“Well, Georgia, pipped on the post, aren’t you?”
She said nothing.
“I’ve been looking forward to our reunion. You nearly blinded me that night. They say I may recover my sight, however. Won’t you congratulate me? I’m afraid you’ll not recover yours, my dear. I shall make quite certain of that.”
Georgia remained silent, immobile, though she felt that her heart, lurching inside her body so sickeningly, must betray her.
“Wouldn’t you like to scream, or something?” he asked politely. “No one will hear you, of course, but they say it brings relief. No? Well, I hope you’ll enjoy our little game of Blind Man’s Buff in your own quiet way, then.”
He began to advance upon her through the darkness. Her only instinct was to keep away from those outstretched fingers as long as she could. Or perhaps his arms were swinging loosely before him in that bear-like gait she recollected too well. She slipped aside from his first rush, vaguely surprised that her feet made no sound on the stone floor, realising for the first time that they had taken her shoes away. Of course they had. A shoe’s heel would serve at a pinch for a weapon. Chilton was thorough.
For a few minutes she continued to elude him. But her efforts made her breathe hard, and she knew her breathing must give her away. Round and across the room he lumbered after her, his fingers feeling at the darkness like antennæ, taking his time about it. There was a remorselessness, a horror about the blind pursuit which made her want to shriek for help, though no help could ever come; but she was determined not to let Chilton have this triumph over her weakness too. At last, almost distraught, she decided to end it. Standing still against the wall, breathing hard, she awaited his leisurely approach. When she heard him close in front, she hurled herself forward knee-high into the darkness, hoping that she might knock him off his feet, perhaps crack his head against the stone floor in falling, anything to stop this cruel, deadly game he was playing with her.
Her body struck his legs just above the knee. He fell forward, but in doing so grabbed her dress. Now she was aware of his strength. She struggled like a wildcat, but soon he had her down, his knees pressing into her arms, his fingers feeling delicately towards her eyes. Suddenly she went limp. She knew that this ice-cold, chuckling maniac would defer his revenge if he believed she had fainted. He wanted her to feel it all.
“Oh no, Georgia, it won’t do. Don’t pretend you’ve passed out,” said Chilton and, lifting her limp hand, deliberately broke the little finger. Georgia bit her lip to repress a cry, but a shudder of agony went through her body, and now she fainted in real earnest . . .
At this moment, two men appeared outside the derelict cottage gave a pass-word to the guard at the door, and were directed towards the little room where Chilton and Georgia had struggled.
“A message for the Chief. Urgent,” said one of the men to the guard outside the room.
“He’s busy,” said the man, jerking his head towards the door.
An E.B. badge was flashed before his eyes. “Open up, blast you, or he’ll take it out of you.”
The guard turned to unlock the door. . . .
Coming out of her swoon, Georgia moaned. She was being carried like a sack, slung over a man’s shoulders. They were emerging into cold air and the beginnings of dawn. She heard the man who carried her say to someone:
“It’s O.K. boys. The Chief told us to take this dame away—what he’s left of her—and dig a nice deep hole. He’s busy over the message we brought him, and doesn’t want to be disturbed for half an hour. So long.”
Georgia’s brain began to work quickly. Chilton could only have meant to frighten her, then. Well, he’d done that all right. But it was these men who were to be the executioners. Better them, a thousand times, than—and she might even escape them, now she was out into the open, out of that devilish, mildew-smelling room.
The men bundled her into a car. They set off, bumping fast down a grassy track. Georgia pretended to be unconscious still, hoarding her strength for a last effort. The two men remained silent. After about ten minutes the car slowed down. She was lifted out, hoisted on a shoulder again, carried quickly towards a high bank which she was seeing upside down. They were scrambling up the bank. Suddenly, with a dreadful stab of fear, Georgia recognised that it was a railway embankment. They were not going to “dig a nice deep hole” for her: they were going to put her across the line in front of a train: neater, in a way. She stayed relaxed, waiting till they put her down before springing to life.
They carried her across the metals, towards a small shed at the side—a platelayer’s hut. The door was opened. A man in greasy clothes, neckerchief and cloth cap was sitting inside, his back turned to them, warming his hands over an oil-stove. As they entered and she was put gently down, he turned round, sprang forward, held out his hands. With a gasp of pure astonishment, Georgia stumbled forward into Sir John Strangeways’ arms. . . .
A few minutes later, revivified with brandy, she was saying shakily:
“But I thought you were—the papers said——”
“I’m tougher than they give me credit for. Actually, I left the nursing-home a couple of days ago, but we thought it best for the E.B. to imagine I was still there.”
Sir John’s eyes twinkled in his dirty face.
“You do look ruffianly, Uncle John. I never supposed a man in your exalted position would descend to these low disguises. How did you find me? Is Nigel all right? Where is he?”
“He’s very well. Awaiting you in Oxford. I’ve had some trouble keeping him out of this, especially when we heard you were on the run. We found you by keeping tabs on Canteloe in the first place: we knew he would come out in the open after you’d got away with the plans. He followed you, and we followed him. The two chaps who drove you in that pantechnicon turned up trumps too. They had a bit of a towsing from the E.B. men, but they got away in the end and turned in a report at the nearest police-station. Luckily the Inspector there was a sound chap. He phoned through to me, and that’s how we knew you were in this district. It was the first we’d heard of you since you rang up Alison Grove from Manchester. Even then, you’d concealed yourself so well that we couldn’t find another trace of you for a bit. I was getting a little worried.”
“I was getting a little worried myself,” Georgia replied sardonically.
“At any rate,” said Sir John, vigorously rubbing his moustache, “my men who were tailing Canteloe saw him stop that bus you were in last night. Queer company you do keep nowadays, Georgia. The Radiance Girls! Oh my aunt! Well, they followed you up to that cottage. Couldn’t do any more. Too strongly guarded. Afraid there was a bit of a delay there. Had to call up two of my chaps who are in the E.B. and send them to hoick you out. A ticklish business, my dear. I didn’t dare attack the place in force—I knew they’d kill you the instant the alarm was given.”
“He didn’t need any alarm to do that—or try his hardest to,” Georgia said. She still found it difficult to mention Chilton Canteloe by name. Sir John leant forward and stroked her hand, noticing the way she winced when accidentally he touched the little finger he had re-set and bandaged in a makeshift splint. A look came into Sir John’s blue eyes—a look Georgia had seen once or twice on Nigel’s face, and was never likely to forget: a smouldering anger that would not be extinguished till somebody had paid up in full.
“Canteloe will not be allowed any more rope,” said Sir John, “you can be sure of that. Let me see the plans.”
“I shall have to undress a bit. I’ve been using them to pad out my meagre figure.”
“You’ve done very well, my dear. We’re all proud of you. I don’t think anybody else could have pulled it off.”
Sir John’s brisk, kindly voice brought tears to her eyes. She felt suddenly weak, ready to indulge in one of her rare moments of self-pity.
“He—he was trying to put out my eyes, Uncle John,” she said in a wavering voice.
“He was, was he? Well, I don’t expect he’s feel
ing too good himself at the moment. Here, take another swig at the brandy, my dear. That’s right. The men who rescued you knocked the guard over the head as he was unlocking the door. Then they did the same for Canteloe. They left the two of them locked up in the room. The cottage is surrounded. It’s all over now, bar the shooting,” said Sir John grimly.
“Here’s what he called Plan A. And this is his double-cross, Plan B.”
“Yes,” said Sir John, after he had glanced through the second document. “I never suspected this. He was bigger, in his damnable way, than I reckoned. Shall I thank you all over again?”
“Don’t be a goose.” Georgia rubbed his oily sleeve affectionately. “You know, you look rather impressive as a platelayer. Is it a platelayer you’re meant to be? Do you know how to lay plates? I’m sure you do—you know everything. I—oh hell!——”
Georgia surprised them both by bursting suddenly and comprehensively into a flood of tears.
“There, darling, it’s all right, it’s all over and done with,” said Sir John, taking her into his arms. . . .
Later that morning she was travelling in a train through the Cotswolds. Her compartment was locked. One of Sir John’s men was sitting with her, another stood in the corridor outside. As she looked out of the window, it seemed to her that never in all her travels had she seen anything as beautiful as this country, the stone-built walls and villages, the hills modest in their brown-green winter dress. At one point the London road ran close beside the railway. Along this road, a few hours ago, had travelled a convoy of armoured cars—a common enough sight on the roads to-day, only that the guns of these cars were loaded and their crews alert in the turrets. Sir John Strangeways was taking no chances. Nothing short of an earthquake or an army brigade would stop him getting to London with the E.B. plans.
Georgia’s eyes returned to the countryside sweeping past. The little train puffed importantly along, hurrying to catch the express at Kingham. The hills unfolded, as if they were taking the train into their gentle arms. Hurry, train, hurry, thought Georgia. Nigel is waiting for me at Oxford. We mustn’t keep him waiting. Nearly a whole year now—that’s a long time out of one’s life. Will he look just the same! I’m safe, I’m safe, I’m safe! I’d forgotten what the word “safety” meant. We’re all safe, all the decent, ordinary, hard-working people, the people who make England. . . .
In the station yard at Oxford, ten minutes before the train was due, stood a sports-car, its engine ticking over. There were two men in it, men with thick necks and small, stupid, arrogant eyes. One of them played with the safety-catch of a revolver. They had driven up to the station after a telephone call had come through ordering them to get Georgia Strangeways at all costs.
One man had slipped through the cordon Sir John had thrown round the derelict cottage. Chilton Canteloe, on recovering consciousness and finding Georgia gone, knew that he was finished. The whole rancour of his defeat concentrated itself upon Georgia, who had turned all his plans and ambitions to dust. She, at least, should not live to enjoy her triumph. His last order to the E.B. was that Georgia Strangeways must be killed. He did not tell them the killing would be as pointless as a boy crushing an ant under his foot, though the manner of Georgia’s rescue left no doubt in his own mind that by now she must have passed the plans into other hands.
The man with the revolver glanced at his wrist-watch. “Due in any moment now,” he said. “Suppose we can get away O.K.? Seem to be a lot of people waiting about.”
“You plug this woman and I’ll do the rest. Getting cold feet, or what? They’ll not be expecting any one to start anything here. . . .”
The train slowed down along the platform. Standing at the window, Georgia could not see Nigel at all: there was such a crowd of undergraduates milling about. It must be a rag or something, she thought. Then a tall figure came thrusting down the platform. It was Nigel. For a moment they stood there, holding hands, beaming all over their faces, unable to say a word.
“Well, you got here all right,” Nigel got out at last. It was not one of the world’s most memorable sayings, but Georgia would never forget it.
“Yes. I got here. You’re looking very well. Oh, darling, I just can’t kiss you in front of all these young men. Why are they staring at me so? Is my hat on upside down?”
“Well, as a matter of fact they’re a kind of reception. For you. Just a little tribute to——”
“Nigel, I flatly refuse——”
“Come on, boys.”
A flat luggage-barrow, something like a coster’s cart, emerged from the crowd. Before Georgia could begin to protest, she was hoisted up by three pairs of arms and seated firmly in the barrow. Nigel pushed it towards the exit.
“Nigel, you devil, I’ll never forgive you for this,” she yelled at him: but her voice was drowned by the laughing, cheering mob of undergraduates, who formed a phalanx all round the barrow and marched out thus into the station yard, showering platform-tickets all over the bemused ticket-collector as they passed.
“What the devil’s all this?” exclaimed the man with the revolver to his companion in the red sports-car.
“There she is!” said the other. “That’s her! Make it snappy now!”
“Christ, I can’t shoot through that mob. They’d lynch us.” His revolver wavered in his hand, trying to find an opening amid the crowd that hemmed the barrow round.
Wheeling the barrow, regardless of his wife’s black looks, Nigel thought of the phone message he had received from his uncle early this morning. “They may try something on at Oxford,” Sir John had said. “One of them got away from my men, and Canteloe’s quite cross with Georgia. I can’t spare more than two men for a bodyguard, so you’d better see to it. If possible, she mustn’t know. She’s rather near the edge.”
Nigel had seen to it. He didn’t want Georgia to be alarmed. She’d been through enough already. So he had hit on the idea of an undergraduate rag and told his young cousin to organise it.
Georgia, fuming at this dreadful publicity, yet beginning to be infected by the wild hilarity of her escort and the ludicrousness of the whole situation, was wheeled out through the station yard, quite oblivious of the killer whose gun poked ineffectually at the crowd, only ten feet away from her body as they passed the red sports-car. Nor was she in a position to see Sir John’s two men, who had escorted her in the train and were now walking rather sheepishly at the tail of the procession, suddenly grow tense as they observed the cold glint of metal half concealed by the E.B. man’s gauntlet—grow tense, give each other one glance, swerve aside a little from the procession, and pounce on the occupants of the sports-car.
None of this did Georgia see. Down the station road they went, over the canal, across Cornmarket into the Broad, the crowd swelling every minute, windows opening in the staid college walls—a shouting, cheering, singing crowd, with the small, brown-eyed woman on the station-barrow quite lost in their midst. But Georgia was now enjoying herself. Yes, she was really enjoying her triumph. Bless you, Nigel, you crazy darling idiot. Bless you all.
CHAPTER XX
THE EPISODE OF THE LAST LAUGH
GEORGIA AND NIGEL were driving home to Devonshire. It was a week after her triumphal procession through the streets of Oxford. During this week, she had received communications from several Important Personages; they wished her to come to London and receive the thanks of the Nation from them, but she pleaded ill-health, preferring to stay with Nigel in the peace of Oxford. As a matter of fact, with her extraordinary resilience she had quickly overcome the effects of those last desperate days: the whole of this year now seemed to her a nightmare interlude in a normal life, and she did not wish to be reminded of it by the fulsome compliments of politicians whose own pusillanimity or self-interest were responsible for its having happened at all. She had performed her task, and wanted no thanks for something which should never have been necessary.
During this week Sir John Strangeways, with the speed of attack, the economy and the
decisiveness of a great general, broke the E.B. for good and all. There were a few sporadic outbreaks of violence up and down the country; but the E.B., leaderless and bewildered, forced prematurely into a rising that had already lost its heart, caved in quickly. Chilton Canteloe had made a fatal mistake in not launching the rebellion a week ago, when Georgia first escaped from his burning house. But, with Sir John out of action and Georgia’s recapture, as he believed, only a matter of hours, he had decided to keep his men in check. The arrangements for foreign intervention had not been wholly completed; and, like other dictators and would-be dictators, he was misled by vainglory and the flattery of subordinates into under-estimating the opposition.
During his first period of imprisonment, Chilton had leisure to meditate these mistakes. The thought was sufficiently disagreeable to break down the thin partition that had stood between him and madness. When the other leaders of the E.B. came up to stand their trial, Chilton was already tucked away in an asylum, where he spent much of his time playing with a mechanical race-game and a rocking-horse. . . .
Georgia leant her head against Nigel’s shoulder. The little car bumped and swayed up the lane towards their cottage, brambles scraping against its side. A plume of smoke rose out of their chimney, that appeared above the top of the unkempt hedge. Georgia felt weak with happiness: this home-coming was almost worth their year of separation and everything she had endured. Suddenly she put her hand to her mouth.
“Heavens, darling!” she exclaimed. “We forgot——”
She couldn’t go on. She gestured weakly towards the hedge, neatly pared on the far side, but rank and luxuriant all along the border of their own property.
“But Coombes was told to keep the garden tidy for me,” said Nigel.
“Poor old Coombes has a very literal mind. If you didn’t mention the hedge, he wouldn’t do the hedge.”
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