Mother took Joyce’s hand again.
“Come,” she said. “We’ll walk round by the path, and you must tell me again how it all happened. Did you really see something when Joan told you to look?”
“I expect I didn’t,” replied Joyce dolefully. “But Joan’s always saying there’s a fairy or something in the shadows and I always think I see them for a moment.”
“It couldn’t have been a live woman—or a man—that you saw?”
“Oh, no!” Joyce was positive of that. Mother’s hand tightened on hers understandingly and they went on in silence till they met Jenks.
Jenks was an oldish man with bushy gray whiskers, who never wore a coat, and now he was wet to the loins with mud and water.
“That there ol’ pond,” he explained. “I’ve been an’ took a look at her. Tromped through her proper, I did, an’ I’ll go bail there ain’t so much as a dead cat in all the mud of her. Thish yer’s a mistry, mum, an’ no mistake.”
Mother stared at him. “I can’t bear this,” she said suddenly. “You must go on searching, Jenks, and Walter must go on his bicycle to the police-station at once. Call him, please!”
“Walter!” roared Jenks obediently.
“Coming!” answered the boot-boy and burst forth from the bushes. In swift, clear words, which no stupidity could mistake or forget, mother gave him his orders, spoken in a tone that meant urgency. Walter went flying to execute them.