Chapter 18 #2
A thorn raking down his cheek brought him to his senses. Joining Gloria would not help her. With a silent groan he moved a little further down the slope to where he could see the men and glare his hatred at their oblivious heads.
Crawford and three others stood in a group to the left of the one-room, tumbledown stone shepherd’s hut, between it and the gateway.
“Blimey, guv, we don’t none of us hold wiv none of that!” one of the men was protesting. Phillip recognized his anxious tone. “You swore…”
Crawford cut him off with an unconvincing laugh. “That’s so. I guess I must have gotten a bit carried away. Oh, well, that’s all right. Now, how can I convince you I don’t plan to make a get-away without you?”
“Two of us goes wiv yer, or yer can ’and over yer passport, mate, that’s what,” the biggest man said menacingly.
In the momentary silence Phillip noticed, beyond them, an Army tent pitched against the bank. At least Gloria did not have to suffer their company all the time, he thought with gladness.
Of course, though it seemed an age since Daisy staggered into the drawing-room at Fairacres, Gloria had only been here since the middle of last night. Phillip vowed that she should never spend an entire night in the hut. He must get back to Lucy and organize the rescue party.
But he didn’t dare leave until Crawford had driven off. Besides, he might hear something useful, might even catch a glimpse of Gloria. He checked his wrist-watch: still time enough before Lucy started worrying.
“My passport?” Crawford said uneasily, his hand moving to cover his breast pocket.
“’Sright, mate. Long as you’re stuck in England, we’ve gotcha by the short ’airs.”
“Reckon we oughta ’ave one or two of us watching the pickup, too,” said another. “’Case anyfing goes wrong, they can get back ’ere and warn the others.”
“Rats, nothing’s going to go wrong.” Crawford sounded distinctly irritable now.
“These plutocrats have nerves of steel when it comes to playing the market, but hit ’em with something like this, and by golly, they crumble faster than a stale cookie.
I’ve jollied Arbuckle along and he’s fallen for it, no if, and, or but about it.
You should see him. He’s in a dandy funk!
The old coot hasn’t gone within a mile of a cop. ”
The men continued to wrangle over collecting the ransom, then, without a decision, moved on to complaints about their quarters.
Crawford told them it was their own fault they had to leave the gamekeeper’s cottage.
They were lucky he had found them a fall-back, pure curiosity having led him to investigate the significance of the word CAMP on a map.
“It won’t be for long, anyhow,” he added. “Tonight’s the night.”
“Then ’and over that there passport!”
Tonight! Phillip glanced at his watch again. If he didn’t hurry, Lucy would assume he’d been caught and leave without him. He couldn’t wait for Crawford to clear out. He’d have to rely on hearing the A.C. Six start up to give him time to take cover.
Voices raised in a row over the passport allowed him to make a hasty withdrawal from the hawthorns without worrying about rustling leaves. Hat in hand, he crawled back over the crest of the mound and slid down the bank. Bounding down the hillside, he headed directly for the quarry.
Behind him a motor-car engine coughed to life. He raced for the nearest wall, dived over it, and lay flat.
A pair of inquisitive sheep turned their heads to stare, then ambled over to take a closer look. Phillip twitched as one nibbled hopefully at his hair.
“Pa-aa-ah!” it said in disgust, and started on the grass two inches from his nose.
Hearing the engine noise grow louder as the A.C. rounded the hilltop, he didn’t dare raise a hand to push the beast away.
The sound of the engine retreated. Phillip rose to a crouch and peered over the wall. The maroon car was half-way down the track, heading away from him at an angle, but the driver’s side was towards him. He must not move on yet.
He watched the A.C. Six reach the bottom. Crawford climbed out to open the gate, drove through, shut it again, and zipped off back towards the main road.
Phillip rose, sparing a regretful glance for the muddy, grass-stained knees of his flannels. Another pair of bags ruined! He set off at a steady run for the quarry.
The Alvis was gone.
He gazed around, hoping he’d come to the wrong spot, but no, there were the broken, wilting branches he had half noticed before.
His watch showed he was five minutes late.
Lucy might have given him a few minutes extra!
She was on her way back to Fairacres to tell the others he had gone and done something idiotic.
Fletcher would think the kidnappers knew they’d been found. What he’d decide to do, goodness only …
“Pssst! Phillip, is it all clear?”
“Lucy! Yes. What the deuce…? Where’s the Alvis?”
She emerged from the bushes, brushing her skirt vigorously. “I moved it. There’s a van hidden behind those branches and I was afraid someone might come for it.”
“A brown Ford van? With a butcher’s name on it?”
“Green, unmarked. It could be a Ford for all I know.”
“Never mind, it must be the one because it’s them all right. They’ll have painted it, to disguise and camouflage it. I say, suppose I disable it, so they can’t get away?”
“No, better not. If they try to go somewhere before we’re ready, they’d be forewarned. Come on, we must get back to Fairacres. The Alvis is over here.”
Phillip took two steps after her and stopped. He had been torn from Gloria’s side before. He found he simply could not bear to leave her voluntarily, even if she was not aware of his presence.
Across his mind flashed Crawford’s description of her: “a baby worth holding,” and his vow to return for her, ambiguously retracted.
“I’m staying,” Phillip announced. “If something goes wrong, perhaps I’ll be able to help Gloria.”
“Oh bosh!” Lucy turned, exasperated, hands on hips. “If she’s still all right now, nothing frightful’s going to happen at least till they have the ransom.”
“That’s tonight. What if Fletcher can’t get things organized in time?”
“I’m sure he will. I’m coming to have considerable respect for Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher. All the same, he’s going to need all the men he can get, and if you go and get yourself caught before the rest arrive.…”
“I shan’t,” he said obstinately, “unless I absolutely have to try to protect her. Crawford said.…” His voice got tied in a knot in his throat. He tried again. “They talked of harming her even after getting the money.”
“I see. But Phil, I’m not at all sure I’ll be able to find the way here again. All these hills look alike to me.”
“Daisy knows it. Tell her they’re at the ancient fort on Brockberrow Hill, where we used to picnic. Listen, you’d better tell Fletcher they don’t trust Crawford so they may have more than one man fetching the ransom.”
“Where from?” she asked, tacitly agreeing to pass on the information, and thus to Phillip’s staying.
“I don’t know. They’ll tell Arbuckle where and when to drop it off, and with luck he’ll pass it on to Fletcher.”
“How many men are there?”
“I only saw three, but there was probably one watching the track, and maybe one in the hut with Gloria. Oh, there’s a tent, too, besides the shepherd’s hut. Don’t want anyone falling over the guy-ropes.”
“Draw a diagram,” Lucy suggested.
Her fountain pen ran dry before he had done more than inscribe the broken circle of the mound in the margin of a page of The Queen. A search in his pockets produced a handkerchief, two pound notes, small change, a Scout knife, and a propelling pencil with no lead.
“Damn! I mean, dash it.”
“Damn, by all means.” Delving into her handbag again, she sighed. “Lipstick. It’ll be wrecked. Do you think Arbuckle will replace it, as well as my shoes?”
“Give him a list.” With the clumsy implement, Phillip drew the fort on top of an advertisement for a Charity Ball at the Royal Albert Hall.
XT showed the position of the tent, XH of the hut, and a dotted line the beginning of the track.
He studied his handiwork, dissatisfied. “Oh well, Daisy knows it. The tent’s pitched just round to the left from the gateway. ”
“I still think you should come back with me, to tell them yourself.”
Phillip shook his head. “I’m staying,” he said firmly, and strode off before she could confuse him with useless arguments.
Behind him the Alvis started up. It caught up with him and stopped as he climbed over the wall. Lucy beckoned.
“Here, you’d better take the biscuits and ginger-beer. Toodle-oo, old chap. Do take care!”
He watched the motor-car’s duck’s back rear disappear up the lane. As soon as it was out of sight, he dashed back towards the quarry. He’d be damned if he was going to let those swine make a clean get-away if he could help it.
His first notion was to remove the van’s radiator hose, as an act of poetic justice.
But if one of them left for some reason, he would discover the tampering as soon as the radiator boiled, which would be too soon to stop him warning the others.
Whatever Phillip did must look like a natural occurrence, he thought as he reached the slate-pit.
No wonder Lucy had found the van. The conspicuous wilting leaves on the broken branches hiding it were another sign of the Londoners’ lack of familiarity with the countryside. It was a Ford all right, its green paint spanking new but applied in a decidedly slapdash fashion.
Phillip tried the rear doors, finding them unlocked. There was no tyre pump to be seen, and the tool-box contained no patching kit—in London, of course, such things were readily available.
He let the air out of the spare tyre, then stabbed one front tyre with the corkscrew on his pocket-knife. Considering the state of the lane, a puncture should come as no surprise, and spares often went flat just sitting. They would have no reason to suspect sabotage.
Grinning, Phillip sang softly to himself as he returned to the lane: “‘He had to get under, get out and get under, to fix his automobile!’”
A swirl of wind spattered his face with spots of rain as he climbed the wall again, jumped down into the meadow, and set off for his own private thorn-patch.