There May Be Danger Read Online Free Page B

you, I expect?”
    The grating of wheels, clattering of hooves and squeaking of springs made a reply impossible, so Mr. Morgan had to go for the present with his curiosity unsatisfied.
    â€œI’m afraid she isn’t,” said Kate to the little woman, drawing her oilskin over her vulnerable knees. “I only decided to come yesterday. Is there anywhere in Hastry where I’ll be able to get a room? An inn?”
    â€œMrs. Howells the post has a room empty, now the boy she had there is gone,” replied Mrs. Davis, studying Kate with sharp grey eyes behind her round steel-rimmed spectacles. “Perhaps you are a relation of the boy—Sidney Brentwood his name was?” 
    â€œNot a relation. Just a—friend.”
    â€œOh, indeed!” cried Mrs. Davis, her voice sharper than ever, and even the taciturn Mr. Davis turned his head about one degree towards Kate as if to lend an ear to what was going on. The trap was climbing the long uphill road, and over the brow of the hill Kate could see farther hills standing high against the sky.
    These were certainly not the rocky and hazardous mountains of Miss Brentwood’s urban imaginings: but seen in this evening light, their tops in cloud, the grey rain driving round their feet, they looked formidable enough, unfriendly enough, secretive enough, to daunt even Kate.
    â€œThere has been a lot of search-parties on the hills,” said Mrs. Davis, noticing Kate’s glance. “There was people from the villages making parties and helping the police, but nothing was found.
    Mr. Davis, with an eye upon the hills, said something which the unfamiliar intonation of his quick speech made unintelligible to Kate. His wife turned to Kate and said half-apologetically:
    â€œHe is saying that the bracken-cutting has started, and perhaps something will be found now. The bracken is very high at this time of year.”
    â€œDid you know Sidney Brentwood?” Kate might as well waste no time in her inquiries.
    â€œYes, indeed, he came to Pentrewer on his bicycle to see the tump where Gwyn Lupton found the old piece of money!”
    This had the elements of drama in it, and Kate seized on it.
    â€œAn old piece of money?”
    â€œVery old, indeed, perhaps from when the Romans was here, Gwyn Lupton says.”
    â€œWhere do you say it was found?”
    â€œOn the tump at Pentrewer, which is where we lives.”
    Kate was not enlightened.
    â€œThe tump?”
    â€œYes, there is a tump on Pentrewer bank, not far from where we lives. There is a lot of them on the hills. A gentleman who came from the Government in London was saying they are places where people was buried in history times, more than two hundred years ago, I shouldn’t wonder!”
    â€œOh, a tumulus! And Sidney Brentwood came to see it?”
    â€œHe heard about the piece of old money Gwyn Lupton found, and he came over wanting to dig for treasure. But we told him he must not do that, because we had a paper from London to say we must not interfere with the tump, although it is on our land. The Government wants it, because it is in history!” 
    Kate made a mental note of the name, Pentrewer Tump. She knew a little about tumuli, for she had once been persuaded by an archaeologist friend, Colin Kemp, to spend a week assisting, in a very minor capacity, at the excavations at Maiden Castle. In Colin’s company she had visited every place marked on the map in black-letter for miles around, and obediently got off her bicycle whenever a round-barrow came in sight, which happened more frequently than Kate would have believed possible. It had been an educative experience in more ways than one, for it had brought home to Kate what, before that week, she had been in danger of overlooking, the fact that earthworks and the theatre cannot live together. She had pointed this out to the young man, who had not at all agreed with her, but had been forced to submit to her