The Smiler With the Knife

by Nicholas Blake

  Manifesting the wisdom of the serpent, Mrs. Fortescue informed Georgia that the Sisterhood laid great importance upon the mystical number, seven: they always performed in teams of seven, led by the indefatigable Miss Lobelia Agg-Thoresby. What could be simpler than for one of the Radiance Girls to become indisposed on arriving at the vicarage, and for Georgia to volunteer to make up the mystical number? Miss Agg-Thoresby, the vicar’s wife opined, would stretch a point over Georgia’s doubtless not altogether satisfactory aura if thereby she could be assured of keeping the seven intact.

  The idea of eluding the E.B., disguised as a ray of sunshine, tickled Georgia’s fancy immensely. She feared at first that Mrs. Fortescue intended to poison one of the Radiance Girls in order to make a gap for herself: but Mrs. Fortescue assured her that she knew personally one of the visiting team, a woman not dissimilar to Georgia in build and appearance, and could work the transposition quite easily. The main difficulty would be to keep this girl tucked out of sight till Georgia had got well away from Nether Cheype.

  For the next thirty hours or so, Georgia had to possess her soul in patience. She dared not leave the attic or even move about in it much during the day-time, lest she should betray her presence to the Fortescues’ maid. The vicar made his sole appearance on the Thursday afternoon, bringing her a book of sermons, a bound volume of Punch and a brochure of his own authorship on the antiquities of Tewkesbury Abbey. At intervals Mrs. Fortescue darted in with food and gossip: there was plenty of gossip in the village just now, what with last night’s aeroplane, the collision between a car and a pantechnicon on Rootley Hill, and the presence of so many inquisitive strangers in the district.

  At last Friday night came, and the Radiance Girls with it. Their leader, Lobelia Agg-Thoresby, was the flattest woman Georgia had ever seen: “willowy” was the word Lobelia applied to herself; Georgia, regarding the flat figure in its drooping poses, nicknamed her “the Curve to End all Curves.” Her only salient features were a thin, jutting nose and a pair of rather protuberant eyes, both of which came into play when, quarter of an hour after their arrival, Miss Blande announced that she felt ill and could not take part in the exhibition to-night.

  Miss Agg-Thoresby’s eyes registered suffering and spiritual resignation, her nose twitched with less refined emotions.

  “Nonsense, Mabel,” she said. “We don’t understand the word ‘illness.’ It’s not in our vocabulary. Your soul is a little out of tune, dear, that’s all. Breathe deeply and plunge yourself into the Infinite.”

  Mabel Blande followed her leader’s instructions, but to no purpose.

  “I’m sorry,” she said obstinately. “It doesn’t seem to—I mean, I must have eaten something that disagreed with me.”

  Miss Agg-Thoresby winced. Mrs. Fortescue, who had been watching the scene with an expressionless face, now remarked,

  “I’m afraid she does look rather unw—rather out out of tune. I think you’ll have to—er—perform without her.”

  “We don’t perform, Mrs. Fortescue,” said Lobelia gently. “We interpret. We are vessels. We receive, and we pour out. But it’s quite out of the question,” she went on more sharply. “We must have seven. The seven-pointed star, you see. But I’m afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

  “Perhaps my friend, Miss Lestrange, could help you,” replied the vicar’s wife, pointing to Georgia.

  Miss Agg-Thoresby’s pale eyes turned slowly towards Georgia, focused on her as though she were an object infinitely remote, to whom distance lent only a dubious enchantment.

  “Are you initiated, Miss Lestrange? Are you of us?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” answered Georgia boldly. “In my own circle I am known as the seventh pillar of light.”

  Miss Agg-Thoresby expressed her satisfaction, and they all retired to change for the rehearsal. Georgia put on Miss Blande’s garments. The seven wore flowing orange draperies which, in their less statuesque movements, were discarded to reveal magenta knickers and brassière—the latter being for Miss Agg-Thoresby rather in the position of a sinecure, Georgia imagined. The rehearsal went off fairly well, and Georgia had little difficulty in picking up the hang of the thing. She was not sorry, however, when Lobelia approached her afterwards, cooing:

  “Yes, dear. I can see you have the”—her hands wove a misty gesture out of thin air—“the tone, the vibrations. But perhaps you’d better remain rather in the background this time.”

  “Of course.” The background is just where I want to remain, Georgia reflected. Still, Mrs. Fortescue was quite right that I must take part in the performance in order to establish myself as one of the Radiance Girls and get away with them afterwards. Let’s hope the village hall is not too well lighted.

  Miss Agg-Thoresby had seen to that, it transpired. She had had the flood-lights swathed in red, so that the Radiance Girls posed and moved in a dim, pink glow which gave them, when the draperies were discarded, the appearance of being lightly coated with Euthymol toothpaste.

  The village audience was somewhat overawed by Miss Agg-Thoresby’s opening remarks, which urged them to relax, breathe deeply, and render their souls plastic to the influence of Psycho-physical Irradiation as about to be let loose by the Seven. It remained impervious to the orange-draperied evolutions, too. But when the Radiance Girls put off their outer coverings and began to prance in all the glory of magenta knickers and toothpaste pink flesh, psycho-physical irradiation really seemed to set in on the audience. A gasp went up. Some hardier spirits at the back, whistling, cat-calling and stamping their feet on the boards, began to evince a plasticity of soul which the vicar found it necessary to quell rather soon. While a very old man by the gangway remarked audibly that that were a tidy bit of goods in the front row, dang his eyes if her weren’t.

  It’s lucky, thought Georgia as she wove about on the stage, that this gang goes in for free interpretation, or I’d be shown up properly. Remaining well in the background, she let her eyes rove over the audience. They were mostly village women, with a sprinkling of youths. She noticed one man, leaning against the side wall, who looked rather out of place here: he wore riding-breeches and a check coat; he had a heavy, lowering face; and his eyes were scrutinising the audience covertly, intently, as though taking a silent roll-call.

  After the first interpretation was over, Miss Agg-Thoresby delivered some poems of her own composition in front of the closed curtain. Georgia drew aside Mrs. Fortescue, who was helping behind the scenes, led her on to the stage, and asked her to peep through the curtain.

  “Who’s that young man standing up at the side—the one in riding-breeches?”

  “Let’s see now. Oh, that’s Mr. Raynham.”

  “A local?”

  “Yes. He came here about five years ago. He’s a gentleman-farmer. I mean, that’s what he calls himself. If you ask me, he never was a gentleman and never will be a farmer.” Mrs. Fortescue giggled: then looked rather ashamed at her own malice. “My dear, I’m afraid you lead me on. I’m sure he’s quite a worthy young man in his way.”

  And I’m quite sure, thought Georgia, that he’s one of the E.B. I must keep my weather eye lifting for him. When the Radiance Girls took the stage again, Georgia noticed Mr. Raynham observing them attentively. After a few moments he walked out, making no attempt to soften the clump of his boots on the wooden floor. A mannerless young man, thought Georgia: but that’s scarcely the point just now. Is he quick-witted, too? Did he spot me? Has he gone out to make preparations?

  Twenty minutes more, and the show was over. The vicar, bemused but still courteous, made a speech of thanks. The team retired to change. This was going to be the awkward passage. Mrs. Fortescue took Lobelia Agg-Thoresby aside, told her that Miss Blande was too ill to travel to-night, asked if “Miss Lestrange” could go back in the bus with them instead. She and Georgia had previously decided that this, though risky, would be a safer course than for Georgia to try to pass herself off as Miss Blande to the team in general when they embarked on the bus. On
receiving Miss Agg-Thoresby’s assent, the vicar’s wife sat down beside Georgia and whispered:

  “Someone’s been in the vicarage while we were out. We left it locked: but I found a window opened when I went back just now.”

  “What about Miss Blande?”

  “She’s all right. I took her across to a neighbour just before the show started, as we arranged. I’m sure no one could have seen us—it was pitch dark: and the neighbour won’t talk. We’ll smuggle her out of the village in a couple of days’ time. Will that give you long enough?”

  “Mrs. Fortescue, you’ve been an angel. I don’t know how to thank you,” said Georgia, pressing her hand.

  “Don’t be silly, my dear. It’s I who should thank you. I don’t get so much excitement that—well, never mind—I hope everything will go well with you. Let us know, won’t you?”

  Lobelia Agg-Thoresby marshalled the Radiance Girls and hooshed them outside. A few villagers, standing by the roadside, watched them phlegmatically. There was no sign of the young man in the riding-breeches. Carrying the suitcase Mrs. Fortescue had lent her, wearing the vicar’s-wifely clothes which Mrs. Fortescue had altered for her yesterday, Georgia darted into the small private bus. The seats faced each other along the sides of the vehicle. Georgia took up her position at the far end from the driver, next to the emergency-door. It was vaguely comforting to be there, though she did not suppose any emergency-door would be adequate to the kind of emergency the E.B. might contrive.

  Miss Agg-Thoresby clambered in last, throwing over her shoulder a parting remark to the vicar, whom she had been attempting to proselytise:

  “But it’s not religious, Mr. Fortescue. It’s just cosmic.”

  The bus started. . . .

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE EPISODE OF THE STATION BARROW

  IN THE RACKETY bus, Georgia weighed up her chances. She had little doubt that they would be stopped by the E.B. before they left the district. If she managed to get past them unrecognised then, she would be out of the danger zone—or the worst part of it, and could take a train from Cheltenham to Oxford. The very thought made her almost crazy with relief and happiness, but she thrust it firmly from her. Time enough for that, if and when . . . The question was, had she been recognised by the “gentleman farmer,” Mr. Raynham, in the village hall? If not, the scrutiny of the bus would be more perfunctory and she might get through. If she had been recognised, her number was up. She put the odds against herself at three to to one, therefore. Had she known who was awaiting the bus a mile ahead, in a car drawn up by the roadside, she would have made a very different bet.

  The bus clattered through the night. The Radiance Sisters chatted desultorily. Presently the driver, perceiving the bull’s-eye of a torch waving at him from the middle of the road ahead, slowed down and came to a halt.

  Now for it, thought Georgia. She pulled Mrs. Fortescue’s hat closer down upon her head, adjusted the old pair of pince-nez Mrs. Fortescue had lent her. A pitiful disguise, she thought.

  A man opened the sliding door in front and held a brief, muttered conversation with the driver. It was Mr. Raynham. He glanced up and down the aisle of the bus, his eyes pausing on Georgia a moment. Then he said to Miss Agg-Thoresby:

  “Sorry to hold you up and all that. Was driving a friend of mine into Cheltenham—car broke down. He’s in rather a hurry—he’s got to catch a train. D’you mind taking us along with you?”

  The leader of the Radiance Girls fluttered, blushed, said, “Why, of course. Certainly.” Georgia was edging her hand towards the bar of the emergency door: but then she saw a couple of men standing in the roadway behind. She couldn’t understand the tactics of the E.B. patrol. Nor was she given any leisure to contemplate them. A little stir and mutter went up from the Radiance Girls—the kind of stir created by an invalid or a blind man when he comes into a room full of people. The man whom Mr. Raynham was helping into the bus was, indeed, blind. At least, he wore a shade over his eyes and held a walking-stick out in front of him like an antenna. There were sympathetic murmurs, in which the word “blind” vaguely recurred.

  “Blind,” Georgia wanted to shriek: “that’s not the point, you fools! It’s you who are blind! Can’t you see? Don’t you know who this is? Don’t you know it’s Chilton Canteloe?”

  In a flash, while Mr. Raynham solicitously escorted Chilton down the gangway towards the vacant seat beside Georgia, she realised the whole truth. On hearing of her escape from the ambushed pantechnicon, Chilton must have hurried to the district to direct operations himself, preferring that he should lose his anonymity as leader of the E.B. rather than that she should slip through their hands again. The local E.B. no doubt had no more than a photograph and verbal description of Georgia to go on. Mr. Raynham thought he had recognised her on the village-hall stage, but he could not be sure. Chilton was here to make sure. He did not need the sight of his eyes to recognise her.

  All he had to do was to sit down beside her, as he was sitting down now, and whisper “Good-evening, Georgia.”

  She knew that any attempt to disguise her voice would be futile. She might waste a little time that way; but what was the use?

  “Good-evening, Chilton,” she said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “I thought so,” he remarked, loud enough for Mr. Raynham to hear, who at once moved back along the gangway to sit next to the driver. Chilton, leaning towards her, began whispering again.

  “Are you going to come quietly, as they say?”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “My friend has a revolver. He will compel the driver to turn up a side road. There’ll be a car following, and everybody will be taken out of this bus and shot. I can’t leave any loose ends just now.”

  Georgia knew he was not bluffing. There was an edge to his voice, cold as steel, utterly merciless.

  “Very well,” she said.

  The bus rattled on. The Radiance Girls chattered, yawned, threw curious glances at the handsome blind man sitting so quietly there. A motor-bike and sidecar, travelling fast, roared past them and ahead. Presently Chilton’s stick fell with a clatter to the floor. It must have been a prearranged signal. Mr. Raynham looked round, then spoke to the driver. The bus ground to a halt, a car stopping just behind it.

  “They seem to have got our car to go,” Mr. Raynham said. “Here it is. We’d better change back into it. Thanks for the lift.”

  “Would you care to come with us?” Chilton asked Georgia. “The chauffeur can drop you at your destination after he’s left me at the station.”

  “Thanks very much.” Georgia would have liked to add, “Lord Canteloe,” but she knew it would seal the fate of every one in the bus. Mr. Raynham helped Chilton through the emergency-door, then politely lifted out Georgia’s suitcase. She felt quite numb as they escorted her to the waiting car: helpless as a cork on a stormy sea. Is this what people feel like when they walk out to their execution, she dimly wondered—to the blindfold drop, the bloodstained wall?

  They put her into the back of the car. Fatalistically, as one who greets a death grown familiar by suffering and long expectation, she breathed in without a struggle the chloroform of the pad that was held over her face. She thought, why bother with all this? The last thing she heard was Chilton saying, “Don’t be rough with her. I want to deal with her myself, later. . . .”

  She awoke in utter darkness. Her head ached, and the fumes of chloroform were in her throat, mingled with a faint smell of mildew. The darkness appalled her. For a moment she was seized by an absolute terror, believing that Chilton had already taken his revenge and put out her eyes. Then, coming right out of the anæsthetic, she realised how absurd this was: there was no pain in her eyes—yet.

  Her bag, containing the papers of Plan A and her revolver, had been taken away. Automatically she felt inside her clothes, to see if they had found the copy which she had stitched up in her corselet. No, it was still there. Not that it made any difference. They’d never let her get out of this place ali
ve. Where was she, anyway?

  With a dull curiosity, she began to feel her way through the darkness. Smooth stone floor, damp walls, a window boarded up with wood: a room about twelve foot square, smelling of mildew. The living-room of some derelict cottage, she imagined: on the land of Mr. Raynham, perhaps—Mr. Raynham who had never been a gentleman and never would be a farmer. She tried to find a crack in the boarded window: it seemed suddenly important to know whether it was still night outside: but there were no cracks big enough to see through. The emptiness of the room, like some figure in a nightmare which advances step by step from immeasurable distance to reveal its sinister intent, gradually forced its full meaning upon her.

  It was to be the arena of her last struggle with Chilton Canteloe. Nor did he intend to give her the least chance. Every scrap of wood or old metal, which she might have used for a weapon, had been removed. For an instant, panic got the better of her. She ran at the door, beat her fists against the panel. As if it had been a signal, footsteps were heard outside. Georgia ran back and crouched in a far corner. Chilton Canteloe was saying to someone:

  “All right. I’ll go in now. You can lock the door behind me.”

  The door opened and closed, revealing a faint false dawn that disappeared at once and made the darkness more intense. Georgia could hear his unhurried breathing twelve feet away. She imagined the smile on his face.