“Weren’t you a bit hard on her?” she said, when Alice had moved away.
Chilton eyed her curiously, almost as if deciding what reply would please her most. “I have to be, sometimes. It’ll be happier for her in the end if I’ve kept her—well—at arm’s length. Don’t you think so?”
“When a girl like that is in love, she’ll thrive on rebuffs. She’ll make herself believe that they show there’s some response on your side. Indifference is the only thing for her.”
“But supposing I’m not indifferent?”
Georgia shrugged her shoulders. “Then there’s no more to be said.”
Only afterwards did it strike her how odd this conversation was between two people who had never met each other before. If there was such a thing as love at first sight, perhaps there could be hate at first sight too, creating the same instant intimacy. Yet she had no reason to hate Chilton Canteloe: indeed, she found him charming and sympathetic. Now she had met him, she realised how admirably he qualified for the position of leader of the E.B. conspiracy. She had faced the naked light of his intelligence, his charm and force of character: she knew now at first hand what it was that dazzled his countrymen. But she had not the least reason for suspecting that he was associated with the conspirators. Her shock tactics during their first conversation had not gained one inch of ground. Moreover, she argued, if that proof-copy I caught old Mr. Mayfield reading is really one channel by which the leaders of the E.B. communicate with each other, Lord Canteloe must be considered out of it. If he wanted to send orders down here without attracting suspicion, he need only work out some code to be used in the correspondence he would quite naturally keep up with his trainer. It’s fantastic to suppose that he would adopt this roundabout proof-copy method.
There was no use milling around in her mind till she had seen the book, however. That night, when the guests were in bed and the house quiet, she crept out of her room. She found her way to Mr. Mayfield’s study. She was prepared to spend some time looking for the hiding-place of the book, but it was there on the desk, under the papers where he had slipped it yesterday morning. Returning to her room, Georgia got into bed, flicked on her electric torch again, and began to study the proof-copy. Fifty Years on the Turf. One of the usual publisher’s slips inside: “With the compliments of Eason, Swayne, Ltd. To be published on September 5.”
Rapidly she turned over the pages. If Mr. Mayfield was reckless enough to leave this book about on his desk, he might even have put a mark on the relevant page. No luck there. Nor did there seem to be anything phoney about the text. An hour passed, and Georgia began to despair. Somehow or other, the person who had sent the book to Mr. Mayfield must have conveyed some code with it. Yet, if the object was to avoid suspicion, in case of the parcel’s falling into the wrong hands, he would not have dared to put in an enclosure with it. Enclosure? Oh hell! Georgia muttered: the usual covering letter that publishers send out with their complimentary copies. Why didn’t I think of that? Such a letter often has a reference number, and by this means Mr. Mayfield’s attention could be drawn to the right page. And now that letter has been destroyed, no doubt. Mr. Mayfield could safely leave the book about: it was as harmless to him now as a bomb with the detonator removed. Georgia was getting out of bed, to restore the book to Mr. Mayfield’s study, when the publisher’s slip dropped out of its pages. She bent down, and suddenly the slip seemed to stand out unnaturally large before her eyes. September 5. Publishers rarely had proofs ready so long before the date of publication. Could this be the clue she was searching for?
She turned to page five, read it word by word, examined it carefully, held it up against the light of the torch. No, there was nothing there. Try September. The ninth month of the year. She turned to page nine, page ninety, page ninety-nine, but in vain. She had a feeling, though, that she must be growing warm. Multiply the number of the month by the date. Five nines make forty-five. And on page forty-five, sure enough, she found it. Beneath certain letters there were faint indentations, made perhaps by pressing a blunted point of metal on the paper: they were invisible to the eye, but her sensitive finger-tips could feel them. She spelt out the letters, and it was as if the atrocious crime they spelt was taking shape in her own head.
“Wildiedangerousarrangeaccidenturgent.”
It was enough. Georgia crept out again, replaced the proof-copy where she had found it, and returned silently to her bedroom. Lucky that it was she who had tumbled to this. No one else might have been able to interpret it. “Wildie” was the nickname of one of the R.A.F. officers who had been present at the English Banner’s meeting during her first visit here. Wildman: a square-faced, blue-eyed lad—a bit of a James Cagney to look at. Evidently he had become dangerous to the E.B. conspirators in some way: perhaps, like the unfortunate Rosa Alvarez, he had merely been indiscreet: or perhaps he was another of Sir John Strangeways’ agents who had found his way into the movement and been discovered. At any rate, the E.B. centre had told the May fields to arrange an accident. They had contacts in the aerodrome, no doubt. A mechanic in their pay. It was damnably easy. “Arrange accident urgent.” Nothing had happened yet. Alice Mayfield had mentioned Wildie’s name last night. She had said—oh, God!—she had said that Wildie was giving a display of aerobatics at Hartgrove aerodrome to-morrow afternoon. There was to be a big air-pageant there, and the whole house-party would be driving over to watch it.
For hours till the sky paled with dawn and the first impassioned chorus of birds began, Georgia sat propped up in bed, thinking, planning against time. Once again she had become arbiter of life and death. It should be comparatively easy to warn young Wildman of what was coming to him: but, if she did and the “accident” were averted, suspicion would at once fall upon her. She had showed curiosity about the proof-copy from the start. The E.B. would deduce that she had read it and warned Wildman. Her own life, from that moment, wouldn’t be worth a farthing. She did not mind this so much: what worried her to desperation was that her last chance of reaching the central secret of the E.B., to which she was now so close, would be irretrievably lost. It was a young airman’s life against the lives of millions—the life of England. If only Nigel were here, or Sir John, to advise her! She felt the responsibility pressing upon her with the suffocating weight of a nightmare.
At last, when the faint gleam of dawn shone on the window-panes, she began to see light. She knew what she must do. The whole affair, in a sudden gleam of enlightenment, took on a changed complexion. A risk would have to be taken. If she failed, if her calculations went wrong, she would be a murderess. So be it.
With the fatalism and aplomb of the seasoned campaigner, who has made a decision and knows it irrevocable, Georgia Strangeways turned over in bed and went to sleep.
CHAPTER IX
THE EPISODE OF THE NEBUCHADNEZZAR
HARTGROVE AERODROME LIES on a plateau of the downs, extending over many acres of turf which has been laid and levelled so that from a distance it resembles the fairway of a golf-course. The landing-speed of the pursuit planes stationed at Hartgrove is so great that they need a smooth run to ensure safety. This Sunday afternoon, clouds bowled across overhead, trundling their great shadows along the expanse of the downs, while in their intervals the sun shone down on the brick-red hangars, the neat houses where officers and men lived, the roadway bordering the flying-field, now lined with cars whose enamel and chromium flashed back the sunlight. On the field’s southern edge the spectators were arrayed, their talk mingling with the humming engines of a flight of silver planes that stood in the centre of the field, air-screws flickering, ready to go up for formation-flying. Mechanics and officers strolled about, in blue uniforms or white overalls, giving the whole scene a gala air. No one but herself, thought Georgia, seemed to pay attention to the motor-ambulance and fire-engine which faced them on the far side of the aerodrome, small as toys.
She must give no sign of what she knew. She must concentrate all her forces on playing the part of a woman who
has come to see an air display, who is used to danger, who is not expecting death. For they were watching her: she was certain of it. It had been proved this morning. She would not, in any case, have dared to telephone from the house to the aerodrome: that was too risky. But, when she had gone out after breakfast, Robert Mayfield had fallen into step beside her, offered to post the letter she carried in her hand and save her the trouble of walking into the village. “Oh, no thanks,” she said, “I’d like a little walk.” Robert stared down at her, his expression both puzzled and obstinate. “Well, we’ll both go.” He was going to be present if she should telephone from the post-office. And that, she thought now, might mean one of two things. And, if it didn’t mean what she thought it did, she was about to kill an innocent man.
A loud-speaker boomed hollowly across the ground. There was a crescendo of engines. The silver flight leapt forward, raced over the sward, launched imperceptibly into the air, and made a great climbing sweep like pigeons released. Attaining height, they frolicked about in the sky, moving all together as if some bird-like instinct directed each dip and turn and dive. Georgia watched them, fascinated, her fears forgotten for a moment. Then she felt a hand on her elbow. Alice Mayfield was saying, “You met Wildie last time, didn’t you?”—and she was looking into the sparky blue eyes of the young officer. They talked idly for a few minutes. She noticed the slender strength of his wrists, imagined them tugging vainly at some jammed control while his plane went spinning about his ears like a catherine-wheel. She had only to say the word now. The others, Chilton, the Mayfields, Lady Rissington were grouped at a little distance, almost—she thought—as if by common consent they wished to offer Wildman this last chance. She saw Chilton giving her a curious, measured scrutiny. With an effort that seemed to drain all the blood out of her body, she kept the conventional expression on her face, maintained the slight, conventional talk. She knew she could stand very little more of this. Then, at the very moment when her hands were going out of their own accord in an imploring gesture to Wildman, a great, rising whine came down at them out of the sky.
The silver flight, still locked together in formation, had gone into a power-dive. They dropped shrieking from the high clouds, down and down, faster than falling, as if some god—angry at their presumptuous sporting in heaven’s face—had seized them up in his fist and flung them down at the earth like a handful of shining pebbles. They came at the field like meteors. And then, at the moment when the eye already saw them plunged deep into the earth’s heart, they swerved up and away in a roaring curve.
“That was wonderful,” Georgia exclaimed. But young Wildman had left her side: she could see him strolling across to a solitary, yellow plane that stood on the concrete outside one of the hangars.
“What a nice young chap he is,” she said to Alice. The girl’s eyes swerved away from hers. “Oh, yes. Yes, he is.” Chilton Canteloe was watching them both, Georgia noticed, with the guarded, whimsical, slightly superior air of a man watching two women who may any moment break into a furious quarrel. It flashed over her mind that Chillie was not, in any case, absolved from suspicion because of the proof-copy. Alice told her once that only the six district organisers of the E.B. knew the identity of its leader. It might be true. There was a certain bravado about Chillie, a boyish delight in the theatrical, which might lead him on to consorting incognito—like the young king in the romances—with his own followers. It would tickle him, she imagined, to send out orders that Wildman be killed, and then come down to watch the reactions of the executioners.
“Well, there he goes,” Chilton said to her. “Good luck to him.”
The yellow plane floated away off the ground.
“I hope nothing happens to him,” said Georgia, looking up seriously into Chilton’s face.
“Why should anything happen to him?”
“Well, stunting puts a terrific strain on the machine, doesn’t it?”
“Oh well, they go over every inch of it beforehand, you know.”
The crowd gasped. You could hear the sigh above the drum of the engine. Wildman was taking his plane along, a few feet above the ground, one wing depressed, like a broken-winged bird trying to scuttle away from the guns. Presently he straightened, rose up almost on his tail and gained height. It was as if the plane were romping and tumbling with some invisible playmate up there. Skidding, sidling, wobbling, somersaulting—the most amazing exhibition of crazy flying Georgia had ever seen. If something was going to happen, it must happen soon. The terrible stresses to which Wildman’s airy clowning subjected his machine would find out any weakened spot: she could feel those stresses within her own body, tearing her apart centrifugally.
“God!” someone exclaimed. “He can make that kite talk.”
Lady Rissington, that languorous, bored beauty, gave a little cry. Young Wildman went into a spin. Georgia glanced up to Chilton Canteloe. He was gazing fixedly, not at the plane, but at herself. She did not bother to decipher his expression: she knew now for certain what it meant. Controlling her voice with a last effort, putting the faintest note of apprehension into its casual tone, she remarked:
“Surely he’s cutting it a bit fine, isn’t he?”
Young Wildman was certainly cutting it fine. His plane was still spinning down, helpless and silent as a dead, yellow leaf, to the very furthest margin of safety. But Georgia’s heart was singing. Her ordeal was over. Wildman was safe: he had never been in danger, except from his own audacity. She had called the E.B.’s bluff, staked that brilliant airman’s life on its being a bluff, and won the show-down. She hardly heard the roars of applause as he cut in his engine and pulled the plane out of her spin.
Driving back in Chilton’s car after the display was over, she remembered most the tension on the faces of Robert and Alice Mayfield before Wildman had gone up, and the way Chilton had been looking at her when every other eye on the field was hypnotised by the weaving plane. Last night she had come to the conclusion that the whole business of the proof-copy must mean a stratagem directed, not against Wildman, but against herself. Her attention had been called to it a little too blatantly at the start. Had it been a genuine message from the E.B., Mr. Mayfield would never have left it lying so ingenuously on his desk. Nor would the clues to such a diabolic plan have been so simple, or the plan itself so nakedly set out. The E.B. had still been suspicious of her. The Mayfields had arranged that, if she were indeed a spy, she should be made inquisitive about the proof-copy and discover its secret. They had watched her like lynxes then, to see if she passed on a warning to Wildman: Wildman might even be in the know himself. Well, she had survived the ordeal, had given no sign that she had read the message in the proof-copy, or that—if she had read it—she wished to obstruct their plans. They could doubt her allegiance no longer. But it was neither this, nor her relief at not having sent a man to his death, which made Georgia so vivacious at dinner that evening. She felt a wild, half incredulous excitement, as a hunter might who has come upon the spoor of some legendary animal. . . .
When the week-end party broke up, Georgia returned to London and sought out Alison Grove. She recounted in detail the events that had taken place at the Mayfields’.
“Things don’t seem to have been too cosy for you,” said Alison. “Well, I’ll pass it on to Sir John. Poor dear, he’s still very worried, and I don’t see this is going to help him much.”
“You don’t? The heat must have curdled your brains, darling.”
“Schoolgirl abuse! Why are you so cock-a-hoop?”
“Chillie’s asked me to stay at his place next month.”
“You don’t let the grass grow beneath your feet, do you? But what about it?”
“Just this. I think Chillie’s our man.”
Alison’s blue eyes opened wide. “Oh, no! Now that’s too much! You can’t make me believe—why, he’s got everything already. He’s got money, power, immense popularity. A man like that would never risk it all for——”
“When that young chap
Wildman was doing his stunts, Chillie had eyes only for your humble servant,” said Georgia stubbornly.
“He’s probably fallen for you.”
“Oh dear no! Chillie’s more fallen for than falling, and you know it. He was watching me to see how I’d take it. I’m never mistaken about a thing like that. Which means that he knew about the proof-copy and the plan to make me give myself away. Which means that he’s in the E.B. movement himself. But Chillie wouldn’t play second fiddle in any show, and he has all the qualifications Sir John and Nigel proposed for the leader of the movement.”
“You’re dreaming. He’s just a playboy at heart.”
“Yes. And that’s why he’s so successful and so dangerous,” said Georgia very seriously. “Life’s just a game to him, maybe, but he likes making the rules himself, and he has the money to make them, too. Now listen. You can help me here. I want to put over a little test. It won’t absolutely prove anything, whether it comes off or fails, but it may give me another bit of probability. This is what you’ve got to do. . . .”
Mrs. Ryle’s parties were famous. She had been one of the “Bright Young Things” of the twenties, and fifteen years of happy marriage to John Ryle, now a Cabinet Minister, had not taken the edge off her larkiness. There was nothing she liked better than to invite a number of maliciously ill-assorted guests, play them off against each other and watch the repercussions. She was also fond of putting the most self-important people through the hoop: indeed, she had a way with her that made them almost enjoy the circus themselves.
This evening, after dinner was over, she announced in her most robust tones, “We’re going to play Nebuchadnezzar. John, you pick one side, and I’ll choose the other.”
An elderly gentleman, permanent head of a Civil Service department, stirred uneasily. “Nebuchadnezzar? What is that, Mrs. Ryle? I hope you’re not expecting me to eat grass?”
“I’m sure the hay diet would be very good for you, my dear. But we’ll let you off this time. Nebuchadnezzar is a kind of charade. We all played it like mad when I was a foolish young girl.”