The Box of Delights by John Masefield

followed with the bundle. The boys were too startled to cry out or to do anything: they
stood spell-bound.
    There came the roar of an engine from beyond Rider’s Wood. ‘That’s an aeroplane,’ Kay said. They heard confused noises and the slamming-to of a door. The roaring of the
engine became much louder and an aeroplane lurched into sight past the covert-end, going across the snow to take off into the wind. ‘It will stick in the snow,’ Kay said, ‘and
then they’ll have to leave him.’ However, it didn’t stick in the snow. It lifted after a short run, and at once lifted higher and higher, with great lolloping leaps.
    Now that it was in the air it was silent, of a grey colour and swifter in going and climbing than any he had seen. It had almost no wings and was in the clouds in no time (going north-west, Kay
judged).
    ‘Well, they scrobbled the old man,’ Peter said.
    ‘Come along, Peter,’ Kay said, ‘we must go to see what tracks those people have left.’
    ‘I say,’ Peter said. ‘I am glad I came out with you. I never thought I should see a gang scrobble an old man and carry him off in an aeroplane.’
    ‘It’s very lucky,’ Kay said, ‘that we’ve got the snow. All the tracks will be as clear as print. Don’t let’s run, and keep well to the side of the old
man’s tracks so as not to obscure them, and let’s get it absolutely clear so that we can tell the Police: two men in white ran out, then two others, and there must have been another man
in the aeroplane.’
    ‘There were four who did the attack,’ Peter said, ‘and the first one, who had a bag, was the tallest of the four, and they’d all got something over their
faces.’
    They came to the scene of the kidnapping and then went into the copse to see where the gangsters had lain in wait.
    They had been in the spinney some little time and had scuffled out their tracks: they had been resting in a yew clump among some tumbled stones clear of the snow. They had not smoked during
their wait: there were no cigarette-ends, no matches, no tobacco ash. They had scuffled out their foot tracks from the aeroplane, but, of course, the tracks to the aeroplane were plain. All that
they could see was that there were four men of different sizes, one a good deal bigger than the other three, and that all were wearing new rubber goloshes or rubber boots. The tracks of the
aeroplane told the boys nothing: it had run on its wheels to a level strip near the spinney on a part of the down kept clear of snow by the wind.
    ‘Well, that’s that,’ Kay said. ‘They’ve got him, and they’ve got away with him, and I’m pretty sure it was our Punch and Judy man.’
    ‘It looked jolly like him,’ Peter said. ‘Well, we’d better go back and tell the Police.’
    They made a last examination where the aeroplane had rested, but there were no clues but a few spots of black oil. They took the short cuts home and called at the Police Station.
    The big red-faced Inspector was an old friend of Kay’s. He understood rabbits and was a clever amateur conjurer. Kay had always thought that there was a lot of sense in him. Kay told his story; Peter backed him up.
    ‘Ah, indeed,’ the Inspector said: ‘that was those young officers from the aerodrome having a bit of a frolic.’
    ‘It wasn’t like a frolic,’ Kay said; and Peter said, ‘And they weren’t in uniform, and it wasn’t a government aeroplane.’ ‘And then,’ Kay
said, ‘it was such a lonely place and such a time in the morning.’
    ‘And what were you doing in that lonely place at that time in the morning, Master Kay?’ the Inspector said. ‘I hope you young gentlemen weren’t trespassing in pursuit of
game.’
    ‘No, of course we weren’t. We were out looking at the tracks of the animals in the snow.’
    ‘Ha,’ the Inspector said. ‘Now, did this old man struggle at all or cry out?’
    ‘He didn’t have a chance to,’ Kay said.
    ‘Did he see you or did the other