I had been in this room dozens of times, usually with my children. We would climb up from our own home through the cleft in the hill, and here we would sit and gaze over the sea. This was our favorite place in the castle ruins.
As I hurried past the opening in the wall, I glanced down the rocky path and caught a glimpse of the sea in the distance. Then I stopped and looked more closely. Had I been to fast in coming here? As I blinked, I heard a scrabble of claws on rock down under the castle. Then I turned and ran down from the castle and around to the village.
Within ten minutes I reached the police station.
"Have you found my husband yet?" I asked, and waited for the answer to my question.
"Madam, you must wait a little longer for the answer to your question." replied the sergeant in charge.
I waited some more. Finally the sergeant came out and got me.
"Bruce was found, and we have charged your husband with the murder of his own neighbor," he announced.
"No!" I managed to say, as the policeman told me the terrible news.
"He is being transferred to London to go before the judge."
"Then I have no time to lose!"
"What do you mean by that?" asked the sergeant.
"I have to prove that he is innocent before they take him away. That is why I have been staying here in this haunted castle! Now I have a clue and I know exactly where to look next. I must hurry, for I must have more time to prove his innocence."
"What are you talking about?" asked the officer. He stood in front of me, blocking my way. "Haven"t you heard what I said? There is no time to lose. They are going to take him to London tomorrow."
"I must have more time!" I insisted.
Then a thought popped into my head. I had a plan.
"I will trade him for the thing I want," I explained.
"Well now, maybe there is a way," said the officer in charge of the station. "There is a person who wants to be left alone. The police will have to make a deal with him. If he stays away, he will live. If he comes back, we will charge him with murder. Maybe this time it would be murder."
"Then I will make a deal with the person who wants to be left alone first!" I said without thinking. "He will not come back for a few hours; then I will have a few hours to prove that my husband is innocent."
"See here," the chief of police said, after thinking it over, "you come with me, with your things. You will be safe in our jail. Then later, as soon as you have your proof, we will come back to get your husband. Then you can go around and tell the public that your husband is innocent."
"But, he is still being transferred tomorrow."
"You just grabbed him by the collar and pleaded with him as he was being carried off to London. He agreed to come back for you."
"What is he like?"
"Well, I will have to warn you that he has disappeared before, but he just appears when we go to his location. We have found no trace of him after several days. We think he might have gone to the Bahamas; he has been there before. He will be there again in a day or two, or the Bahamas will have him."
"Is he a madman? What sort of person is he?" I asked, and then I was very much afraid.
"We have never seen him. He just sees us and then he disappears. We think it would be a big mistake to chase him. He is not afraid to disappear forever."
"I want to go?" I said. "I must have something to trade him."
"I would take a lock of your hair, but I would rather have something he wants."
"Will you bring me some salt? He likes salt. I would like to trade him for the salt."
"That sounds like a good deal. We will go out immediately. We will go and visit the place where he is staying. We have a salt mine in France, and we might as well get a big load of salt to trade."
"We will make a deal," I said, "but I want to have time to prove my husband is innocent."
"You have plenty of time," said the chief of police.
I saw a big horse and wagon being put into a large, roomy carriage. The chief said he wanted to test the wagon wheels before heading for France. It was a beautiful spring day.
The wagon wheel needed fixing and the carriage was old and had poor running gear. The chief decided to get some new wheels and a new carriage. I watched for a long time as he held the horse, and then tightened the wheel. Then he got in and said we could go.
The chief was not at all able to crack the whip, and so I snapped it, and the carriage lurched forward. The wheels complained loudly. We traveled for three hours, stopping each time. The chief had ordered the man to go slowly and carefully.
