“It was rotten luck, that,” she said quietly. “If we’d only been just a minute or two earlier—this wouldn’t have happened. You see, we were going to expose the plates at once—directly we got here. Maurice thought it’d be a good place if we were to lay them out on the window-sill for a minute or two.” She turned vaguely towards the curtained alcove. “This window-sill.”
“Bad luck,” I said.
There was a long silence after that. I broke it at last with the inquiry that I knew the answer to.
“Where’s Lenden, then? Did he go off after them?”
She nodded dumbly. “He wanted to,” she said, a little pitifully. “He said he couldn’t possibly let it go like that, and he said he knew which way they’d be going.” She pulled herself up, and stared at me gravely. “I think it was the right thing to do,” she said.
“It’s a damn risky thing to do,” I said practically. “Where’s he gone to?”
She had quite recovered her control. “He’s told you in his letter, I think. It’s somewhere between France and Italy. It’s the same way as he went to Russia, when he went out there first of all.”
I glanced furtively at my wrist-watch. There was still lashings of time to catch the Havre boat, but by this time he would be in Paris. He had an eight hours’ start.
I ripped open the letter. It was written in pencil on some sheets torn out of one of my ledgers with the cash lines running down the edge; I suppose that was the only paper he could find, being in a hurry. I have that letter beside me now.
Dear Moran,
Mollie will be able to tell you all about what’s happened here. It’s those plates I took of Portsmouth. Somebody’s pinched them. I expect they’re in with the communists here, or something. And they’ve shot up your butler, and I’m terribly sorry that’s happened, old boy.
I’m pushing off now to Dover to get the boat there. I think those plates are on their way to Russia, and there’s only one way that they can go. The way I went. You go first to the Casa Alba by Lanaldo; that’s a bit off the track, but it’s the clearing house and they tell you which way to go from there, and they fix you up with a new passport. The villagers reckon it’s smuggling across the French border and they do a bit of smuggling to keep up the blind, but it’s the clearing house really. All the funny business goes that way since the Kleunen show.
I want to get to the Casa first and spill a line of innocence before the plates arrive. Then when they come I’ll be quids in, anyway enough to get my fingers on the plates with any luck. After that I don’t mind if they do blot my copybook for me, because it’ll be worth it.
Now, I’m taking your car to Dover. I’ll leave it in your name at the nearest garage I can find to the boat, and say you’ll call for it in a day or two. You’d better bring the registration book with you to claim it.
And now, there’s just one other thing. I’ve fixed things up with Mollie all right, and I want to say thank you for your share in that. If this show goes all right we’ll probably have a go at being married again, which’ll be just what the doctor ordered. And if it doesn’t, Mollie’s got enough money to get on with now, and then there’s the shop. But what we fixed up last night was that we’d do in these bloody plates and let the Soviet whistle for me. And we thought we’d go out to Germany pretty soon together, and we’d run it as a second honeymoon, and we’d hunt up old Keumer’s wife and make her a present of the thousand because I know she’ll be on the beach and I’d like to do that for the old lad. Mollie knows all I do about where to find her.
If anything goes wrong in this show I’d be most awfully glad if you’d try and do something about that for me, because it’s the only thing outstanding really, except for a fiver that I owe Morris of the Rawdon Aircraft Company, and you might see that he gets it. And I think that’s all.
Thanks a lot for putting me up like you’ve done and all the rest. I wish to hell I was well out of this; but you see Mollie’s point of view, and it’d be pretty rotten for her having me about the place without this thing being squared up O.K.
Yours truly,
M. T. Lenden.
I stood there staring at the last page of this letter long after I had read it through. I was afraid to look up, I suppose. By this time he would be in Paris. The Havre boat was the next; so far as I remembered, it left Southampton at about eleven o’clock. That would mean reaching Paris about ten o’clock in the morning. But by that time he would be in Marseilles, or Modane, or however it was he went. He was going out hell for leather, in order to “spill a line of innocence before the plates arrive”. There was no possible chance of catching him up that way.
And then I knew that Mollie Lenden had seen that I had finished the letter, and I must say something to her.
“He’ll be in Paris now,” I remarked. It was the only thing that I could think of to say. “I expect he’ll be catching a night train on from there.”
She nodded. “I expect so,” she said absently. “He’ll get out there to-morrow afternoon—to this place in Italy. That’s what he said.” And then she turned to me. “What was it that he took photographs of?” she asked. “Do you know?”
In the grate the fire was dying very red. “It was of Portsmouth,” I said. “It was something at the entrance to the harbour, but I don’t know what it was.”
She eyed me wistfully for a moment, till I knew what she was going to say. “It’s most frightfully important, isn’t it?”
There was only one way in which I could have answered that. “I don’t know what it is,” I said again. “But it was important enough for them to shoot down the next machine that came over to repeat the job.”
In the red glow from the dying fire she inclined her head, her lips quivering. I would have left her to herself then, but it semed that the least that I could do now was to assure her of the urgency. “I know,” she said at last. “That was Mr. Keumer’s machine.”
“They went so far as that,” I said. “Just murder, because he hadn’t got a gun to answer with. That wasn’t done for fun, you know.”
She had her eyes fixed on my face. “I know,” she said quickly. “I know it wasn’t.”
I had only half my mind on what I was saying to her. I hadn’t got a passport. I hadn’t been abroad since just after the war, and it had lapsed years ago. I knew that one could get into France without a passport by taking a cheap day-return ticket. But not Italy. To get a passport meant at least a morning’s delay in London. It meant that I couldn’t start after him till midday to-morrow. I should be twenty-four hours late. At least.
And suddenly she startled me with a question.
“You’re agent here, aren’t you?” Her voice was clear and strong again.
I nodded.
“Does that mean that you look after the land and the people?”
“In a way,” I replied. “The farms, and the rents, and things like that. Repairs, and a bit of stock-breeding, and any building that’s going on. I’ve got a finger in most pies in this part of the country.”
“Do you know the country very well?”
I couldn’t imagine what she was driving at. “Pretty well,” I said. “This part of Sussex. I was bred here—out past Leventer. My father was a doctor there.”
She eyed me for a minute, and then she said: “Well, you’re country-bred. What did you think of Maurice when he told you what he’d been doing?”
That came as a complete surprise. I was still thinking about that passport, as a matter of fact. “Why—nothing very bad,” I replied. “I don’t know that I thought about it much. Not till he told me himself what was the matter with him, and then I thought——”
She stared at me. “What was it that he told you?”
I had let myself into that blindly, thinking of other things. I could see no way out of it now but to tell her the truth.
“It wasn’t much,” I said gently. “It was just that he hadn’t got a stake in the country. He hadn’t got a home to go to, or a wife and kids, or anyt
hing like that. That was when he thought he was divorced, you see. And so he thought it didn’t matter a damn what he did.”
She had gone very white.
“One has to put oneself in his shoes,” I said slowly. “It’s different for me, and I think it’s different for you. I’ve got this place, and my job in this part of the world, and my friends. And you’ve got your shop, and your home, and Winchester. Little things—but what else would you call patriotism? Just being fond of the little things you’ve got at home, and that you don’t want to see changed. A house with a bit of garden that you can grow things in, and a dog or two, and all the little inconveniences and annoyances that you couldn’t really get along without. That’s your patriotism, and that’s all there’s in it. And that’s what Lenden hadn’t got.”
She didn’t speak.
I glanced down at the letter. I was still holding it in my hand, those blue red-lined leaves from the ledger. “And now,” I said, “you’ve gone and given him back his patriotism.” I bit my lip, and turned away towards the window.
I knew then what I’d got to do—the only thing that I could possibly do to put this thing right. It was only a fifty per cent chance at the best, but it was one that I had to take. I stood there for a minute staring out into the darkness beyond the window and trying to master my cold feet, and for that reason I kept my back turned to her.
And then I heard a little noise behind me, and I swung round. She was crying. It was time that came, I thought. She had buried her face in her arms against the mantelpiece and she was crying there, quite quietly. I can remember that I wished to God that Sheila was at home.
I let her carry on for a bit, hesitating irresolute by the window. At last I crossed the room, and presently I touched her on the shoulder. “I wouldn’t cry like that, if I were you,” I said, as gently as I could. “There’s nothing to cry like that for, you know. It’s only that he’ll be away for a few days longer, till this thing’s cleared up.”
I suppose it was a silly thing to say. But she raised her head and began dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. And then:
“You don’t understand,” she muttered wearily. “It’s me … that’s been such a beast. He’d never have gone out there at all if it hadn’t been for me, and none of this would ever have happened. And now there’s this. It’s so frightfully dangerous, and I let him go—just as he’d come back home. He wouldn’t have gone if he’d thought I didn’t want it….”
She dropped her head down to the mantelpiece again.
“If those plates get back to Russia there’ll be hell to pay,” I said.
I had caught her attention. “I know,” she muttered.
I laid my hand upon her shoulder, and she stood up. “There’s nobody else in the whole world that stands a better chance of putting this thing right,” I said. “It’s up to him. He’s the only Englishman that has the entrée, that can get access to expose those plates now. You see that, don’t you?”
She had her eyes fixed on mine. “Yes,” she said quietly. “I see that.”
I dropped my hand from her shoulder. “Well,” I said, “there you are. It’s a damn fine thing that he’s up to, and a thing that you can be proud of. He’s the only man who has the power to put this thing right now, and he’s gone out to do it. I don’t reckon that’s a thing to cry about.”
And then I heard a car in the yard outside, and from the beat of the engine I knew it was Sheila in the little Talbot. And I can remember that I was very thankful.
I smiled down at Mrs. Lenden. “There’s a friend of mine outside,” I said. “A girl. I’m going to send her in to you, and she’ll take you somewhere where you can wash your face and blow your nose. And I wouldn’t cry any more. Not if I were you.”
I left the house and went out into the yard. Sheila’s car was there, standing beneath the stable lantern on the wall; the headlights made two narrow pencils of light out into the darkness of the garden. I crossed the yard to her.
“Evening, Miss Darle,” I said. “I’m afraid we’ve had some trouble here.”
I told her briefly what had happened, in the dim light from the lantern on the wall. She listened to me in silence till I came to the part about Lenden going off to Italy. Then she broke in.
“Do you mean to say that he’s gone off to Italy to get those plates back?” she inquired, and in the half-light I saw her brows wrinkled in perplexity.
I nodded. “He’s going to expose them.”
“But, Peter,” she said, “they’re exposed! We did it that morning over by the farm.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then I laughed. “I know they are,” I said.
She stared at me wide-eyed. “Is it dangerous?”
I was sick of evasions, and there was no need for them with Sheila. “I think it’s about as dangerous as it can be,” I said. “If he gets into that house among the Russians and makes any effort to destroy those plates, I wouldn’t give twopence for his chance of coming out of it alive.”
She had nothing to say to that.
I dropped my foot from the running-board of her car, and stood up. “It’s up to us now,” I said heavily. “I’m going after him. There’s just one sporting chance of catching him up before he gets there, if I get away at dawn. I’m reckoning to catch him just the other side of the Italian frontier.”
She nodded. For the moment she was satisfied with that, and I went on to tell her about Mollie Lenden.
“All right,” she said at last. “I’ll go in and see her, and look after her. I’ll take her up to my room, and she can lie down for a bit. She’ll be sleeping here to-night, won’t she? I can lend her things.”
“I expect so.” And then I hesitated a little. “You’ll be careful what you say, though?”
“What about?”
I eyed her steadily. “I haven’t told her that we exposed the plates ourselves. It didn’t seem much good telling her that. And I funked it.”
She stood there for a minute, chewing the corner of her glove. “I don’t think it’s any good telling her that just yet,” she said. “It won’t help her much, will it?” She glanced up at me in the dim light. “It was very sweet of you to think of that, Peter,” she said softly. “Very kind, and very considerate. You know, you’re rather a dear.”
And then she turned, and went away across the yard towards my house. I stood there watching her until she disappeared.
CHAPTER SIX
PRESENTLY I WENT INTO THE HOUSE, and up into the library. There was a copy of the Encyclopœdia Britannica there; I opened it at a map of Italy and stood staring vacantly at the Ligurian Riviera. I had been along that coast as far as Monte Carlo from Nice; farther than that it was quite unknown to me. In the end I had to turn to the Index for information about Lanaldo. I found it on the map then. It was one of a dozen very small towns up in the hills, rather more behind Ventimiglia than Men tone.
That map was on too small a scale. I had taken on the job of re-arranging the library one winter, so that I knew my way about. There was a series of atlases there called “Maps of Europe”. I dragged out one of the volumes and found quite a good map of the country behind San Remo, to a scale of about two miles to the inch.
My heart sank as I studied it. Lanaldo lay about six miles inland from the sea, and about three from the French frontier. It stood on the side of the Roja valley, about three hundred feet above the main road that runs up the valley from Ventimiglia to the north. No road was shown leading to the town itself. I knew what that meant. It would be one of the walled, cavernous little mountain towns of that neighbourhood, where every street serves as a sewer and every cellar as a stable. That would not have worried me, but that I knew the sort of country that those towns stood in.
As I stood there studying the map upon the table before me I was appalled at the mountainous nature of the country. Literally, it was all up on end. Beyond the bed of the river, I could see nothing to indicate flat country of any description there. Behind the town the hills
rose up into a peak about three thousand feet high, called Monte Verde; the country was simply studded with things like that. There was no possible place where one could put down an aeroplane, unless it were in the bed of the river. And I knew what sort of landing that would be.
I lingered for a little while longer over the map. The scale was too small to show houses, but I was able to make a pretty good guess at the probable position of the Casa Alba. I decided that if it were a centre for Soviet activities it must be near the road; if then its address was Lanaldo, it must be on the road immediately below the town. I didn’t think that there’d be much difficulty about finding the house if once I got out here.
I left the maps lying open on the table, meaning to come back and consult them again later in the night. In the stable-yard I found Kitter putting away Sheila’s car. We should want that car before the night was out, I thought.
“Kitter,” I said, and he turned and came towards me. He was a young chap, and very smart on his job; I don’t suppose he was thirty. “Ever had anything to do with aeroplanes?”
He shook his head. “No, sir. I was with the Tanks in the war.”
I nodded. “I’ve got a machine out on the down, this side of Leventer. She wants a new bit of oil pipe—about a foot of seven-eighth stuff, or it may be inch. Rubber pipe. Can you find that for me—to-night?”
“For an aeroplane, sir?”
I nodded.
He shook his head. If he was at all startled, he didn’t show it. “Young Saven might have a bit at his place, sir. I’ve got nothing like that.”
He was a sound man, and I knew that he’d be for me in this thing. I rested one foot upon the running-board of the Talbot and stared at him reflectively. “This has been a damn bad day’s work, Kitter,” I said quietly.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
I put it to him frankly then. I forget exactly what I said, but told him straight out that there was fishy business on hand, and that it hadn’t been quite an ordinary burglary.