In the kitchen, Max slid out from his hiding place behind the woodpile, and seeing that Mistress Split was still snoring on her truckle bed, he used his paw to pull open the heavy kitchen door and set off by himself through the Dark House. He was a dog. He knew where he was going.
First, Max slid like a silent shadow into the library and ran to Jack’s mother, and jumped up on the table so that he could lick her nose.
‘Max!’ said Anne. ‘Do you know where they have imprisoned Jack?’ Max wagged his tail, and jumping down, he went softly to the door into the laboratory, where his quick ears could hear the Magus giving orders to the boys to chop and fire and stoke and fill.
Then, turning his friendly intelligent face to Anne, to reassure her, Max set off again through the house.
He went up the stairs and put his nose round the half-door of the Creature’s chamber. Sure enough, there was Wedge, with the coconut in front of him, and a very large hen.
Max ran at top speed up the turning stairs until he came to the boys’ chamber, where he knew he would find Crispis.
Yes, there he was, sitting disconsolately on the edge of his stone bed, swinging his thin legs. He was talking to a flower pot, where, just starting to grow, was a sunflower.
Max barked and Crispis got up and came over to pat the dog. ‘Where’s Jack?’ asked Crispis. ‘I wish I was an all-seeing eye so that I could find him.’
But Max was an all-smelling nose, and he knew where Jack was, and he wanted to show Crispis. Tugging at the boy’s jacket, running a few feet, then tugging again, Max made Crispis understand he had to follow him.
Crispis was quite frightened to be leaving the chamber without permission, but then, he thought, he was usually frightened, whatever was happening, so this was probably all right. But he took his sunflower just in case.
Down they went, creeping past the Creature’s chamber, and in one brief half a second half a glance, Crispis saw Wedge on top of a large brown hen and the hen on top of a small brown coconut.