Dictator's Way

by E. R. Punshon

  He became aware of a new smell in the air. The land was flat now and he thought:

  “We’re getting near the sea – well, that’ll stop us.”

  Then he remembered that Peter Albert had spoken of possessing a yacht.

  “That’s it,” he thought to himself. “Silly,” he mused. “She means to warn him and she thinks they’ll be safe if they can get to sea.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. The big following car was still there. Olive was making straight for the sea, as if she meant to drive into it. But the road was curving now and soon they were rushing along by the shore, between the sea and the land. They came to a bridge, crossing a small creek. Over it, Olive slackened to a more reasonable speed. She went slower still. She brought her car to a standstill. The road was narrow here, sand on one side, an expanse of rough, coarse tangled grass on the other. She sounded her horn, a long blast and a short, a short and a long again. A signal evidently. She switched off her lights. When Bobby, jumping down from his cycle, ran to her car, he found it empty and of her there was no sign.

  “Miss Farrar,” he called and then: “Olive! Olive!”

  There was no answer. The big car that had followed them so far and so faithfully drew up at a little distance.

  Its powerful headlamps shone full on Bobby standing by Olive’s empty car.

  He shouted again.

  “Olive! Miss Farrar! Olive, where are you?”

  Darkness and silence. No other answer. Man might be able to laugh to scorn Nature’s will to forbid him those ecstasies of speed she allowed other of her creatures, but the night has still its power, not yet is it wholly conquered. In the towns indeed no longer is it permitted full sway, but out here, between the land and the ocean, man was as powerless against the deep and hidden night as ever were his primeval ancestors.

  Even the headlamps from the big following car had been switched off. He had an impression that its inmates had alighted, were approaching. The air, freed from the clamour of three engines, was full now of the gentler murmur of the breeze, of the sound of little waves lazily advancing, indolently retreating on the level sands of the shore.

  Bobby crouched down, putting his ear to the ground. He could hear cautious steps coming slowly along the road. He could make out, too, a group of three or four men vaguely outlined against the sky. They were coming silently, slowly, yet somehow with an air of purpose, too. Nor indeed was it likely they had come so far and so fast without a settled purpose and resolution clear in their minds. There was a threat, Bobby felt, in that slow and cautious approach of theirs, though nothing to show whether that threat was against him or against Olive – probably it would of necessity include them both.

  “Oh, all right, that’s O.K.,” he shouted. “Hurry along then. I’ll follow. Tell them to carry on and be quick back.”

  He could see that the approaching figures, barely visible against the skyline when he stooped, lost in the darkness when he stood up, paused to listen. He hoped they would wonder what his cry meant and for a moment hesitate and be confused. He began to run, as silently as he could, stooping low. At a little distance he stopped and lay down flat on the ground, to watch and listen. He supposed that if when Olive sounded her horn, as she had done when she stopped her car, she had really intended a signal, then soon there would be an answer of some sort.

  He had an idea, too, that the answer was one of which there would soon be desperate need – both for her and for him, he thought.

  Unless indeed her signal had not been one for help but merely to convey a warning. In that case all might be well in the sense that she might be making her escape in a darkness that would render pursuit almost impossible. Besides, she might know of some place of refuge near enough for her to reach it on foot.

  Anyhow, there was nothing he could do but lie still, wait, watch. Olive evidently did not mean to reply to his call, and in this darkness, in a neighbourhood probably more or less familiar to her but unknown to him, it was hopeless to attempt to find her, even had there not been the menace of these unknown pursuers who had followed them both and who must have some aim and intention of their own.

  “If I’m right no doubt of that,” Bobby thought, and supposed that if he was, there was little at which they were likely to hesitate.

  A body buried here in the sand, in this lonely spot, might not be found for years, perhaps never.

  Suddenly a Verey light sailed up into the air. It hung for a little, throwing a white radiance all around. Bobby, flat on his face, lay flatter still. He saw the sea in front. Behind were a few stunted trees and bushes and what seemed a stretch of open field. There was no sign of human habitation. By Olive’s deserted car stood a group of four men, clustered there and now all looking upward, as though taken by surprise at this sudden light that shone on them from the upper air. Bobby thought one or two of them had weapons in their hands but he was not sure.

  Of Olive, he could see nothing.

  At a little distance he saw another group of two or three men. They were standing together and one of them was extending a hand in the direction of the first group as if pointing them out.

  For a moment all this was visible. Then the light went out. Darkness came again. Bobby, listening, thought he heard quick footsteps, as of men hurrying along.

  But he could see nothing and then the sound of steps died away and all was quiet.

  CHAPTER 19

  BY THE SEA

  Heavy clouds drifting up from the west had gradually covered the whole sky, so that by now not a star showed and the darkness had become intense, oppressive, as by its own weight and the pressure of a coming storm. The headlamps of the big pursuing car had been turned off, too; nowhere was visible even a glimmer of light. If, as Bobby thought probable, a yacht was anchored near, she must be defying all the rules of the sea by showing no riding lamp.

  It was very quiet, too, for the breeze had died away, no longer stirring the grasses or the few scant trees by the faint murmur of its passage. Only the monotonous soft lapping of the small waves on the shore remained. Even all that multitude of tiny whisperings that make up the tremendous silence of the night had died away as beneath the menace of the approaching storm.

  Yet to Bobby this silence seemed a suspended thing. He was aware of an impression that at any moment it might break into clamour, shouting, uproar. To him the solemn, silent night seemed full of hidden movement, of invisible forms slipping to and fro upon evil errands. He felt as though he were sitting before a dark, impenetrable curtain that at any moment might roll aside to show strange happenings, happenings in which he ought to share and yet how could he when this wall of darkness and of silence cut him off? And behind all this lay what may best be described in contradictory terms as a heat of cold terror in his constant awareness that Olive Farrar was not far away – a warmth, for somehow there was a kind of glow in the mere consciousness of her proximity and simultaneously an ever-present chill of fear in his knowledge of the implications of her presence.

  There was nothing he could do but wait, listening, watching, alert for any hint of what might be going on around. Once he was aware of footsteps, light and hurrying, but they ceased and all again was still before he could be sure of their exact direction. Once, too, he heard someone sneeze. The explosion of a bomb could hardly have been more startling, and then again he thought there was a sound of cautious whispering on his right, only that now this seemed to come from his left. But then perhaps that might be someone else. He had experienced a strong desire to stand up and shout, to exhort those he knew were somewhere close by to show themselves, to explain what it was all about, to submit to the impartial ruling of the law.

  But to do that would be only foolishness, for here he knew were those who challenged and defied the laws that stood between them and their desire. Nor had he now at his command that force on which law must rely against the will of violent men.

  What he wondered most was whether these two groups he knew of, those who had followed himse
lf and Olive in their big pursuing car and those of whom he had caught a momentary glimpse before they sent up the Verey light, were searching for each other – or it might be endeavouring to avoid each other – and in what relation Olive stood to the one and to the other.

  Then, too, what had become of Olive?

  Hard to lie still and wonder like this tormented by so many doubts, and yet what else was there to be done?

  If, as he supposed, those of the Verey light group were Olive’s friends, then perhaps by now they had found her, or she them, and it might be that even at this moment a boat was conveying her out to some waiting yacht.

  He did not know whether he hoped this was so or not.

  It was of course possible that even in such bewildering darkness he might by persistent groping be able to find the road, rough as it was, that must run somewhere between him and the sea. Then, if he followed it by the way he had come, he would reach presently that stretch of it where Olive’s car, his cycle, the big pursuing car had all been left. But that would involve considerable risk of an encounter that would probably end all chance of securing any information as to the significance of these events – or at any rate any chance of being able to communicate that information to anyone else. Also, though this consideration he did not admit into his conscious mind, it would end any hope of being able to give any aid to Olive whom he must believe was mixed up somehow in very dangerous and unlawful happenings.

  Somehow, too, it seemed a small and even unimportant thing, here on this remote and solitary shore before the vast indifference of the sea, that he represented all the power and the majesty of the law man has made for his own protection and that counts for so little against the august lonely splendour of sea and land and sky.

  A soft, low voice from close behind, though he had heard no faintest sound to tell that anyone approached, murmured:

  “I can see you. Don’t move. If you do, I shall shoot you. I’ve got a pistol.”

  Bobby turned his head. He could see nothing but while he had been engrossed in his thoughts he had raised himself to a sitting position and so perhaps had become visible against the sky.

  “Is that you, Miss Farrar?” he said, and in spite of himself there was in his voice a kind of eager joy born of his knowledge that she had not yet joined her friends, vanishing with them beyond his reach and knowledge and yet leaving to him the duty of launching after her an inevitable, an unavoidable, an inexorable pursuit.

  She heard that strange tremor in his voice but she did not understand it, though vaguely it troubled her. She said:

  “I’ve got a pistol. I know how to shoot. I’ve learned. It’s quite easy.”

  “Oh, yes, quite,” agreed Bobby and oddly there flashed into his mind a familiar quotation:

  “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

  All the same a loaded pistol is apt to go off, anyone can pull a trigger, at point-blank range a hit is more likely than a miss.

  “You must promise,” she went on, “you’ll never say a word to anyone about what I told you. Or – or –”

  “Yes. Well?” he said.

  “I shall shoot,” she declared.

  He did not answer for a moment or two and he listened intently to her quick and uneven breathing.

  “Oh, well,” he said at last, “I suppose you mean about Mr. Albert?”

  “You’ll promise?” she asked.

  “Of course I won’t,” he snapped, “and mind what you’re doing with that gun. If it goes off – well, neither of us will ever get over it.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t care,” she said quickly. There was a touch of hysteria in her voice, he guessed she was at breaking point. Anything might happen. It was all very funny, he thought. But then life was a funny business at the best. At least, not life. It wasn’t life that was funny. Human beings. They got themselves into such odd fixes. This, for example. Here was the kind of girl whose normal, healthy, happy interests should be tennis, frocks, cream buns, the next dance, threatening to commit murder by a lonely shore in the darkness of the night. Incredible, of course. But there it was. Funny, too, that the girl was one who, from the first moment he had seen her, had roused in him an odd complication of feelings he had not yet had time even to attempt to understand or to analyse. Only into those feelings had never come a suspicion that some day she would be threatening to shoot him.

  “Why don’t you answer?” she said when still he did not speak. “You think I don’t mean it, I wouldn’t dare. I would, I will, I must, I’ve got to. You can spoil everything, ruin everything.”

  “I suppose everything means just him? muttered Bobby.

  “It means everything – oh, everything,” she answered. “Oh, more than you understand. Oh, why don’t you promise? If you... don’t...”

  Again that note of hysteria had come back into her voice. It had all been too much for her, he supposed. He realized that they were both in deadly danger – he, because very plainly she was in a mood in which she hardly knew what she was doing, she, because, if she did it, there would come a time when she would understand.

  “I suppose you care for him an awful lot?” he muttered gloomily.

  “Promise,” she repeated as if she knew no other word. “Promise.”

  “Miss Farrar,” Bobby answered then, “I don’t know exactly what all this is about, though from what we do know, I can make a pretty good guess. But that isn’t because of anything you said. Mr. Albert has a flat in the same building where Macklin lived. You were close by when Macklin was murdered.”

  “He wasn’t,” she said, “it wasn’t – like that. Not murdered.”

  Without heeding this, Bobby continued:

  “It’s not difficult to put things together. You were both in that restaurant, too – the ‘Twin Wolves’, I mean. It’ll have to go in my report. It wouldn’t make any difference if it didn’t. It’s all plain.”

  Olive’s voice had been rising as she forgot the necessity for caution. It had grown quite loud, a little shrill even, as she said:

  “You mustn’t – I mean any report. You think I’m just a girl. I don’t care, I’ve got to, I must. Nothing matters, nothing else. I mean you must promise.”

  “No,” he said, as she paused.

  “But you must, you’ve got to,” she insisted. “Oh, why won’t you understand? why won’t you believe –?”

  He did not answer this. A kind of bitter clarity of insight had come upon him so that he realized it was quite likely she might pull the trigger of her weapon at almost any minute. Women worked themselves up like that at times under the strain of strong emotion. They got one idea into their heads and it possessed them and they could think of nothing else. In a way it was a kind of perversion of the mother instinct. A mother with her baby was not meant to think of anything else, just as this girl now could think of nothing but the fear that filled her mind and her notion that it was for her to put right what she evidently still believed her words had been responsible for. And as he thought all this he fancied, too, that he heard again faint approaching steps and once or twice even a murmur of soft whispering. But whether it came from the right or the left he was still not sure, for first he thought it came from one side and then it seemed to be from the other direction – and yet was not that a new scraping sound, as of a cautious foot against a stone, from almost directly behind?

  He did not answer Olive. He was listening intently. He was certain someone was near – either by chance or in knowledge of their own proximity. He wondered who it was – the Verey light group of, presumably, Olive’s friends, or the group of those unknown pursuers of whose identity and purpose he had been able to form no idea? Whoever it might be, probably the sound of their voices as he and Olive talked, had betrayed their whereabouts.

  Silence came again, and Bobby thought that perhaps he had been mistaken or that those he had heard had merely been passing by, ignorant of their presence. Olive said:

  “You are making me have to shoot, I shall have
to. Our lives don’t matter –”

  “Well, they do to me,” Bobby interrupted and could not help adding:

  “Both yours and mine.”

  “I’ve got to, I’ve got to, I must, oh, why won’t you understand –?” she panted, in her voice terror and despair most oddly mingled with a kind of almost childish irritation.

  He put out his hand. It fell upon hers. He felt the pistol in her grasp. He took it from her. She did not attempt to resist. She said in a very surprised tone:

  “You’ve got my pistol.”

  “I don’t like the things,” he explained gravely and he flung it as far away as his strength permitted. He said: “You pull the trigger and it’s done for good. What are you crying for? There’s nothing to cry about. I wonder if you would really have fired?”

  “Yes, I would,” she answered with passion through her sobs. “Why didn’t I?”

  “Well, I’m jolly glad you didn’t,” he said. “For both our sakes. You would have hated it afterwards. You must think an awful lot of him. I would stop crying if I were you. I wish you would.”

  But the violence of her sobbing did not diminish. He put out his hand again and touched her gently. She shuddered away. He said once more:

  “Well, crying’s no good. I suppose those people who sent up that firework thing are friends of yours?”

  “They’ll kill you if they find you,” she muttered. “Unless you’ll promise...”

  “Bit fond of killing, aren’t they?” he suggested.

  “You and your law – you kill, too,” she retorted. “That’s true,” he agreed gravely. “All nature lives by killing, doesn’t it? A law of life, I suppose.” Then he said: “One man has been killed already – Macklin.”

  “It had to be,” she muttered, and then again with passion she said: “Not one man only – hundreds, thousands, little children, too. Spain, China, Africa, everywhere. What’s one more?”

  “Well, one more, I suppose,” he answered, and added: “They’re coming – someone. They’ve heard us, sure to. Listen. Will it be Mr. Albert and his friends?”