Original subtitles

Where the devil are those children gone to?

Seem to have disappeared or... Here, over there.

Wasn't it exciting?

I wish we could do it again.

Oh, sure.

Well, I don't know where they could have gone to.

Nothing like children for leading one of their hands, bud.

For they have fallen into the stream.

Let's have a look.

No, not a sign of them.

Not alone.

Weren't they playing with that boat when we sighted them?

I believe they were.

Must have shot it down the millway.

Where the little devils are now, who knows?

Might be hiding under the bridge.

Better look. What did Admiral want to know?

Why?

Wait!

Something's wrong.

Kay, what's happened?

We've had a burglary.

Ellen, why did you leave the house?

I had a telephone call.

Some doctor said my mother was terribly ill and I must come at once.

So Jim and I rushed off in the car.

When I got there, she was perfectly all right.

Not the least bit ill.

And who could have played such a stupid, soulless trick?

I just couldn't. Oh, it's all right, Ellen.

Come along, let's have tea.

Do you think they got away with much?

It's my guess they took almost nothing.

Then why... They were looking for one thing, and they didn't find it. 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've had a burglary.

I'll explain later.

Tell us what happened to you.

I was grobbled.

I knew I couldn't have gone without a pistol.

Just tell us what happened.

Well, the first part was all right.

Not the mouldy old stained glass.

But afterwards, they took me to eat at the Bear's Paw.

Duck patties. Look, 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.

Seating pass, please.

Conductor.

not the way to see things.

Hey, stop.

What do you think you're doing?

Bump and lurch and whoosh, we were flying.

What rot.

A car go up in the air and a broken down old taxi at that.

It wasn't a taxi. It was a car that became an aeroplane and it flew

silently. Well, that couldn't have been an aeroplane. An aeroplane flying

silently.

Go on, Maria.

I felt it dipping down. It touched the ground.

I heard it scorch and gravel.

Then a door clanged shut behind us.

And then...

Do forgive any inconvenience you may have caused in bringing you here. And

all, don't be afraid.

I don't get afraid. Oh, good.

We've brought you here because we're rather in need of a dashing young

at the moment and wondered if we might persuade you to join us. What are you, a

gang of crooks?

Oh, really, dear.

We're a business community.

And what business does your community do?

Social service.

Shall we say, we help people to help themselves. What do you do and how do

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 world.

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 or it

wouldn't have you in it. Maria Jones, if children are perked here, we turn them

into dog biscuit.

If grown -ups are perked to me, I turn them into cat's meat. Oh!

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 Hallings, when he gave his performance

at Seeking's 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 Seeking's house?

House?

That's the point.

Do you know? No, I don't. Are you telling the truth, child? You can soon

out if she's telling the truth.

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.

You're making it all up.

If it had happened to you, you wouldn't need to make anything up. They searched

me for that blessed black box, I suppose, and of course they couldn't

anything. And the next thing I knew, I was carried along the passage and dumped

back in the car. And all the shutters went up and we drove. and we flew again.

We did, we did.

And then it landed and the bottom opened and I slid out into the churchyard at

Pondicoat and the car -a -plane, aeroplane was lifting up and flying

You know you've been missing overnight. We were terribly worried.

Well, I'm here now and I didn't join their gang.

What's for dessert?

Peter.

Peter!

This isn't a purple pimp.

You're always waking me up.

Peter, I know where they took Mariah.

That theological college is just a front. I'm sure of it. Will you come

It's Chester's.

Over at Chester Hills.

But that's 40 miles away.

Yes, you could get there quite quick with a car that turned into an

Or with this.

Chester's. Where the men were dressed as curates and they cheated me at cards

and bit my pockets.

Where do you think we should go?

Down through the woodland.

I'm sure the buildings of the college are in there somewhere.

It 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? For years, I was scared of a notice that

said bloodhounds, and there wasn't a bloodhound in the county. Are you

It's bad luck for feeling my bones.

No, let's not talk too much, and we won't make more noise than we have to.

Oh, well.

Cautiously. The kids might come any minute.

There aren't any keepers. How do you know?

Easy to see you don't live in the country. If this place had been properly

preserved, we'd have seen some pheasants long ago.

Or keepers' vermin boards.

Or dead stokes and weasels. Or even owls.

I wouldn't have minded seeing an owl.

What a place.

Gives me the phantoms.

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!

My good lady Sylvia is always extolling your virtues, so I thought it was high

time I got to know you better, Charles.

Oh, jolly good sort of, Sylvia.

Uh, Mrs. Brown?

You keep an eye on them.

Listen in case they give anything away.

Meet you back here.

Thank you.

But it does do one good, though.

I can feel the corpuscles coursing through my veins.

I wouldn't have thought so.

I wonder how our new guest is finding our accommodation.

Did you

hear something?

Can't exactly say.

Thought is not good enough.

Don't.

Go and look.

There's a strangers around here. If there is, answer them, boys.

Oh,

I didn't notice you there. Have you seen Vic?

So that was their guest.

Mariah, I've got bad news too.

Peter, that gang hasn't got him.

Yes, he's been scrabbled 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.

She left two days ago to come home.

Someone's been giving false messages.

An Abner and his men have got her in that prison up there.

Kay, you must go to the police.

But the inspector... 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 Bottledale.

Hello, is that you, Your Reverence?

It's the Inspector of Police speaking.

You remember the Glee Club?

Look,

I want to ask you, have you seen anything of a lad by the name of Peter?

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?

All wrong makes up.

And there is a reason for that.

Only one thing for it, Kate.

Gotland Yard.

Scotland Yard put me through to catch you at the police station. They told me

report it to my local inspector.

Let's go.

Come in, Caroline Louisa. I'll find you.

you

Let me go swift to the chief room of this house.

Take a pair of sparkling eyes

and a pair of rubies.

But rubies themselves are better.

Well,

if I knew why the orders were given, I might see some sense in them, but to

scrawl a lot of clergymen who can't afford a ransom worth of flea bite,

foolishness.

He's roused the press, he's roused Scotland Yard, he's soon roused the

all to get hold of some perishing box.

Send me that fat -faced Joe, will you?

How soon is it, boss? Is it done?

You wanted me, Teeth.

You might close the door, perhaps, gently.

Yes, I hear you've allowed yourself little criticisms of my orders.

Eh?

Thought how news gets about here, isn't it, Joe?

Well, it's just, uh... all the scrobbling to try and find a box that

the old Punch and Judy man. That is, however, no longer in the hands of the

old... Punch and Judy, now. Well, then, you've got him locked up in the

dungeons. Why don't you make him tell you where it is?

And how would you make him?

Well, I don't mean to hurt him.

Just threaten him a bit.

Or use itchy powder to keep him awake.

If he'd scratched these last two nights, you'd have had it out of him by this

time. Of course, I forget, you unleathered lot. You don't realise who

Hallings is, do you?

Have you ever heard of Arnold of Toadie?

Who of where?

Toady.

In Italy.

Arnold was a philosopher there in the Middle Ages. Come here.

That is he.

Oh. Now, did you ever hear of a certain Ramon Lully?

Yes. Now, wasn't he the chap used to the box trick down at Brickton Music Hall?

No joke.

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 power, which were contained.

Oh. Arnold refused none, but he would have the box bucked.

Soon after that, Arnold of Toadie disappeared.

Raymond topped him. No.

But 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 that it allows you to enter the past

you may not... take the box with you.

You enter it at your own risk.

You 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 Roman Lully got the box when Arnold

entered into the past without it. Now think!

Think!

This man, and the elixir of eternal life, and the Vox of Delights

with all its magic powers.

You do see who it is, don't you, Joe?

Look more closely.

It's the old Pops and Judy man.

But he must be 500, 700 years old.