Mysterious Aviator (9 page)

“About nine o’clock.”

He passed one hand heavily across his forehead. “There was a girl here this afternoon,” he muttered. “She gave me some stuff to drink.”

I nodded. “Miss Darle,” I said. “She told me she’d been with you.”

“Oh.” He was silent for a minute. “I was talking a good bit,” he said thickly. “I hope to God I wasn’t telling stories.”

I laughed. “I don’t know what you said,” I remarked. “But, anyway, you didn’t say anything to shock her.”

He smiled faintly. “That’s all right, then,” he muttered. “Matter of fact, I don’t know what I was talking about, but I know I was talking.”

I made him comfortable for the night, persuaded him to have
a drink, and he rolled over on his side to go to sleep again. I left him to it.

I went back into the sitting-room and shut up my books. There were a couple of ledgers and the cash-book of the mansion there among the others; I piled these three together and went to put them in the safe. The top of the safe is a sort of repository for all the odds and ends that lie about my rooms and never get tidied up. I was brought up sharply as I approached it by the sight of that box of plates.

There it was, lying on the top of the safe with all the other junk. One of the maids must have put it there when she tidied up the room in the morning. I opened the safe and put away my books, and then picked this thing up and carried it over to the fire. It was a rectangular, flat metal box, roughly half-plate size, made of brass oxidised or blackened in some way, and neatly finished.

I sat down uneasily before the fire, and had a good look at the thing. It wasn’t mine. It hadn’t anything to do with me, really. It belonged to Lenden, and to him it was worth approximately one thousand pounds—the fee that he had taken. He had that money in his bank.

It was nothing to do with me at all. That was the basic conclusion that I came to, at the end of a quarter of an hour.

I sat there for a long time, turning the thing over uneasily in my hands, wondering what the devil they were up to at Portsmouth, and why the Soviet wanted to know about it. I didn’t see what interest it could hold for them; they couldn’t possibly be contemplating naval action against us. They hadn’t got a navy, for one thing. I didn’t see why they should be interested in our dockyards, other than from a purely academic standpoint. It seemed to me that their attitude might very well be: “That’s a nice-looking dockyard; let’s have one like that at Tkechkrotsz”—but it was hardly likely that they would be interested in the proposition—“That’s the place to hit this handsome dockyard a cruel blow when we want to put it out of action next week.”

And yet, it must be something like that. The people at
Portsmouth evidently thought it was important, to judge from the precautions they were taking. Sending up aeroplanes to shoot him down … It seemed to me that he couldn’t possibly have been right about that. His nerves had been running away with him. Three long night flights on end. They must have been.

In any case, it didn’t seem to me that I could do anything about it. It was Lenden’s business. I’ve never been a man to go butting into another chap’s affairs, and it didn’t seem to me that I could go to him and talk about Our Dear Old Country, and what a sin and a shame it was to go and take photographs of it when it wasn’t looking. No, I could only leave it to him to do what he thought best, though I knew what that would be. He’d taken their money, and he’d do their work. Still, it was none of my business, and in that resolve I went to bed.

I didn’t sleep very well. I was still worried about those photographs. And in the intervals of that I was thinking of the quiet time I had had at Under since the war. I kept sleepily conning over the details of that sale at Pithurst, and the way I’d been able to run up the auction on that stock to make the price. And then I got to thinking of all the other times that Arner had set me on to do that sort of thing, and the way we’d been running the estate since the war. And I thought that really, taking it by and large, we’d made a pretty good show of it. Mind, we’ve got good land and a good crowd of farmers, and that helps. But we’d made that part of Sussex pretty prosperous. We’d been stuffing back into the land pretty well all that we took out of it. And I knew that Ellersleigh, whose land marched with ours to the north and west, was doing the same.

And then I got to worrying about those photographs again, and to thinking what a corking good county Sussex was. It was about three in the morning before I fell asleep.

Next day was a day of accounts. I spent it entirely at the office with my clerk, deep in the usual Quarter Day rush. I saw Lenden in the morning before I went out. He was looking a bit the worse for wear, but his temperature was practically normal. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get away. I sat
and talked to him for a little after breakfast, but avoided any direct or indirect question as to what he was going to do. I didn’t think he knew himself. Till he had made up his mind there was very little to be done; I just encouraged him to stay in bed for another day, and left him to it.

That was Saturday. Arner was in Town that week, living at the house in Curzon Street and oscillating between the Foreign Office and the Athenæum. In the middle of the afternoon I had a trunk call from him.

“Is that Moran?”

“Speaking, sir.”

“Moran. I shall be coming down this afternoon by the four-fifty. You’d better send the car to Petersfield, I think.”

“Right you are, sir. I’ll see to that.”

“And, Moran. I am bringing Wing-Commander Dermott, of the Air Ministry, down with me. He will be staying with us over the week-end. Will you ring up the Hall and let them know? We will dine at eight o’clock tonight.”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll ring up at once.”

“And, Moran. I should be very glad if you would dine with us this evening. Is Sheila dining in to-night?”

“I think so. I haven’t heard that she’ll be away.”

“Oh. Then we shall be an odd number. Still, I should be very glad if you would dine with us. I want you to meet Dermott.”

“I’d like to very much, sir.”

“All right. Is there anything else?”

I stirred in my chair, and settled to the more important business of my work. “That sale of Petersen’s yesterday, over at Pithurst. It went off very well.”

I gave him a short summary of the business done and the prices the beasts went for. We had another three minutes over that, and then he rang off.

I called up the house to give them their instructions, and settled to my accounts again. But my work was spoilt. Arner’s sudden introduction of this Wing-Commander worried me and took my mind completely off my business. In all the years I had
been at Under we had never entertained any officer of His Majesty’s Royal Air Force. This was something quite new. Lord Arner was over seventy at that time, and a Civil Servant of the old type. We had Admirals and Generals at Under frequently, because these were old friends of his—men that he known at school and at Oxford and at the Athenæum. The Air Force was since his time—something new, and possibly not quite nice. I don’t think he had any definite bias against it, but … it was since his time. He didn’t know any of their Group-Captains, or Air Vice-Marshals, or whatever their peculiar titles were. They were all twenty years or so younger than he. And so it happened that Wing-Commander Dermott would be the first officer of that distinguished service who had ever been to Under, unless it was myself.

I wondered irritably who he was, and what the devil he was doing here. I couldn’t repress a most uneasy feeling that he was after me.

There was a book that I wanted to consult, and I gave up the pretence of work at the office early in its favour. I left the town at about tea-time, and walked back to the Hall. I crossed the stable-yard, entered the mansion by the back door, went through into the Hall, and so to the library. The volume that I wanted lives on the writing-table there, together with Whitaker and Bradshaw. I crossed the room and opened it upon the blotting pad.

“D for Dermott,” said Miss Darle reflectively.

It was a dull evening and that room faces north, as all libraries should; in the dim light I hadn’t noticed her sitting in a deep chair before the fire. She couldn’t have been reading because it was too dark; if I had thought about it at all, I had assumed that she was in the drawing-room. Now that’s a queer thing. Looking back upon those days now, it seems very strange that I shouldn’t have known that she was with me in the room. But I didn’t.

I glanced towards her chair. “Exactly,” I replied. “I always have to do this, I’m afraid. I’m not sufficiently acquainted with the
beau monde.”

I turned the pages to the Ds.

“His name’s John Hilary Dermott,” she said quietly, without stirring from where she sat. “He went to school at Uppingham. And then he went to Sandhurst. And then he went into the Shropshires, and then he got transferred to the balloon service of the Sappers, before they made it into the Flying Corps.”

I had found the place by now. She was quite right, except that he was attached and not transferred. He had served with the flying branch of the Army from 1912 till it became the Royal Air Force, and so had attained the rank of Wing-Commander (Int.) at the age of thirty-eight.

“What does Int. after his name mean?” she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders casually. “I don’t know,” I replied. But I did. It meant Intelligence, and the sight of it gave me a nasty turn.

I stood there blankly for a minute, wondering if I ought to get Lenden out of the place before he came.

Sheila Darle got up from beside the fire and came over towards that writing-table by the window. I was still staring at that brief account.

“Mr. Moran,” she said gently.

I raised my head to meet her eyes.

“Is this bloke coming on any sticky business?”

There was no point in beating about the bush. She knew too much already.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “I hope to God he’s not. I don’t see how he could possibly be. But … I don’t know.”

She stood there eyeing me for a moment, silent. And then at the last she said:

“Can I do anything? Anything at all?”

I turned to face her. “I don’t think there’s anything you could do,” I replied. “It’s just that he’s got himself into the dickens of a mess. And I suppose I’m in it too. It’s a rotten business to be mixed up in, and I’d rather that you kept out of it.”

“It’s with Russia?” she inquired.

I nodded. “Yes.”

She thought about it for a minute. “I’m so frightfully sorry,” she said quietly. “If I can do anything at all to help, you must let me know.”

And went.

I put that book back in its place between Whitaker and Bradshaw, left the library, and went over to my own house. Lenden was still in bed, but sitting up and reading a novel; he was looking very much more himself. He said that he was getting up next day. He said that it had been damn good of me to let him lie up like that.

I cut him short, and went and sat on the end of his bed. “D’you know anything about a fellow called Dermott?” I inquired. “Wing-Commander Dermott?”

He wrinkled his brows, and shook his head slowly. “No. I’ve heard the name somewhere.”

“Well,” I said, “he’s coming down here to-night. Lord Arner’s bringing him down to spend the week-end.” I paused. “The only thing I know about him is that he’s in the R.A.F. Intelligence.”

There was a little silence, and then Lenden smiled. “I thought this was too good to be true,” he said quietly. “I’d better get along out of it.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t do that. He may not be coming about you at all. I don’t see how he can be. And anyway, you can’t cut off now. Everyone knows you’re here. You’ll have to stay and bluff it out.”

He stared at me wonderingly. “I don’t see how they could know I’m here,” he said. “Unless they’ve found the Breguet.”

I thought that over for a minute. It was certainly a possibility. “I haven’t seen it since yesterday morning,” I said. “But I should have heard if it had been found. I hear everything that goes on here.”

“Does this chap come down here often?” asked Lenden.

I laughed shortly. “No,” I said, “he doesn’t. We’ve not had an R.A.F. officer in the place since the war.”

There was a little silence at that. “I’d better go,” he said.
“It’s been damn good of you to put me up like this, and I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

“Frankly,” I replied. “I think you’re more likely to get me into trouble if you go than if you stay.”

“Do you think so?”

“I do. If this bloke’s really after you and he gets to hear that you’ve shot off the minute you heard he was coming, I don’t see how he could help putting two and two together. Even if he is in the Intelligence.”

He considered the position for a bit.

“I suppose you’re right,” he said uncertainly. “I’d better stay—for to-night, anyway.” He paused, gloomily. “I’ve got those photographs to get rid of—somehow….”

He flared up suddenly. “I wish to hell I’d never touched the ruddy job,” he said irritably.

I left him soon after that, and went into my room to dress for dinner. It was early, but I was tired and worried, and I wanted a bath. I stayed in it for a considerable time that evening, I remember. I was wondering what was going to happen to me. I had about a couple of hundred a year of my own at that time, and I was wondering how far that would go if I had to find another job over this business. I was wondering what I could turn my hand to if I had to leave Under. I was wondering why I had been such a fool as to take in Lenden, and why I didn’t give him up. I had only to ring up the police, and the thing would be done. I was wondering whether it would be much of a blow to Arner when he found out the game that I’d been playing in his house. I was wondering how the next agent would run the estate when he took over from me, and if he’d grow to care about it all as I had done. I was wondering if the game was worth the candle.

I got out of my bath as it began to cool off, and dressed very slowly for dinner. In the end I was ready, and I went into the sitting-room to my piano.

It was dark in there. I lit the reading-lamp by the fireplace, sat down absently, and began polishing the second period of my play. That is the part where the Princess goes to live with the
Woodman in his hut; from that point I begin upon the change in values under the harsher conditions of the rustic life that in the end turn the Peasant into a Prince within the hut, and the Princess to a Peasant girl. Those are effects that one can work up rather subtly upon the screen, but it’s a difficult bit of music. I became immersed in the thing, and sat there in the half-light before dinner for the better part of an hour, polishing those passages. Till in the end, by the time I got up from the piano, I was ready for what I could see was going to be rather a trying evening.