"Kay, look!" "No!" " We'll sink!" " Hold on tight!" "(PETER) We're safe!" "(JEMIMA) We made it!" "(PETER) Hip, hip..." "(ALL) Hooray!" "Hip, hip, hooray!" "Where the devil have those children got to?" "Seem to have disappeared, what?" "Over there." "(SUSAN) Wasn't it exciting?" "I wish we could do it again." " All ashore." " (JOE) I don't know where they've got to." "Over to those rocks!" "Nothing like children for leading one a dance, what?" "Could they have fallen into the stream?" "Let's have a look." "(FOXY FACED CHARLES) Not a sign of them." "Weren't they playing with that boat when we sighted them?" "I believe they were." "Must have shot it down the millrace." "Where the little devils are now, who knows?" "Might be hiding under the bridge." "Better look, or dear Abner'll want to know...why." "Wait!" "(CHUGGING PLANE ENGINE)" "(CHILDREN CHEER)" "(KAY) Right, now." "All hold hands." "(THEY LAUGH)" "Look at the boat now!" "Something's wrong." "(SUSAN) How terrible!" "(JEMIMA) Where are the servants?" "(KAY) Ellen!" "Abner." "Oh, Master Kay." "What's happened?" "We've had a burglary." "Why did you leave the house?" "I had a telephone call." "A doctor said my mother was terribly ill and I must come at once, so Jim and I rushed off in the car, and when I got there, she was perfectly all right - not the least bit ill." "Who could have played such a stupid, thoughtless trick?" "I just can't... (JEMIMA) It's all right, Ellen." "(SUSAN) Let's have tea." "Do you think they got away with much?" "It's my guess they took almost nothing." "They were looking for one thing." "That gadget of yours." "Hadn't you better tell me what's going on?" " Hello, you lot." "I'm back." " Maria!" "And I'm very annoyed." "Thank heavens you're safe." "We had a burglary." "I'll explain later." "What happened to you?" "I was scrobbled." " (MARIA) I should have taken a pistol." " Just tell us what happened." "The first part was all right - not the mouldy old stained glass." "They took me to eat at The Bear's Paw - duck patty!" " Can't you get on to the important bit?" " They suddenly got up and left." "So I thought I'd better get a taxi home, so I went out into the street." "Seekings House, please." "Condicote." "(MARIA) Hey!" "Driver!" "This is not the way to Seekings." "Stop!" "What do you think you're doing?" "A bump and a lurch, and whoosh!" "We were flying!" "What rot!" "A car go up in the air?" "And a broken-down old Tatchester taxi at that!" "It wasn't a taxi." "It was a car that became an aeroplane, and it flew absolutely silently." "That couldn't have been an aeroplane." "An aeroplane flying silently..." "Go on, Maria." "(MARIA) I felt it dipping down." "It touched the ground." "I heard it scraunch on gravel." " Then a door clanged shut behind us." " (CLANG!" ")" "And then..." "Maria Jones." "Do forgive any inconvenience we may have caused in bringing you here, and, above all, don't be afraid." "I don't get afraid!" "Good!" "We've brought you here because we are rather in need of a dashing young associate at the moment, and wondered if we might persuade you to join us." " What are you?" "A gang of crooks?" " Really, dear!" " We're a business community." " Oh?" "What business does your community do?" "Social service." "Shall we say we help people to help themselves?" "What do you do, and how do you do it?" "Ah, that you would soon learn if you joined us." "It's such an interesting world for younger agents." "Fast cars, flights in aeroplanes." "Life is one long social whirl." "Yes, but what's the work?" "First, you must show your willingness to join us." "Then we can discuss it." "If the work were honest, you'd say what it is." "It can't be too nice if you're in it." "Maria Jones, if children are pert here, we turn them into dog biscuit." "If grown-ups are pert to me, I turn them into cat's meat." " (SHUTTER SLIDES OPEN)" " Ladies, ladies!" "Do let us have unity." "Do I take it, Miss Jones, that you do not wish to work for us?" "No." "I think you look a pretty shady lot." "Then at least give us a little information." "The old Punch and Judy man" " Cole Hawlings - when he gave his performance at Seekings yesterday afternoon, did he hand you a small black box?" "No, he didn't." "He didn't leave it with any of the others?" "Did he hide it somewhere at Seekings House?" " How on earth do I know?" " That's the point!" "Do you know?" " No, I don't." " Are you telling the truth, child?" "You can soon find out." "Put her in the scrounger!" "You know what the scrounger is, my dear." "We put you in it, and it has a thing in it that goes round and round." "That is the scrounger." "And presently you come out as dog biscuit." "There!" " (MARIA) Help!" " Ha-ha, what?" "You're making it all up." "If it had happened to you, you wouldn't need to." "They searched me for that blessed black box and couldn't find anything." "Next thing, I was carried along the passage and dumped in the car." "All the shutters went up and we drove out, and we flew again." "We did!" "We did!" "Then it landed, the bottom opened, and I slid out into the churchyard at Condicote, and the car-o-plane-aeroplane flew away." "You were gone overnight." "We were terribly worried." "Well, I'm here now, and I didn't join their gang." "What's for dessert?" "Peter!" "Peter!" "Well, if this isn't the purple pim!" "You're always waking me up." "Peter, I know where they took Maria." "That theological college is just a front, I'm sure of it." "Will you come with me?" "It's Chesters, over at Chester Hills." "But that's 40 miles away." "You could get there quickly with a car that turned into an aeroplane - or with this." "Get dressed - quick." "(PETER) Golly!" "I say!" "Chester Hills." "Down there's the railway line near Hope-under-Chesters where the men dressed as curates cheated me at cards and picked my pockets." " Where should we go?" " Through the woodland." " I'm sure the college buildings are in there." " Look, a track!" "Doesn't look a very cheerful place." "I don't think we ought to risk those notices." " Oh, rats!" "I don't believe them." " Why would they put them there, then?" "I used to be scared of a sign saying "Bloodhounds"." "There were none in the county!" "It's bad luck for us." "I feel it in my bones." " Don't talk too much or make much noise." " Oh, well." "We must go cautiously - a keeper might come any minute." " There aren't any keepers." " How do you know?" "You don't live in the country." "If this place was properly preserved, we'd have seen some pheasants, or keepers' vermin boards, dead stoats and weasels, or owls." "Wouldn't have minded seeing an owl." "Come on!" "(KAY) What a place!" "(PETER) Gives me the fantods." "I don't like it." "Well, we're here, and we're not going back now." "I'm going to go and get a closer look at the house." "Look!" "(ABNER) It's good for the circulation." "(FOXY) Jolly nice of you to invite me along." "Sylvia is always extolling your virtues, so I thought it was time I got to know you better, Charles." "Jolly good sort, old Sylvia!" "Er..." "Mrs Brown." "You keep an eye on them, and listen in case they give anything away." "Meet you back here." "(ABNER GASPS AND SPLUTTERS) Bracing!" "(ABNER) Enough for honour." "We will leave the rest to the British." "(FOXY FACED CHARLES) It does one good." "I can feel the corpuscles coursing through my veins." "(ABNER) I wouldn't have thought so." "I wonder how our new guest is finding our accommodation." "Did you hear something?" "I can't exactly say." " I thought..." " Thought is not good enough, dolt!" "Go and look." "(PETER YELLS)" "(FOXY FACED CHARLES) I say!" "Hey!" "(PETER YELLS)" "(MAN) Is there strangers around 'ere?" "If there is, after 'em!" "(PETER) Help!" "Oh!" "I didn't notice you there." "Have you seen this?" "So that was their "guest"." "Maria, I've got bad news, too" " Peter." "That gang hasn't got him?" "Yes." "He's been scrobbled now." "No, not a sign." "Oh, here's Master Kay now." "It's your guardian's brother." "He rang to see how she is." "Hello?" "But I don't understand." "Caroline Louisa?" "I thought she was still with you." "(KAY) She left two days ago to come home." "Someone's been giving false messages." "Abner's got her in that prison." " You must go to the police." " But the inspector will just..." "I'll come with you and talk some sense into him." "You're quite wrong, Master Harker." "The principal of that there training college is not a Mr Brown." "As I've told you, it's the Reverend Boddledale." "Hello, is that you, Your Reverence?" "It's the inspector of police speaking." "You remember the glee club?" "Look, I want to ask you if you've seen anything of a lad by the name of Peter." "No sign of him?" "And have you with you a gentleman by the name of Abner Brown?" "You don't know the name." "I'm very sorry to have troubled you, sir." "Oh, thank you, sir, and the same to you." "There!" "Stupid man!" "Talking to Abner Brown himself!" "What if I'm wrong or all mixed up, and there IS a Reverend Boddledale?" "Only one thing for it." "Scotland Yard." "Scotland Yard put me through to Tatchester police station." "They told me to report it to our local inspector." "Let's go home." "Kay!" "Please come and save me!" "Kay!" "I'm coming, Caroline Louisa." "I'll find you." "Let me go swift to the chief room of this house." "(ABNER SINGS TUNE TO "TAKE A PAIR OF SPARKLING EYES")" "# Take a pair of sparkling eyes" "# And a pair of ruby lips" "# But rubies themselves are better... #" "(SINGS THE TUNE)" "If I knew why the orders was given, I might see some sense in 'em, but to scrobble clergymen who can't afford a ransom worth a flea bite - plain foolishness." "He's roused the press, he's roused Scotland Yard, he'll soon rouse the nation - all to get hold of some perishing box!" "(INTERCOM WHISTLE)" "Send me that fat-faced Joe, will you?" "(MAN) No sooner said, boss, than done." "You wanted me, Chief?" "You might close the door, perhaps." "Gently." "(DOOR SLAMS SHUT)" "Yes, I hear you've allowed yourself little criticisms of my orders." "(CHUBBY JOE) Eh?" "It's odd how news gets about here, isn't it, Joe?" "Well, it's just..." "All these scrobblings to find a box that belongs to the old Punch and Judy man." "That is, however, no longer in the hands of the old Punch and Judy man." "He's locked up in the dungeons." "Make him tell you where it is." " And how would YOU make him?" " Well, no need to hurt him." "Just threaten him a bit, or use itchy powder to keep him awake." "You'd have had it out of him by this time." "Of course, I forget." "You unlettered lot, you don't realise who Cole Hawlings is, do you?" "Have you ever heard of Arnold of Todi?" " Who of where?" " Todi." "In Italy." "Arnold was a philosopher there in the Middle Ages." "Come here." "That is he." "Now...did you ever hear of a certain Ramon Lully?" "Yes!" "Wasn't he the chap who used to do the box trick down at Brixton Music Hall?" "No, Joe." "He also was a philosopher of the Middle Ages." "They show his tomb at Palma." "But in those days, a philosopher studied many things in his endless search for knowledge." "There he is." "Ramon Lully travelled all through Spain and France and over the Alps into Italy, just to meet this Arnold of Todi, and to offer him his Elixir of Eternal Life in exchange for Arnold's magic powers, which were contained in the Box of Delights." "Oh." "Arnold refused - none but he would have the box - but soon after that," "Arnold of Todi disappeared." " Ramon topped him." " No." "Legend has it that Arnold went into the past by means of the box, but once in the past, he could not get out of it." "For the mystery and terror of the box is though it allows you to enter the past, you may not take the box with you." "You enter it at your own risk... ..and must find your own way out." "There you are." "Old Arnold DID do the box trick like the bloke at Brixton Music Hall." "Whatever he did, he disappeared, and there are people who believe that Ramon Lully got the box when Arnold entered into the past without it." "Now think!" "Think!" "This man had the Elixir of Eternal Life" "AND the Box of Delights with all its magic powers." "You do see who it is, don't you, Joe?" "Look more closely." "It's him!" "It's the old Punch and Judy man!" "But he must be 500... ..700 years old!"