"I hope," Madge added, with a gallant attempt to be frivolous, "the cook didn't think I was accusing her of having designs on our sticks for firewood, or even for serving up in the stews!"
No one laughed, however. The matter was too serious.
"What annoys me most," said Glenda stormily, "is that crowd of netballites following us round with broad grins on their faces. I'm quite sure they know something about it, in spite of their denials. I searched their cubicles well, but with no results. After all, you can't hide a score of hockey sticks in any nook or cranny—or even one stick, for that matter."
Nat and Monica were there, both having been as indefatigable in the search as anyone. Monica was humming a tune from the Mikado under her breath, and now and again breaking into words:
"Here's a how-de-do,
Here's a pretty state of things!"
Then Deirdre arrived on the scene and reported that she had bearded the lion in his den—the lion being the head gardener and groundsman, a particularly surly and cross-grained person—and had even persuaded him to unlock the gardener's shed and allow her to go inside.
"We looked in the bicycle shed," concluded Deirdre. "As for the garden, they weren't hidden under the winter greens, which are about all there is growing in it this time of the year, and Baines got quite annoyed when I suggested they had been buried in the soil, and said nobody had been digging in his garden unbeknown to him and we needn't look forward to a spring crop of hockey sticks!"
"The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la,
Have nothing to do with the case!"
hummed Monica, breaking into a new tune. Nat seized her by the arm and pulled her into the passage.
"Look here, you imp of mischief," she said in a fierce whisper. "I believe you're at the bottom of the whole affair. You were here while we went to the play. Tell me, where have you hidden them?"