“But suppose it isn’t? They might put you in prison for it.”
“You could tell the policeman you thought it was yours. I say, Edred, let’s!”
“It’s not vulgar curiosity, like auntie says; it’s the spell I want,” said the boy.
“As if I didn’t know that,” said the girl contemptuously. “But where’s the house?”
She might well ask, for there was no house to be seen—only the great grey walls of the castle, with their fine fringe of flowers and grass showing feathery against the pale blue of the June sky. Here and there, though, there were grey wooden doors set in the grey of the stone.
“It must be one of those,” Edred said. “We’ll try all the keys and all the doors till we find it.”
So they tried all the keys and all the doors. One door led to a loft where apples were stored. Another to a cellar, where brooms and spades and picks leaned against the damp wall, and there were baskets and piles of sacks. A third opened into a tower that seemed to be used as a pigeon-cote. It was the very last door they tried that led into the long garden between two high walls, where already the weeds had grown high among the forget-me-nots and pansies. And at the end of this garden was a narrow house with a red roof, wedged tightly in between two high grey walls that belonged to the castle.
All the blinds were down; the garden was chill and quiet, and smelt of damp earth and dead leaves.
“Oh, Edred, do you think we ought?” Elfrida said, shivering.
“Yes, I do,” said Edred; “and you’re not being good, whatever you may think. You’re only being frightened.”