Sixty Days to Live

by Dennis Wheatley

  He shook her by the shoulder. ‘Look here, we’ll have to set off for Stapleton directly I get back from St. James’s Square with the car. It’s no good just flopping down like that with your clothes on. You must undress and get into bed so as to get as much real rest as possible out of the short time you’ve got.’

  Lavina blinked up at him wearily. ‘I can’t, Hemmingway. I’m too tired. I can hardly stand up.’

  ‘Now, do be sensible. It won’t take you a moment to slip out of your things.’

  She raised herself on one arm. ‘All right. If you’ll help me.’

  Hemmingway was not used to undressing young women. He was not in the least a prude but his complete lack of social life and his preoccupation with learning when young had kept him right out of the sphere of the girls in his own home town. While he had been struggling to earn his living in New York he had had an unfortunate affair with a girl who had let him down extremely badly; and it had gone so deep that for a long time afterwards he had studiously shunned all feminine advances. Since then, although he had met many pretty women in Sam’s company, his whole heart had been in his work. He and Sam travelled a certain amount but, even in the luxury resorts they sometimes visited, there were always big deals in progress, cables to be decoded, long-distance telephone calls coming through and schemes to be thought out for the development of this or that business, and Hemmingway never found himself particularly attracted to the elegant, but so often empty-headed, young women that he met in such places.

  Women, too, were a little frightened of him; yet, had they known the truth, he was much more frightened of them when they did attract him; so, while he was not actually cold, he had fallen into the habit of never attempting to go further with them than casual friendship. The fact was that he no longer thought about women as women and was so absorbed in Sam’s affairs that he had more or less drifted into the same sort of celibacy as that of a worldly priest who has fought and conquered all desire.

  Lavina caught the rather queer look on his face and, exhausted as she was, could not repress a flicker of amusement at his shyness. Her three years on the films had long since accustomed her to acting, often in the scantiest of costumes, before crowds of technicians and lookers-on. She was very proud of her beautiful body and rather liked to show it off whenever she could do so without positive immodesty; so it had not even occurred to her that Hemmingway would be embarrassed by helping her shed her outer garments.

  His hesitation was only momentary. As she slid off the bed and, crossing her arms, plucked at the hem of her frock he quickly took hold of it and pulled it over her head. Then, as she sank down again, he unlaced her shoes, took them off and helped her roll down her stockings.

  ‘Thanks. That’ll do,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll wriggle out of my body-belt somehow when you’ve gone; my chemise will have to do as a nightie.’

  He pulled out his gun and showed it to her. ‘Ever handled one of these things?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes, often in my film days but only with blanks.’

  ‘Right. It’s fully loaded. Just in case someone starts something while I’m away I’ll leave it with you; and you’d better lock the door. Don’t open it to anyone until I get back. The landlord seems a decent guy, but you never know in a place like this.’

  Turning his back to her he went over to the mantelpiece and scribbled a note on an odd piece of paper from his pocket. It ran:

  ‘I didn’t want to scare you unnecessarily but accidents are more frequent than usual these days. If it’s after midday when you wake and I’m not back you’ll know I’ve slipped up. In that case give the landlord his other ten shillings, go along to the docks and get yourself taken on one of the ships. There were so many prisoners that they’re certain to be still evacuating people then. I’ll have to be a hospital case or in the can myself before I fail you; but, if I have to, best of luck!

  H.H.’

  He laid the message and a little wad of pound-notes under the automatic. When he turned again Lavina had already crawled between the sheets and was just dropping off to sleep, but he roused her up and made her get out of bed for a moment to ensure her locking the door after him.

  ‘Happy dreams!’ he said with a smile. ‘I’ll be back in less than a couple of hours and we’ll be off to the country.’

  ‘Bless you!’ she said, and closed the door behind him.

  Out in the street Hemmingway set off at a brisk pace westward. Although he had been up all night, finding Lavina had acted as a tonic to him and, after the frowsty atmosphere of the public house bedroom, the fresh morning air lent him new strength.

  Outside a church a hoarding which bore the legend, IF YOUR KNEES KNOCK TOGETHER KNEEL ON THEM, caught his eye and he took off his mental hat to the stout-hearted parson who was sticking to his ship with such an appropriate slogan nailed to the mast. Except where they were still evacuating cases from the East End Maternity Hospital few people were moving in the streets and the Commercial Road seemed interminable, but at last he reached Whitechapel High Street and there he saw an event which gave him furiously to think.

  One of the very few private cars he had seen that morning was coming down it, moving east, when a group of toughs ran out into the roadway in front of it. The car slowed up. The people in it, who appeared to be a middle-class family, were unceremoniously pulled out and, piling into it, the six or eight roughs drove off, leaving its owner cursing in the gutter.

  It was quite understandable that East Enders should be just as anxious as anyone else to get out of London to the greater safety of the countryside but a little disconcerting to find that some of them were using such high-handed methods. He might be faced with the same sort of trouble himself when he drove back to pick up Lavina; so he determined that directly he entered the East End he would ignore all limits and lights. The police were much too occupied to bother about motoring offences and it was better to risk a crash than the loss of the car.

  In Cannon Street he was lucky enough to strike a convoy of food lorries proceeding West which had just collected a supply of fish from Billingsgate, and seizing his chance as the last one rumbled by he ran out into the roadway, caught the tailboard and pulled himself up on to the load of boxed fish.

  The lorries turned right, east of St. Paul’s, into Newgate Street and rumbled through Holborn, so Hemmingway guessed that they were probably heading for Hyde Park. As they passed the top end of Bond Street he dropped off and, with renewed energy after his free ride, strode out down it towards Piccadilly.

  It was five to seven when he arrived at St. James’s Square. Letting himself in with his key, he went straight upstairs to his bedroom to rouse Derek; but directly he opened the door he saw that Derek was no longer there.

  He was not in the bathroom either, and his clothes had gone; so, after having visited the kitchen and called his name loudly several times, Hemmingway concluded that he must have left the house.

  Derek was a countryman and used to early rising; moreover, he had passed most of the previous day asleep in the Park. Evidently he had woken about six, found himself much better after his night in bed and felt too restless to remain indoors; but Hemmingway was justifiably annoyed, because he had definitely told him that he was not to go out.

  Now he had, it meant either waiting for his return, which would delay picking up Lavina and getting away into the country, or having to leave him behind.

  It was on coming up from the kitchen that Hemmingway noticed a letter addressed to himself propped up on the hall table. He tore it open and read:

  ‘I’m still feeling pretty groggy but better after a good sleep. I can’t stay here doing nothing, though, as I’m so terribly worried about Lavina. I’m going out to see if I can find her and, if I don’t have any luck, I’ll get back this evening round about ten o’clock. If you haven’t had any either, we’ll consult then as to the best thing to do; but, if one of us has run her to earth in the meantime, we can all drive down to Stapleton to-night.

  D.B.�
��

  Hemmingway rarely gave way to temper but, as he tore the note slowly across, his eyes were narrowed and his teeth were clenched. If Derek had been there he would have hit him, his annoyance was so intense. The whole wretched muddle had been Derek’s fault in the first place, for not having been firm with Lavina at the Dorchester two nights before; and now he had messed everything up again.

  If Hemmingway was not back at the ‘Main Brace’ by midday and Lavina woke to find his note, she would at once assume that some accident had befallen him and, leaving the pub, go down to the docks where all trace of her would be lost again.

  There was only one thing for it. Lavina was the person who mattered; not Derek. He must darned well take care of himself; it was his own funeral now how he got out of London. Going into the lounge, Hemmingway wrote a brief note himself:

  ‘I have found Lavina but I had to leave her at a pub in the East End. If I’m not back there by midday with the car, she’ll read a note I left, think something has happened to me and, according to instructions, go off on her own. If you had remained here as I told you to, this mess-up would not have occurred. As it is, I’m afraid you’ll have to get down to Stapleton on your own as best you can.

  H. H.’

  He propped it up on the table in the hall, where Derek’s note had been, collected the satchel of private papers from his room and, leaving the house, went round to the mews at the back to get his car.

  As he pulled out his key to unlock the garage door he noticed with sudden apprehension that the lock on it had been broken. Pulling the door open, he saw that the car had gone. Scrawled in chalk on the inner side of the door were the words: ‘I hope you don’t mind, I’ve borrowed your car. Derek.’

  Mopping his brow with his pocket handkerchief Hemmingway damned Derek to all eternity.

  16

  LAVINA SHOOTS TO KILL

  It was still only a little after seven so Hemmingway had at least the consolation that he had plenty of time to get back to Lavina before midday, even if he had to walk the whole distance.

  His stolen lift on the lorry coming up had enabled him to do the journey in just under an hour and he could cover the six odd miles back on foot in two hours, or less if he hurried; but the problem now was, how the devil was he going to get Lavina to the country without a car?

  Any attempt to hire one was out of the question. All the hire companies and taxi-cabs had been taken over by the Government for the purposes of the evacuation, while practically everybody who had a private car and was not detained in London on some official duty had used it to get his own family away; so, apart from vehicles in use by the various Services, London now was virtually stripped of motor transport.

  Yet Hemmingway knew that he could not expect Lavina to walk the thirty odd miles from the East End of London to Stapleton. She was a healthy girl and, although she was much too lazy and uninterested in sport to make a fetish of exercise, the activities demanded by her film work had kept her fit, so that in normal circumstances she might conceivably have made the journey; but definitely not right on top of the strain and exhaustion of the last two days.

  Like those modern military experts who are sometimes haunted by the thought of their entire forces being immobilised by a petrol shortage, Hemmingway pondered for a moment on the possibility of finding horses, only to realise immediately that all horse-drawn vehicles had also been pressed into service to aid in the evacuation. Fortunately, however, he possessed a sense of humour, and the mental picture of himself driving a hansom cab down to the East End did much to mitigate his mounting exasperation.

  There was only one thing for it. Derek had borrowed his car so he must borrow, or rather steal, somebody else’s. He did not like the idea a little bit, although it was not the moral aspect of the matter that troubled him. In such an emergency he considered that he would be perfectly justified in doing all sorts of things that he would never have dreamed of in normal times.

  What did perturb him was the fact that, having evacuated the Capital, the Government’s principal concern now was to prevent looting. He had listened-in to the stringent regulations issued over the wireless on the previous day. As the country was under martial law, any persons discovered attempting to break into enclosed premises, or in the act of looting, were to be summarily dealt with by courts martial and, if they attempted to resist arrest, the police and troops had authority to fire upon them.

  If he endeavoured to steal a car and got caught in the act, that would be the end of any hope of collecting Lavina and getting her down to Stapleton. Yet he saw that he must take the risk.

  The next thing was, where was there any likelihood of there being a car which he might annex? He could go to one of the Government depots, try bluffing the people in charge into believing that he was an A.R.P. warden and, perhaps, get a car in that way; but the odds seemed pretty heavy against such a scheme succeeding, and, anyhow, he didn’t like it. The idea of stealing a Government vehicle which might later be needed for saving lives went too much against the grain.

  Every motor showroom and public garage had already been cleared of its contents, so the only other line seemed to be a car which somebody might have left in a private lock-up. Such vehicles, he knew, were now very few and far between but there must be some which their owners still had under lock and key either because, like himself, their departure had been delayed or because they happened to have been out of England when the crisis had arisen.

  He realised then that the most likely place to find such a laid-up car was right in the mews where he was standing. In ordinary times, at this hour of the morning, the chauffeurs would have been just getting up and starting to clean their cars for the day’s work, but there wasn’t a single person stirring in the mews at the moment nor any sound proceeding from the flats above the garages. In nearly all of them the blinds were drawn and there was little doubt that most of the chauffeurs and their families had left London with their employers. Yet only the very rich can afford to live in the mansions of St. James’s Square and very rich people nearly always possess several cars. Sam, for example, had four. It was, therefore, quite on the cards that one of the neighbours might have left behind at least one of his cars.

  Hemmingway promptly began to hunt round in his mind for the person in the block whose garage would offer the best prospects for raiding. On the right lived Lord Allenfield, the great newspaper magnate. His legion of secretaries and hangers-on would have seen to it that all his cars were utilised for some purpose or other. The next house was empty. On the left lived Charlotte, Countess of Duffeldown, an old lady of eighty. Her only vehicle, Hemmingway was almost certain, was an incredibly aged Rolls and he had seen her drive away in it, with mountains of luggage, two days before. But the next one on the left offered much better prospects. It belonged to Julius Guggenbaum, the South African millionaire. He had been in South Africa for the last three months and, as he was a bachelor, the house had been shut up on his departure; so there seemed a really good chance that he might have left one or more cars laid up in his garage.

  Hemmingway looked anxiously up and down the mews and stood listening intently for a moment, but the silence of the early morning remained unbroken.

  Pulling the steel case-opener from under his rope-ladder belt he inserted it under the hinge of the padlock on Mr. Julius Guggenbaum’s garage door. Forcing it down he threw all his weight upon it and wrenched out the screws.

  He had hardly done so when a voice called: ‘Hi!’

  Turning, he saw two policemen entering the north end of the mews. His impulse was to run, but the mews was not a long one and the policemen were only about a hundred yards away. Even if he could outdistance them they would blow their whistles as they gave chase. It was almost certain that before he could elude them in the deserted streets he would be headed off by police arriving from other directions. With an effort of will he controlled his impulse and, turning, walked towards the rapidly-advancing constables.

  ‘Well! What is
it?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘That garage door,’ said one of the officers. ‘We observed you breaking the lock.’

  ‘Yes. What about it?’

  They were a little taken aback by his self-assurance but the other man braced himself and said firmly:

  ‘You know the emergency regulations. It’s a serious matter breaking into places these days. We shall have to take you into custody and hand you over to the Military.’

  Hemmingway laughed, although he did not feel at all like laughing. ‘You’ll look a pretty couple of fools if you do. There’s no law to stop a man breaking into his own premises, is there?’

  ‘Well, of course, that’s different,’ conceded the spokesman of the pair, ‘but you’ll have to satisfy us that this is your garage.’

  ‘Certainly,’ Hemmingway smiled. ‘Actually, it’s Sir Samuel Curry’s; but I’m his secretary. Sir Samuel left for the country yesterday but I had to stay behind to sort out his papers.’ He held up the fat satchel. ‘Unfortunately, he was so busy when he left that he forgot to hand over the key of the garage, so I’ve had to break it open to get out my own car.’

  ‘I see. That sounds all right. But you won’t mind our asking, sir, just in the way of duty, to give us some proof that you really do belong here.’

  ‘Not a bit. The best proof I can offer you is to suggest that you come round to the house with me and have a drink. I dare say you chaps could do with one, now you’re on duty day and night like this.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, sir.’ The constable glanced at his companion. ‘We’re living in strenuous times these days so we don’t mind if we do.’

  Hemmingway led them back to the house; praying as he did so that it would not occur to them to count the number of garages in the mews and tumble to it that the Curry mansion did not back on to the garage that he had been caught breaking into.

  Having let them into the house he filled two glasses two-thirds full of whisky and added a splash of soda to each. Then, with his back to his guests, he mixed himself another in almost the opposite proportions. He had entertained police officers before on a few occasions, and had a fair idea of their capacity. He was not disappointed. Both of them swallowed their drinks without turning a hair.