The Bank was closed, of course, so I drove to the Club forthwith to get some money. Jonah was not there, but, as he was certain to call, I left a note with the porter, telling him what had occurred. Then I purchased our tickets – a lengthy business. It was so lengthy, in fact, that when it was over I called again at the Club on the chance of picking up Jonah and bringing him home. He had not arrived…
I made my way back to the villa dismally enough.
My sister and Berry were in the drawing-room.
As I opened the door —
“Wherever have you been?” said Daphne. “Did they catch it?”
I nodded.
“You haven’t seen Jonah, I suppose?”
I shook my head.
“But where have you been, Boy?”
I spread out my hands.
“Getting money and tickets. You know their idea of haste. But there’s plenty of time – worse luck,” I added bitterly. Then: “I say, what a dreadful business!” I sank into a chair. “What on earth can have happened?”
Berry rose and walked to a window.
“Jill’s face,” he said slowly. “ Jill’s face.” He swung round and flung out an arm. “She looked old!” he cried. “Jill – that baby looked old. She thought it was a wire to say he was on his way, and it hit her between the eyes like the kick of a horse.”
Shrunk into a corner of her chair, my sister stared dully before her.
“He must be bad,” said I. “Unless he was bad, he ’ld never have wired like that. If Piers could have done it, I’m sure he ’ld have tempered the wind.”
“‘Can you come?’” quoted Berry, and threw up his arms.
Daphne began to cry quietly…
A glance at the tea-things showed me that these were untouched. I rang the bell, and pleasantly fresh tea was brought. I made my sister drink, and poured some for Berry and me. The stimulant did us all good. By common consent, we thrust speculation aside and made what arrangements we could. That our plans for returning to England would now miscarry seemed highly probable.
At last my sister sighed and lay back in her chair.
“Why?” she said quietly. “Why? What has Jill done to earn this? Oh, I know it’s no good questioning Fate, but it’s – it’s rather hard.”
I stepped to her side and took her hand in mine.
“My darling,” I said, “don’t let’s make the worst of a bad business. The going’s heavy, I know, but it’s idle to curse the jumps before we’ve seen them. Piers didn’t send that wire himself. That goes without saying. He probably never worded it. I know that’s as broad as it’s long, but, when you come to think, there’s really no reason on earth why it should be anything more than a broken leg.”
There was a dubious silence.
At length —
“Boy’s perfectly right,” said Berry. “Jill’s scared stiff – naturally. As for us, we’re rattled – without good reason at all. For all we know…”
He broke off to listen… The front door closed with a crash.
“Jonah,” said I. “He’s had my note, and—”
It was not Jonah.
It was Piers, Duke of Padua, who burst into the room, looking extraordinarily healthy and very much out of breath.
We stared at him, speechless.
For a moment he stood smiling. Then he swept Daphne a bow.
“Paris to Pau by air,” he said, “in four and a quarter hours. Think of it. Clean across France in a bit of an afternoon. You’ll all
have
to do it: it’s simply glorious.” He crossed to my sister’s side and kissed her hand. “Don’t look so surprised,” he said laughing. “It really is me. I didn’t dare to wire, in case we broke down on the way. And now where’s Jill?”
We continued to stare at him in silence.
It was Berry – some ten minutes later – who hit the right nail on the head.
“By George!” he shouted. “By George! I’ve got it in one.
The fellow who sent that wire was Leslie Trunk.”
“
Leslie
?” cried Piers. “But why—”
“Who knows? But your cousin’s a desperate man, and Jill’s in his way. So are you – more still, but, short of murder itself, to touch you won’t help his case. With Jill in his hands… Well, for one thing only, I take it you’d pay pretty high for her – her health.”
Piers went very white.
For myself, I strove to keep my brain steady, but the thought of Adèle – my wife, in the power of the dog, would thrust itself, grinning horribly, into the foreground of my imagination.
I heard somebody say that the hour was a quarter past seven. I had my watch in my hand, so I knew they were right. Vainly they repeated their statement, unconsciously voicing my thoughts…
Only when Daphne fell on her knees by my side did I realise that I was the speaker.
Berry and Piers were at the telephone.
I heard them.
“Ask for the Bordeaux Exchange. Burn it, why can’t I talk French? Do as I say, lad. Don’t argue. Ask for the Bordeaux Exchange. Insist that it’s urgent – a matter of life and death.”
Piers began to speak – shakily.
“Yes. The Bordeaux Exchange… It’s most urgent,
Mademoiselle
… A matter of life and death… Yes, yes. The Exchange itself… What? My God! But,
Mademoiselle
—”
A sudden rude thresh of the bell announced that his call was over.
Berry fell upon the instrument with an oath.
“It’s no good!” cried Piers. “It’s no good. She says the line to Bordeaux is out of order.”
My sister lifted her head and looked into my face.
“Can you do it by car?” she said.
I pulled myself together and thought very fast. “We can try,” I said, rising, “but – Oh, it’s a hopeless chance. Only three hours –
less than
three hours for a hundred and fifty miles. It can’t be done. We’d have to do over seventy most of the way, and you can’t beat a pace like that out of Ping and Pong. On the track, perhaps… But on the open road—”
The soft slush of tyres upon the drive cut short my sentence.
“Jonah, at last,” breathed Daphne.
We ran to the window.
It was not Jonah.
It was Roland.
So soon as he saw us, he stopped and threw out his clutch.
“I say, you know, I am mos’ distress’ about your lunch tomorrow. When you ask me—”
“Roland,” I cried, “Roland, will you lend me your car?”
“But ’ave I not said—”
“Now – at once – here – to drive to Bordeaux?”
Roland looked up at my face.
The next moment he was out of his seat.
“Yes, but I am not going with you,” he said. Then: “What is the matter? Never mind. You will tell me after. The lights are good, and she is full up with gasolene. I tell you, you will be there in three hours.”
“Make it two and three-quarters,” said I.
The day’s traffic had dwindled to a handful of home going gigs, and as we swung out of the
Rue Montpensier
and on to the Bordeaux road, a distant solitary tram was the only vehicle within sight.
I settled down in my seat…
A moment later we had passed the
Octroi
, and Pau was behind us.
Piers crouched beside me as though he were carved of stone. Once in a while his eyes would fall from the road to the instrument-board. Except for that regular movement, he gave no sign of life. As for Berry, sunk, papoose-like, in the chauffeur’s cockpit in rear, I hoped that his airman’s cap would stand him in stead…
The light was good, and would serve us for half an hour. The car was pulling like the mares of Diomedes. As we flung by the last of the villas, I gave her her head…
Instantly the long straight road presented a bend, and I eased her up with a frown. We took the corner at fifty, the car holding the road as though this were banked for speed. As we flashed by the desolate race-course and the ground on which Piers had alighted two hours before, I lifted a grateful head. It was clear that what corners we met could be counted out. With such a grip of the road and such acceleration, the time which anything short of a hairpin bend would cost us was almost negligible.
As if annoyed at my finding, the road for the next five miles ran straight as a die. For over three of those miles the lady whose lap we sat in was moving at eighty-four.
A hill appeared – a long, long hill, steep, straight, yellow – tearing towards us… We climbed with the rush of a lift – too fast for our stomachs.
The road was improving now, but, as if to cancel this, a steep, winding hill fell into a sudden valley. As we were dropping, I saw its grey-brown fellow upon the opposite side, dragging his tedious way to the height we had left.
We lost time badly here, for down on the flat of the dale a giant lorry was turning, while a waggon was creeping by. For a quarter of a precious minute the road was entirely blocked. Because of the coming ascent the check bit us hard. In a word, it made a mountain out of a molehill. What the car might have swallowed whole she had to masticate. She ate her way up the rise, snorting with indignation…
A mile (or a minute, Sirs, whichever you please) was all the grace she had to find her temper. Then the deuce of a hill swerved down to the foot of another – long, blind, sinuous. The road was writhing like a serpent. We used it as serpents should be used. Maybe it bruised our heels: we bruised its head savagely…
We were on the level now, and the way was straight again. A dot ahead was a waggon. I wondered which way it was going. I saw, and we passed it by in the same single moment of time. That I may not be thought inobservant, forty-five yards a second is a pace which embarrasses sight.
A car came flying towards us. At the last I remarked with a smile it was going our way. A flash of paint, a smack like the flap of a sail, and we were by.
A farm was coming. I saw the white of its walls swelling to ells from inches. I saw a hen, who had seen us, starting to cross our path. Simultaneously I lamented her death – needlessly. She missed destruction by yards. I found myself wondering whether, after all, she had held on her way. Presently I decided that she had and, anxious to retrace her steps, had probably awaited our passage in some annoyance…
We swam up another hill, flicked between two waggons slashed a village in half and tore up the open road.
The daylight was waning now, and Piers switched on the hooded light that illumined the instrument-board. With a frown I collected my lady for one last tremendous effort before the darkness fell.
She responded like the thoroughbred she was.
I dared not glance at the speedometer, but I could feel each mile as it added itself to our pace. I felt this climb from ninety to ninety–one. Thickening the spark by a fraction, I brought it to ninety-two…ninety-three…
In a quiet, steady voice, Piers began to give me the benefit of his sight.
“Something ahead on the right…a waggon…all clear…cart, I think, on the right…no – yes. It’s not moving… A bicycle on the left…and another…a car coming…all clear…no – a man walking on the right…all clear…”
So, our narrowed eyes nailed to the straight grey ribbon streaming into the distance, the sea and the waves roaring in our ears, folded in the wings of the wind, we cheated Dusk of seven breathless miles and sent Nature packing with a fork in her breech.
Sore at this treatment, the Dame, as ever, returned, with Night himself to urge her argument.
I threw in my hand with a sigh, and Piers switched on the lights as we ran into Aire-sur-l’Adour.
I heard a clock striking as we swung to the left in the town…
Eight o’clock.
Two more hours and a quarter, and a hundred and nineteen miles to go.
I tried not to lose heart…
We had passed Villeneuve-de-Marsan, and were nearing, I knew, cross-roads, when Piers forestalled my inquiry and spoke in my ear.
“Which shall you do? Go straight? Or take the forest road?”
“I don’t know the Roquefort way, except that there’s pavement there. What’s it like?”
“It’s pretty bad,” said Piers. “But you’ll save about fifteen miles.”
“How much pavement is there? Five or six miles?”
“Thirty about,” said Piers.
“Thanks very much,” said I. “We’ll go by the forest.”
I think I was right.
I knew the forest road and I knew its surface was superb. Thirty miles of pavement, which I did not know, which was admittedly rough, presented a ghastly prospect. The ‘luxury’ tax of fifteen precious miles, tacked on to the way of the forest, was really frightening, but since such a little matter as a broken lamp would kill our chances, I dared not risk the rough and tumble of the pavement upon the Roquefort road.
At last the cross-roads came, and we swung to the right. We had covered a third of the ground.
I glanced at the gleaming clock sunk in the dash.
Twenty-five minutes past eight.
An hour and fifty minutes – and a hundred miles to go.
With a frightful shock I realised that,
even with the daylight to help me, I had used a third of my time.
I began to wish frantically that I had gone by Roquefort. I felt a wild inclination to stop and retrace my steps. Pavement? Pavement be burned. I must have been mad to throw away fifteen miles – fifteen golden miles…
Adèle’s face, pale, frightened, accusing, stared at me through the wind-screen. Over her shoulder, Jill, white and shrinking, pointed a shaking finger.
With a groan, I jammed my foot on the accelerator…
With a roar, the car sprang forward like a spurred horse.
Heaven knows the speed at which St Justin was passed. I was beyond caring. We missed a figure by inches and a cart by a foot. Then the cottages faded, and the long snarl of the engine sank to the stormy mutter she kept for the open road.
We were in the forest now, and I let her go.
Out of the memories of that April evening our progress through the forest stands like a chapter of a dream.
Below us, the tapering road, paler than ever – on either side an endless army of fir trees, towering shoulder to shoulder, so dark, so vast, and standing still as Death – above us, a lane of violet, all pricked with burning stars, we supped the rare old ale brewed by Hans Andersen himself.
Within this magic zone the throb of the engine, the hiss of the carburettor, the swift brush of the tyres upon the road – three rousing tones, yielding a thunderous chord, were curiously staccato. The velvet veil of silence we rent in twain; but as we tore it, the folds fell back to hang like mighty curtains about our path, stifling all echo, striking reverberation dumb. The strong, sweet smell of the woods enhanced the mystery. The cool, clean air thrashed us with perfume…