looked as if both Mr. Peeks and Mr. Smellie would have spites against him. And what about the old tramp too?
"Was Mr. Hick very angry with the tramp when he found him stealing the eggs?" asked Pip.
"Angry! You could hear him all over the house and the garden too!" said Mrs. Minns, thoroughly enjoying talking about everything. "I said to myself, 'Ah, there's the master off again! It's a pity he doesn't use up some of his temper on that lazy girl Lily!'"
Lily appeared out of the larder, looking sulky. The children couldn't help feeling sorry for her. The girl put the dripping down on the table with a bang.
"Any need to try and break the basin?" inquired Mrs. Minns. "It's a bad girl you are today, a right down bad girl. You go and wash the back steps, madam! That will keep you busy for a bit."
Lily went out, clanking a pail. "Tell us about the tramp," said Pip. "What time did Mr. Hick see him stealing eggs?"
"Oh, sometime in the morning," said Mrs. Minns, rolling out pastry with a heavy hand. "The old fellow came to my back door first, whining for bread and meat, and I sent him off. I suppose he slipped round the garden to the henhouse, and the master saw him there from the cottage window. My word, he went for him all right, and said he'd call the police in, and the old tramp, he went flying by my kitchen door as if a hundred dogs were after him!"
"Perhaps he fired the cottage," said Pip. But Mrs. Minns would not have it that any one had fired the cottage but Mr. Peeks.
"He was a sly one," she said. "He'd come down into my kitchen at nights, when every one was in bed, and he'd
go to my larder and take out a meat-pie or a few buns or anything he'd a mind to. Well, what I say is, if some one can do that, they'll set fire to a cottage too."
Pip remembered with a very guilty feeling that once, being terribly hungry, he had slipped down to the school larder and eaten some biscuits. He wondered if he was also capable of setting fire to a cottage, but he felt sure he could never do that. He didn't think that Mrs. Minns was right there.
Suddenly, from somewhere in the house, there came the sound of a furious flow of words. Mrs. Minns cocked her head up, listened and nodded.
"That's the master," she said. "Fallen over something, I shouldn't wonder."
Sweetie, the big black and white cat, suddenly flew into the kitchen, her fur up, and her tail swollen to twice its size. Mrs. Minns gave a cry of woe.
"Oh, Sweetie I Did you get under his feet again! Poor lamb, poor darling lamb!"
The poor darling lamb retired under the table, hissing. The three kittens in the basket stiffened in alarm, and hissed too. Mr. Hick appeared in the kitchen, looking extremely angry.
"Mrs. Minns! I have once more fallen over that horrible cat of yours. How many more times am I to tell you to keep her under control? I shall have her drowned."
"Sir, the day you drown my cat I walk out!" said Mrs. Minns, laying down the rolling-pin with a thump.
Mr. Hick glared at the cook as if he would like to drown her as well as the cat. "Why you want to keep such an ugly and vicious animal, I cannot think," he said. "And good heavens above - are those kittens in that basket?"
"They are, sir," said Mrs. Minns, her voice rising high. "And good homes I've found for every single one of them, when they're old enough."
Mr. Hick then saw the two children, and appeared to be just as displeased to see them as he had been to see the kittens.
"What are these children doing here?" he asked sharply.
"You ought to know better, Mrs. Minus., than to keep your kitchen full of tiresome children and wretched cats and kittens! Tell them to go!"
He marched out of the door, first setting down the empty cup and saucer he was carrying. Mrs. Minns glared after him.
"For two pins I'd bum your precious cottage down if it wasn't already gone!" she called after Mr. Hick, when he was safely out of hearing. Sweetie rubbed against her skirt, purring loudly. She beat down and stroked her.
"Did the nasty man tramp on you?" she asked fondly. "Did he say nasty things about the dear little kittens? Never you mind., Sweetie!"
"We'd better be going," said Daisy, afraid that Mr. Hick might hear what Mrs. Minns was saying, and come back in a worse temper than ever. "Thank you for all you've told us, Mrs. Minus. It was most interesting."
Mrs. Minns was pleased. She presented Pip and Daisy with a ginger bun each. They thanked her and went, bubbling over with excitement.
"We've learnt such a lot that it's going to be difficult to sort it all out!" said Pip. "It seehis as if at least three people might have done the crime - and really, if that's the kind of way that Mr. Hick usually behaves I can't help feeling there must be about twenty people who would only be too glad to pay him back for something!"