The Trail of Fear (14 page)

The constable, torn between amused tolerance and ruffled dignity, followed him, whereupon Rezaire turned round and exclaiming: “Thash ri…” knocked his helmet off, and promptly collapsed in the very doorway of the entrance to the cells.

“'Ere. 'Ere,” began the constable sternly. “You can't do that. You cummer longer me.” He turned to pick him up, and at first, to ensure capture, Rezaire resisted vigorously. But a large hand twined itself in his collar and another seized his arm. He just had time, unobserved, to slip his hand to his pocket and throw away the important letter which would incriminate him, before he was being slowly but surely propelled into the police station.

Within a quarter of an hour Jimmie Rezaire had had his finger prints taken, and minus boots and the contents of his pockets found himself sitting in a police cell for what was left of the night, on a charge of being drunk and disorderly in Vine Street at about one-fifteen A.M. He had given a fictitious name, for he knew his clothing was safely unmarked and from long experience he had nothing else dangerous on him, now that he had got rid of the one thing that would have given him away. Outside, half the detective and police force of London were searching for him. His bold ruse had succeeded beyond hope, and for the moment he was safe.

He lay down and composed himself for slumber. His way to safety now seemed absolutely clear. Though a description of himself and Sam was probably at the moment in the police station, it was almost certain that his was that of James Robinson, the agent. To the authorities he was just an ordinary drunk and disorderly. He would pay his fine next morning, walk out, take his car down to Beaulieu before that night, and then his launch to the Channel Islands, France, and safety. But he could not forget Sam's furious face, the light of hatred and vengeance in his eyes. Supposing Sam had not been taken after all, impossible as it seemed. Sam was a fighter and, where brute force and resolution were concerned, could get out of very tight corners. He thought again of Sam's words, of Sam's knife. Sam, he knew, would now think of nothing except to get even with him. He shivered at thought of what Sam would do to him if he got him in his power. The prison cell, even the cells of Dartmoor, seemed more attractive than finding himself in Sam's hands after what had happened.

Then sleep came to claim him. But just before he dropped off, a low chuckle broke from his lips. True to his principles he had certainly this time taken the most unexpected course; for the very last place in the whole of London that the police would search for a fugitive from justice would be in a Vine Street police cell.

CHAPTER XIV

THE OPEN ROAD

A fine spring morning looked down on Jimmie Rezaire sauntering along Jermyn Street. An hour previously, after an excellent breakfast, sent in from a neighboring restaurant, he had been taken before the magistrate. Here he had played the proper part, that of a gentleman, who, having misjudged his capacity at a dinner with some old college friends, was by then deeply ashamed of himself. He had, he admitted, hardly been able to remember the incidents of the previous night and he was hardly more surprised than shocked to find the walls of a cell round him when he woke. Could it be arranged that his name did not appear in the papers? He sincerely hoped he had not committed any other crime save that of being drunk and disorderly. Yes, certainly, he pleaded guilty. His family… The magistrate thought it could, and Rezaire was not bothered with any demand for details or to make any disclosures. He disbursed a fine, gave the policeman who arrested him half-a-crown, another to the man who gave him back the contents of his pockets, and was let out by a side door amid a general atmosphere of good-will. He had chuckled to himself. His identity was undisclosed and not a single one of the police knew that they had had through their hands the very man whose description was being circulated to them. After all, how should they? Even had the description tallied exactly, which it did not, they would have thought twice before they fitted it to the inmate of one of their own cells.

Rezaire next had bought a map of South England, a portmanteau with a few clothes for travelling, and a new suit to replace his damaged garments. Seen in the light of day, they told an eloquent tale of his adventures of the night before, though of course in the police court he had described it as a result of his sad downfall from the paths of sobriety. He also purchased an automatic from an obliging dealer in Soho, who asked no questions about licenses and a small amount of ammunition. He was taking no chances.

In Jermyn Street he gave the block of flats a wide berth. Despite his nerve he did not wish to go any nearer the place where he had spent such a terrible time. It all seemed like a far-away dream to him now. That young fool Challoner, the drugged whisky, the struggle with the valet—he shivered at that memory—Sam and he in the kitchen, and his wild plunge to safety on the service lift. He wondered where Sam was now—either dead or in jail he hoped.

Well, the break-up of the gang, as he had always thought, had been sudden and complete. Sam and Harrap both either killed or taken; Joe taken; Viv—he wondered where Viv was. He hoped she had gotten away. Viv was a good sort. They had been great friends—in fact more—once, and then he had chucked her and yet she had not hated him for it. Rather she had always stuck up for him against Sam, almost as if she… He owed Viv a lot, and if she had gotten safely away, he vowed that he would do everything in his power to help her further.

He whistled cheerily to himself, as he made for the garage. Before him was the open road; the sun was shining; there was no Sam to bother him; he had had a good breakfast; what more could he want? He turned into a side yard off Jermyn Street where there was a big garage and went into a little office.

“Morning, Mr. Harding,” he said to a man he found there.

“Good-morning, Mr. Carlyle. Lovely day for a spin. Going out?”

“Yes. Is the car all right?”

“I think so. Your man's just greasing her up in the yard somewhere.”

He stepped to the door and spoke to a garage hand: “Joe, tell Dixon Mr. Carlyle's here.”

In a minute or two a short squat man with a dark face and black brows that met in a straight line across his forehead appeared in his shirt sleeves. He jerked a hand to his head.

“Morning, sir.”

“The Mercedes ready to go out, Dixon?”

“In about a quarter of an hour.”

“I want to go out for a longish run today. Newmarket,” he added for the benefit of Harding. “Get her ready and fill up with everything.”

“Very good, sir.”

The man turned and went back to his job. Rezaire stayed watching his back for a moment, a little smile on his face. A good fellow Dixon, and just the man for him. A fellow who would not balk at anything he was asked to do, however strange, and who would keep his mouth shut while doing it. It was to his advantage to do so too, for he would not want to risk his master's displeasure. For Rezaire knew a thing or two about him which Dixon did not wish others—particularly the police—to find out. Rezaire always chose his tools with a certain amount of care. Following Polonius' famous advice to his son: “The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.” Rezaire had found that there was no steel hoop so strong as the knowledge, for instance, that the police wanted a man for a little affair of an accident in which an old lady was killed, and a certain car driver had not stopped, and had not been traced. Yes, Dixon would do anything he wanted without question, because Dixon knew well enough which side his bread was buttered. Rezaire turned back into the office and went and picked up a paper.

“Extraordinary affair, this of last night,” remarked Mr. Harding.

“I haven't seen the paper yet,” replied Rezaire coolly. “What was it? Jewel robbery?”

“No, more than that. It's got big headlines in all the papers. Police chasing fellows all over London and shooting at 'em. More like New York than London.”

“Have they caught them?”

“They've got one or two. Not the ringleader, apparently.”

“I must read it. D'you mind my waiting here?”

“Not in the least, Mr. Carlyle. Sit down.”

He offered him a chair and then went out on some business. Rezaire sat down and, with a smile on his face, glanced through the paper. Glaring headlines hit him straightway:

“AMAZING SCENES IN STRAND.”

“POLICE CHASE DOPE RUNNER ACROSS ROOFS.”

“DETECTIVE KILLED IN MIDNIGHT ROUND-UP.”

All the usual phrases stood out across the page. Rezaire began to read. There were one or two things he wanted to know.

“At about seven P.M. last night Detective Inspector Harrison, together with other members of The Criminal Investigation Department, Scotland Yard, commenced the round-up of a gang of illicit traffickers in cocaine who have been troubling the police for the last four months. This gang, Scotland Yard have good reason to believe, has been behind nearly all the recent smuggling of cocaine from the continent, and last night, by a clever capture, the secret of their headquarters was at last…”

Rezaire read on with interest. The whole roundup was described in detail. He learned how Joe had been bluffed and had lost his nerve, he learned of the nefarious operations of James Robinson, Agent (the police had certainly found out a good bit from their search of his office), of the collusion between Robinson and Carlyle in the next house (they had not found out the whole truth about that yet, as apparently
both
Carlyle and Robinson were “wanted”), the chase across the roofs and the search under the night sky. Nothing was mentioned about Vivienne; it looked as though she might have gotten away.

He whistled as he read; he was learning a lot which he had not known before. Harrap, it appeared, hiding behind a chimney-stack, had only wounded a man on the arm despite all the shooting. Eventually he had been himself shot in the head, captured, and taken to the hospital, where he now lay unconscious in a precarious condition.

The girl whom they had tied up had been extensively interviewed, and the paper was by way of making her a heroine. Rezaire smiled in pleased fashion as he read of her ruse in locking the door, under pretense of unlocking it, and thus preventing them from getting away through the house. He appreciated brains and on that occasion he had certainly been outwitted.

Then he came to another flare up of headlines, as the reporter began upon the fight in the empty house:

“DEATH DEALING IN THE DARK.”

“SYDNEY STREET SCENES”

Here he whistled as he read. From the point of view of the police, who had evidently only issued a very guarded statement, it was all very vague, but apparently one detective had been killed and two plain-clothes men wounded, one with a knife. It was obvious too, as he read on, that they were not certain how many of their opponents had been there. They were evidently counting on three men, Sam, Robinson and Carlyle, and in all probability were considering Viv as still with them.

He skimmed over the motor car chase, which was told in detail; he knew as much about that as they did. The reporter evidently arriving late on the scene and pressed for time to get his copy in, had only a brief description of the fire in the cinema, but Rezaire was gratified to see it was rightly attributed to him. But there the tale stopped. There was nothing more. The rest of the story had been too late for the morning papers.

He dropped the sheet in disgust. Despite his interest there had been one thing, and one thing only, that he had really wanted to read, and that was that Sam had been captured.

He was almost certain of it—but still he wanted to see it in black and white. He knew that Sam's reckless bravery, coupled to the fact that he was fighting for his neck, was enough to get him out of any situation, even one as hopeless as that in which he had been left in the flat. He had let many other chances go by in order to secure a really good one and it would be terrible to know that it had failed. Terrible in more senses than one, for Sam would then be after him. Now that he had betrayed Sam and Sam knew it, he feared Sam and his keen long bladed knife more than anything else in the world. He knew enough of Sam to realize that he was now perfectly capable of tying him up and torturing him slowly to death—if he got him in his power. He would have been happy despite all the police in London, if he could only have known for certain that Sam was safely under lock and key.

He put the paper away at last. It told him nothing about Sam. Doubtless the midday papers would have it all in. He rose and went to the private locker in the garage which was one of his many hiding places for keeping things too important or dangerous to carry on him. From this he took a passport made out for France in his own name, another revolver, some French money, and a few papers. Then he drew from his pocket the map he had bought and for some while studied the road from London to Beaulieu—the Southampton Road.

A minute or two later Dixon came up once more, looking very smart in green livery.

“She's all ready now, sir,” he said, and Rezaire got up.

In a few minutes' time, with his suitcase beside him, and Dixon in front at the wheel, he was gliding in his big car westward down Piccadilly, having countermanded the order for Newmarket as soon as they were out of the garage. Behind him, he thought, as he leaned luxuriously against the cushions, he was leaving all his life of the past five months with its breathless and hectic climax, its policemen, revolvers, chases and danger, and above all, behind him he was leaving Sam and his knife. Before him stretched the open road which led to Beaulieu, his motor launch, and the spoil of his last months' work, in short, freedom—until—he smiled grimly—until the game that he loved, the game of crime and revenge—of pitting his wits against those of law, order and government—tempted him again.

They passed Hammersmith, Brentford, Isleworth, and got on the road to Staines and Egham. He was now quite safe. No one knew his car; no one knew his launch; and he did not think any of the police would know him by sight, for they had after all not seen his face properly as yet. He sighed, stretched himself, laughed as he thought of his last night's lodging in the police station, and opened his map once more.

By Basingstoke and Chichester was what he had told Dixon, in short, the Southampton Road, till he was told to turn off, which would be somewhere about a place called Bassett. More than this he had not told him, despite the fact that the man was far more to be trusted than Sam.

They threaded their way through Staines with its perpetual smell of oilcloth, crossed the river, climbed the hill out of Egham. The day was bright and crisp—a regular early spring day, with a lift in the air and a promise under foot. Rezaire almost wished he could stay in England, now that spring was coming. Then he thought of Paris, the green and white boulevards, the little tables under the trees—Paris in spring was even better than England in spring. He loved Paris.

The car glided down the long slope at Virginia Water, past the famous Wheatsheaf Hotel at the bottom, up again for Bagshot.

The hum of the wheels grew higher and higher; they were travelling at a good forty miles per hour now. They flashed past an A.A. scout on a cycle. Rezaire looked idly out of the window as they passed. Suddenly he saw in the hedge, only visible as they drew level, a man with a note-book. Now Rezaire was skilled enough to know a plain-clothes man when he saw him and for a moment his heart leaped into his mouth. Then he drew breath again, laughing at his guilty conscience. Of course everyone was not awaiting him on the road. He realized what the man was doing. It was nothing more nor less than an ordinary police trap to catch motorists exceeding the limit; it was nothing to do with him. It dawned suddenly on him that it was something to do with him, for he was exceeding the limit. He picked up the voice tube and spoke to Dixon: “Gently. I believe that was a ‘trap.'”

He saw Dixon nod his head in answer and slow down to a crawl; then suddenly they reached a slight bend. Ahead of them on the road were two uniformed figures.

“Look out!” called Rezaire, snatching up the tube again. He realized with chagrin that the man he had seen in the hedge was the second man of the trap, not the first, and that therefore the slowing down had been too late. He half laughed to himself at the sudden change of his luck. After all the escapes he had had within the last twelve hours—to get caught by an ordinary police trap. It did not really matter; he was, of course, quite safe from recognition, since they could not know who he was and were probably not yet on the lookout for him here; but still it was annoying.