Run! (19 page)

He turned into Little Corbyn Street, walked half way down it, and turned again into Corbyn Mews.

Gertrude Lushington had chosen a good time to be away. Her flat was the fourth on the left-hand side (she always called it a flat, though it was really two converted loose-boxes and a hayloft), and extensive and messy alterations were being carried out in No. 3. Somebody was building out a bathroom at the back and knocking a series of holes in the roof with a view to letting windows in among the slates. There was a violent smell of paint, and a lot of scaffolding, and things lying about to trip you up if you weren't careful in the dark.

James stopped thinking about whether he was going to be murdered or not and picked his way warily. There seemed to be more scaffolding than usual. It seemed to run right over on to what he was convinced was Gertrude's roof. It was too dark to be sure, but he made a mental note to have a look at it in the morning and tell the foreman to stick to his own pitch. He had actually to duck under the planks before he could reach his door.

He ducked, and immediately it seemed to him that the roof fell. James had said that he was careful, but no amount of being careful could have saved him. It was something else, something much more primitive and instinctive, which saved him. He ducked under the plank, and at once and without conscious thought jerked his head and his whole body backwards. His forward movement was not only checked but vehemently reversed. There was a crash and a cloud of dust. Something struck him on the shoulder. He went on going back until he was clear of the scaffolding, then he straightened up. What had made him back he didn't know. Something had given him an order, and he had obeyed without knowing what it was. If he hadn't obeyed, or if he had hesitated, whatever it was that had sounded like a hundred of bricks and had raised such an overpowering dust would have fallen on his head, and he would almost certainly by now have been the late James Elliot. It was quite a sobering thought. He stood there and considered it. The thing had fallen as he ducked to avoid the scaffolding. He oughtn't to have had to avoid the scaffolding. It had no business where he must duck under it in order to reach Gertrude's front door.

He looked up in a very doubting mind, and for an unconvincing instant he thought something moved where the black roof ridge cut the sky. There was so little light that he could never be sure that he had seen anything. He decided that it would be a good plan to get under cover, and that if he kept well away to the right, he could reach the door without bumping into anything else. If someone had been placing booby-traps for him, they would be laid with an eye to his arriving from the left, since the Mews entrance was on that side. It was improbable that there would be more than one booby-trap, but he felt like being careful.

Nothing more happened. He got in safely, and ate a simple meal of fried eggs and bacon, and toasted cheese. He considered himself a good cheese-toaster. And all the time that he was frying, and toasting, and eating his supper, and washing up the supper things he was grimly determined to have it out with the builder's foreman in the morning. He was a little red-haired man with a peppery temper, and there was pretty sure to be a sizable row. James warmed to the thought of it.

He rose next morning full of pleasurable anticipation but he had no sooner emerged upon the cobbled court of the Mews than he received a shock. Last night he had had to duck under the scaffolding to reach his front door, but this morning the nearest scaffold pole was three feet away. The red-headed foreman was coming down a ladder. He said good-morning to James, and James said,

“Why did you have your scaffolding right across my door last night?”

The foreman winked.

“There wasn't no scaffolding across that door,” he said.

“Oh, yes, there was,” said James.

The foreman grinned.

“Well, I've known what it was not to be able to find me own front door, but I didn't go advertizing it next day.”

“Look here,” said James—“when I came home last night there was scaffolding out to about here, and I had to duck under it to get to the door, and something like a chimneypot or a load of bricks smashed down off the roof and only just missed laying me out.”

The foreman sniggered.

“Some blind!” he said enviously. “And you don't seem to have slept it off yet. We didn't put no scaffolding across your door nor yet take any away, and if chimneypots and half tons of bricks was a-pitching of themselves off the roof, well, they've picked themselves up and walked away again—that's all I can say.”

It was perfectly true. James's blood boiled with rage, and then cooled with the consciousness that he was making a fool of himself, and that the foreman genuinely believed him to have come home very drunk indeed. He gazed at the cobbled yard and found no trace of the avalanche which had just missed his head last night. If a chimneypot had fallen, where was it—if a hundred of bricks, who had picked them up? He could have enjoyed a row. He didn't at all enjoy the foreman's snigger and the foreman's wink. He went through his own door in a very bad temper and banged it after him.

XXV

James reckoned to start for Fieldover with Colonel Pomeroy's Rolls at about eleven o'clock. Colonel Pomeroy would expect him to stay to lunch, and he could catch the 4.10 at Warnley. As it was Saturday, he could have stayed the night, but he wanted to get back to town, because town meant Sally. Even if he didn't see her, even if he couldn't see her, she was within reach, and at the back of his mind there was the queer dogged feeling that he could and would if necessary walk into Ambrose Sylvester's house or any other fellow's house and walk Sally out of it. If necessary of course, not otherwise. It wasn't in James's nature to do spectacular things unless they were strictly necessary.

He was having a final look over the Rolls, when Miss Callender appeared, hovering.

“Oh, Mr. Elliot, I forgot to tell you they rang up from Colonel Pomeroy's to know when you were bringing the car.”

James flicked an imaginary speck of dust from the bonnet and turned round.

“Colonel Pomeroy knows I'm coming today,” he said. “I told him so when I was talking to him yesterday.”

Miss Callender rolled her blue eyes.

“Oh, but he didn't seem to, Mr. Elliot. And they asked what time and all.”

“Well, I didn't say what time,” said James. “And what do you mean by
they
?”

Miss Callender bridled.

“Well, that's just a manner of speaking. I suppose it would be the butler or the chauffeur that was asking. It wasn't Colonel Pomeroy.”

James's thick, fair eyebrows met in a frown.

“Perhaps it was the same chauffeur who came nosing round here yesterday.”

Miss Callender looked blank. She was a bright girl and conscientious, but she wasn't really thinking about Colonel Pomeroy and his Rolls. She was thinking about Bert Simpson and whether he would say anything tonight when he took her to the pictures. It would be rather soon of course, but they had known each other for quite a long while, and after all what's the good of wasting time? So she looked blank.

Just at that moment the telephone bell rang and she ran back to the office.

James continued to frown. All these odd things happening, and nothing you could take hold of let alone go to the police about, and behind them the horrid concrete fact of Jackson smashed and dead. He had nearly been smashed himself last night. Jocko had nearly been smashed at Holbrunn.…

Miss Callender came out of the office and called to him.

“Oh, Mr. Elliot, you're wanted on the 'phone.”

James took the receiver, and heard Sally's voice say,

“Who is it? Who's there?”

“James Elliot speaking,” said James, a frowning eye on Miss Callender's fluffy head.

“James, it's Sally.”

“Yes?” said James. “What is it?”

Daisy Callender's ear was frankly cocked. He couldn't tell her to go to blazes, and he couldn't call Sally darling on the office telephone whilst she sat there listening. His frown became positively murderous as he reflected that she could probably hear what Sally was saying too. He said,

“What is it? I'm speaking from the office.”

“You mean you're not alone?”

“Yes.”

“James, I must speak to you.”

Daisy Callender coughed, her hand on the open door.

“Will you just let me know when you've done, Mr. Elliot?” she said. With a roll of the eye and a sympathetic smile she tiptoed out of the office and closed the door behind her.

James said fervently, “She's gone. Darling, what's the matter?”

“Jocko. I knew he was boiling up for something. He's gone to Rere Place.”

“When?”

“This morning. He left a note for me.”

James whistled.

“Well, you can't stop him.”

“It isn't safe,” said Sally with a sob in her voice. “He's gone down all by himself.”

James considered. A week ago he would have said, “Why? What could happen to him?” Now it seemed to him that quite a number of things, all of them rather final, might happen at Rere Place to anyone who knew or was on the brink of knowing too much. Someone had suspected Jackson of knowing too much, and Jackson was dead. Someone—possibly—suspected James Elliot of knowing too much, and bricks fell on him in the dark, said bricks and the scaffolding from which they had fallen being carefully tidied away during the night. Rere Place was a house where people shot at you as a hint that they were not at home to callers, and they kept a most convenient ghost story to account for the row. James wondered very much who had put Daphne up to telling that story last night.

Sally said, “Are you there? Oh, don't cut us off!”

“I'm here all right,” said James. “I was thinking.”

Her voice was warm with relief.

“I thought they had cut us off. I'm so frightened about Jocko. He won't believe there's any danger or anything.”

“Look here,” said James, “I'm taking Colonel Pomeroy's car down to Fieldover this morning. It's quite near Warnley, you know, and if you like, I could blow in on Jocko and stay the night. I needn't be back here till Monday morning.”

Sally gave a sort of gasp. He thought she said “
No
!” And then she caught her breath and said, “Oh, no—you mustn't! Oh,
no!
”

James's heart gave a bump, because if that meant anything at all, it meant that Sally was frightened about him—more frightened about him than she was about Jocko. He immediately felt very fierce and aggressive, and enquired,

“Why on earth not?”

“Not both of you!” said Sally a little wildly. “James, I must see you. I don't know how it's to be done, but I must.”

James thought for a moment.

“Could you drive with me part of the way and come back by train?”

He heard her catch her breath.

“Yes, I could.”

“Then I'll pick you up at Sloane Square—outside the tube station. Will that do? In twenty minutes. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” said Sally. Then she said, “Oh, James!” Then she rang off.

XXVI

James drew up to the kerb, and Sally opened the door and jumped in beside him. The car had hardly stopped before it was off again.

“I got here,” said Sally.

She was clasping a suit-case. James looked out of the corners of his eyes and said,

“What's that?”

“Just a suit-case,” said Sally. She slewed round and threw it on the back seat. “I'm going on to stay with some people.”

James noticed that she was rather brightly flushed. She ought to have had plenty of time to get to Sloane Square, but when girls were in a hurry they rather tended to run round in circles. This reflection merged into appreciation of the fact that the bright colour was very becoming. He took his left hand off the wheel and put it down hard on Sally's right hand for a moment. Then he gave his attention to the traffic again.

Sally sat beside him feeling happy, miserable, frightened, and adventurous in layers. The happy layer was on the top just now, like the icing on a cake, but down underneath there were horrid dark places of fear. Presently she said,

“Do you mind being talked to when you're driving?”

“Not if it's just talk. I'd rather not get down to business till we get out of this.”

So they talked. James told her all about his father putting his foot down and telling the world in his best parade voice that the Elliots had always been in the army, and if any son of his didn't go into the army, he would want to know the reason why.

“There was the most frightful row. If he hadn't shouted at me so, I should probably have wanted to go into the army. But you know how it is when people shout. It makes you quite sure they must be in the wrong or they wouldn't make so much noise about it. I mean you don't have to make a noise if you're in the right.”

“Are you sorry you didn't go into the army!” said Sally quickly.

“Sometimes,” said James. He gave his attention to passing between a bus and a lorry full of gravel. As soon as he was through he said, “My mother was wonderful. You'll like her. She's the most comfortable person I ever met. She used to say ‘Yes, darling' to my father about half the day, and then she used to come along and say ‘Yes, darling' to me—whilst the row was going on, you know—and she never turned a hair. And in the end I went to Atwells.”

“Oh—” said Sally. And then, “What would you really like to do now if you could choose?”

“Design engines,” said James. “I've got ideas I'd like to work out. I shall too. I came in for a little money last year. I'm just waiting to make up my mind what I'm going to do with it. The worst of it is that experiments run away with an awful lot of money, and until you get down to experimenting you can't be sure whether you've really got something good or not. I've got three thousand pounds, but I don't like breaking into capital if I can help it.”