Traitor's Purse (21 page)

‘I’m afraid there’s some trouble,’ he remarked. ‘The police are looking for someone on the train.’

‘Oh?’ Now that it had come Campion was himself again. His thin face became wooden and his voice entirely natural. ‘What do they want us to do?’

Once again there was a murmur from the official in the darkness. The old man nodded briefly.

‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Very sensible. They’ve shut off the main platform,’ he continued, turning to Campion. ‘This last coach is just outside the barrier. The fellow here suggests he takes our tickets for us and we go across the footway to the road. You’ll want a cab, won’t you?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Right. Well then, this is where we part. Good morning to you. I enjoyed our chat. I’m afraid it was all about nothing.’

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Campion and followed him into the grey darkness.

It was incredible. He had no time to realize his escape. It was like one of those wild rides in a switchback in a funfair. A blank wall looms up in front of the car. Nearer it comes, nearer and nearer, and then when the crash is imminent, when the impact and noise of it is almost a reality, the track swings away, the car swerves sickeningly, the corner is turned, and the delirious journey continues.

He stumbled across the platform, which was littered with goods trolleys, milk churns, and mailbags. On his right, beyond the police-lined barrier, there was all the usual confusion of arrival. The detectives were waiting farther on at the ticket gate, no doubt. Meanwhile his own getaway was made absurdly easy. No one took the least notice of him. The railway official led the old man and Campion followed the pair of them. That was all there was to it.

He thought he saw exactly what must have happened. His travelling companion was obviously a constant passenger on this particular train. Probably he had used it every day for the past ten years or more. Railway servants get to know a man like that and if he is a good tipper will go to endless trouble on his behalf. He must have been in the habit of using the final coach and doubtless this was his regular porter who was waiting to meet him.

They came out at last on to a narrow road on the goods side of the station. The old man’s car was waiting for him and he nodded to Campion as he climbed into it. A taxi crawled forward out of the darkness.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘The Treasury,’ said Campion briefly and climbed inside.

The cab moved forward at once. There was no questioning, no delay, no pause at the station gates. He could hardly believe it. He had got away as neatly and smoothly as if he had been a ghost. It was an invigorating experience and he began to feel absurdly pleased with himself. The gods were on his side. He glanced out of the window and saw the chill grey outline of shabby old buildings, piled sandbags, and painted road-signs. The streets were practically deserted.

A sudden thought occurred to him and he rapped on the window. The taxi drew into the curb and the driver turned to peer through the glass screen.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘What time is it?’

‘Just on a quarter before five, sir.’

‘In the morning?’

‘Lumme! I ’ope so. Otherwise I’ve been drivin’ back through Einstein ever since the pubs shut last night.’

Campion ignored the pleasantry. He was thinking. Even if he was half-way down the straight to Colney Hatch he yet had enough sense to realize that no Cabinet Minister is liable to be available at his office before five in the morning.

‘You’d better take me to a hotel,’ he said.

The driver, who was in a ferocious mood, shrugged his shoulders elaborately.

‘Just as you say, sir. Got any particular place in mind?’

‘No. Anywhere will do as long as it’s open. I want to shave and get some breakfast.’

The cabby beamed. He was an elderly cockney, with the bright little eyes and thin rodent’s face of his race.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘since you’re not paying your income-tax for the moment, I see, what about the Ritz?’

‘I’ve got no luggage.’

‘’Strewth!’ said the driver. ‘I’d better take you ’ome and give you a nice brush-up myself. Sorry, sir, it’s the morning air on an empty stomach. What about this place ’ere? You’re outside it; that’s in its favour.’

Campion looked at the gloomy façade across the pavement. A porter in shirt-sleeves was sweeping down the steps and at that moment a policeman sauntered over to speak to him.

‘No.’ Campion did not mean to sound so vehement. ‘Somewhere more – more central.’

‘Right you are, sir.’ The cockney was looking at him very curiously. ‘It would help me if you’d give me an idea. Can’t you think of anywhere you’d like to go, sir?’

‘The Cecil would do.’ It was the first name to come into his mind and it was unfortunate.

‘You’re not by any chance Rip Van Winkle junior, are you, sir? The Cecil’s been pulled down some little time now. Must be close on twenty years.’

‘Oh well, take me anywhere. Anywhere where there’s a lot of people.’

The policeman had given up chatting to the janitor and was looking their way. The driver cocked an eye at his fare and an indescribably cunning expression flickered over his face.

‘You want a nice railway-station hotel, that’s what you want,’ he said. ‘Leave it to me.’

He drove off at a great rate and finally deposited Campion at a great terminus in Wyld Street, behind Charing Cross.

‘You’ll be safe and comfy ’ere,’ he said as he undressed himself to get change for a pound note. ‘Cosmopolitan that’s what it is. Lost in a crowd, that’s what you’ll be.’ And he winked as he took the tip.

There was no mistaking his suggestion. As Campion saw him drive off his old panic returned. He had given himself away by flunking the first policeman. Of course he had! These damned Londoners were too smart. They saw too much. Their experience of human nature was boundless. Probably even now the fellow was scuttling away to the nearest police station to take a list of wanted persons. That ruled his hotel out and he’d have to go somewhere else.

Better not pick up another cab here, either.

He walked away and crossed Trafalgar Square, cutting down behind the National Gallery into the narrow streets beyond. The light was growing rapidly and the great friendly shabby old city was beginning to sit up and stretch itself like a tramp who has been asleep on a park bench.

He found a big tea-shop, finally, and went inside and bought himself some breakfast. The food restored him considerably. He was surprised to find how much he needed it and how much more intelligent he became after eating it. He began to see some things with painful clarity. If he was to get any help from Sir Henry Bull he must get it at once before any news from Bridge reached that distinguished gentleman. That was evident. The thing to do was to get hold of him at once, at his private house. If he turned out to be as worried as Oates had been then he should have the full story and the personal consequences could not be helped. The one vital consideration at the moment was to reach someone in real authority before the police held everything up by arresting him and letting the law take its majestic course.

There was a directory in the telephone booth at the entrance but the name was not in it, which was not extraordinary since public men do not often advertise their private numbers. Campion began to feel his disadvantage again. London confused him. The city had the same effect on him as Amanda had in the beginning. He knew that he knew it very well indeed. It smiled at him and comforted him. But its face was just outside his present powers of memory. Whole streets were gloriously familiar but they had no names for him and no definite associations. His only way of getting about was by taxi. The drivers knew the way if he did not.

It was confusing and it took a lot of time, but in the end he got what he wanted. He accepted his disability and set about circumnavigating it with a dogged patience which was characteristic of him. One cab took him to the nearest public library, where he consulted a battered
Who’s Who
. The man was there all right.
BULL, the Rt Hon. Henry
Pattison
, Kt created
1911,
M.P. Honorary Member of the Universities of Oxford, St Andrews’, Leeds. Senior Master of Bridge
.

Senior Master of Bridge. The words stared out of the tiny print at him, enlarging themselves before his eyes. What a fool! What a trebly mentally defective cretin! Of course. Miss Anscombe had told him that he already knew that the Masters were holding their meeting on the fourteenth. The man must have been there in the very town he himself had fled from. Probably even now he was tucked up in Mr Peter Lett’s best bed.

A sense of despair swept over him. He was beset, benighted, hag-ridden by his own horrible insufficiency. The gods were bouncing him on their great knees, saving him one minute, only to dash him within an inch of the abyss the next.

His eye travelled to the end of the paragraph, ignoring the impressive list of highlights in a useful career. The address was there, 52 Pytchley Square, W. He looked at it dubiously. It seemed scarcely worth while going there in the circumstances.

He decided to try it finally, because he could think of no alternative.

He reached the Square by taxi, which he dismissed as soon as he caught sight of the plane trees, continuing the journey on foot. The tall houses looked strangely virginal and unprotected without their iron trimmings. He could not understand what was missing at first, but when it came to him and he realized the reason for this nudity all the old fighting anger returned to his heart, coupled with the now familiar sense of impending disaster and the urge for haste. London’s railings, her secret private little defences, were torn away to feed the big guns.

But what was this other danger which threatened her? What was this swift peril which drew so close and which he was floundering so desperately to defeat?

He saw the house across the corner. Very neat it was, and sober, with a polished number on the plum-coloured door and demure net curtains in the windows.

He was bearing down upon it when he saw the two men. One of them rose from the edge of the sandbin where he had been sitting under a tree in the Square and sauntered forward.

Police. Of course. All these public men’s houses had police guards these days. Why should he have forgotten that?

He wondered if his description had already been circularized to every plain-clothes man in the country. He wished he were less conspicuous and less shabby from his roof climbing. The man was coming directly towards him. He was going to be stopped and questioned. He could see the fellow’s face now clearly and he was grinning sheepishly, blast him. It was a ‘fair cop’, was it? What should he do? Run for it and have all London at his heels?

It was the little mock salute which stopped him, that and the man’s obvious embarrassment.

‘Sergeant Cook, sir,’ said the stranger, his smile twisting wryly. ‘You’ve forgotten me, I expect. Any news of the Guv’nor, sir?’

The sincerity of his anxiety outweighed everything else. It had a force of its own which was sufficient to kindle an answering spark from Campion’s imprisoned mind.

‘Oates?’ he enquired. ‘No, I haven’t seen him.’

The man shrugged his shoulders expressively. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it at all.’

They stood there for a moment in silence and Campion glanced up at number 52.

‘I want to see Sir Henry Bull,’ he said slowly, hardly trusting his voice. ‘Can you fix it?’

Sergeant Cook gave him an astonished glance and Campion saw that he had made a mistake. Obviously his right move would have been to have walked up to the front door and given his name in the ordinary way. He set about covering his tracks.

‘I want a word or two with him in private. I don’t have to explain, do I?’ he said.

He sounded pretty mysterious to himself but to his relief the Sergeant responded, although he glanced at him sharply under his lashes.

‘I get you, sir. There’s a side door on the left of the area there. It leads through to the yard at the back. Will you wait in that passage?’

Campion followed him and entered the side gate. He was waiting in the little alley inside when at last the man reappeared. He came creeping in through the high latticed gate from the yard and beckoned.

‘Okay,’ he said with some satisfaction. ‘Come round this way, will you, sir? Been tailed, sir?’

‘I rather think so. Thank you. I – er – I shan’t forget this, Sergeant.’

‘That’s all right, sir. This way.’

They passed through a warm little servants’ hall, where a couple of maids eyed them inquisitively, ascended a back staircase, crossed a flagged inner hall, and finally reached a white-panelled door.

‘He’s having a late breakfast,’ whispered the Sergeant, ‘but he’s alone. Lady Bull has just left him.’

He knocked and listened.

‘There you are, sir,’ he added and opened the door.

Campion went into a small bright room which glowed with flowers and smelt pleasantly of coffee. A breakfast table was set in the window and a man in a dressing-gown sat at it with his back to the door. He turned at the sound of the latch and smiled affably at his visitor.

‘Hallo, my boy,’ he said. ‘I half expected you.’

Campion said nothing. The world was reeling dangerously and he felt his scalp contract.

It was the old man he had met in the train coming up.

XVII

THE EYES WHICH
had glittered so disconcertingly in the blue reading-light in the train were equally shrewd and uncomfortably penetrating at the breakfast table. Campion looked at them helplessly. This was disaster. This was defeat.

He was taken so completely off his balance that he could not trust himself to speak. His lean tight-skinned face was expressionless.

The old man indicated a chair on the other side of the table.

‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Have some coffee. Don’t look at me like that. I know I’ve been very obtuse.’

Campion blinked. He began to feel impervious to surprise. He sat down obediently but did not dare to open his mouth.

Sir Henry Bull cleared his throat. He looked very uncomfortable.