To The Devil A Daughter

`That's done it; but you have got big hands for a girl, haven't you?'

She flushed to the roots of her hair and retorted angrily, `Yes! And large feet, and a snub nose; so you're jolly lucky not to have got me for keeps.'

His eyes showed surprise and immediate contrition. `Damn it all, Christina!' he exclaimed. Then, putting out both hands, he took her by the shoulders and looked straight in her face. `I didn't mean to be rude. I swear I didn't! You've got the loveliest eyes I've ever seen, and if you only knew it, that funny nose of yours is one of your best features. It gives you an individuality that awfully few girls have got.'

`You don't mean that. You are just trying to be nice to me now, to make up for having been unintentionally nasty.'

`I do mean it. And your lips are as soft as any I have ever kissed.' He smiled suddenly. `You know, when one gets engaged to a girl it is usual to kiss her. That's always done, even in boy and girl affairs that are not intended to come to anything.' Next second, before she had a chance to resist, he slipped his arms round her, pulled her to him, and kissed her firmly on the mouth.

For a long moment she lay passive in his embrace, then he withdrew his lips, smiled down at her and said, `You are not doing your best, darling. That's not a patch on the kisses you gave me the other night.'

Instantly she pulled away from him. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she cried, `How horrid of you to remind me of that!'

`Why?' he asked, momentarily at a loss. `You are the same girl, and there is nothing to be ashamed of in what you did.'

`I was not myself then, and you know it.'

He gave a little shrug. `If you take my advice, then, should a chap ever make love to you seriously and you want him for a husband, you will let him kiss you only when you are, as you put it, not yourself.'

Christina's cheeks were scarlet as she murmured unhappily, `But it isn't normal. It's not decent. No girl could do that sort of thing and not be ashamed of it afterwards at least not until she was married.'

Smiling slightly, John shook his head. `My dear, I'm sure you really believe that, but you are talking the most utter rot. I give you my word of honour that grown up people who are going places together nearly always kiss that way even when they haven't the faintest intention of getting married. There is no harm in it, and it's part of the fun of life. You might just as well say that, because as children we have no urge to smoke or drink, it is wicked of us to take to it when we get older. Learning to kiss properly, and enjoying it, is just one of the normal processes of becoming a man or a woman. You did enjoy being kissed by me the other night, didn't you?'

`Yes,' Christina whispered. `I'... I ... of course I did.'

`Then stop being a baby, and let me kiss you again.' As he spoke, he drew her gently into his arms and this time kissed her parted lips.

From the distance came the faint clink of metal against small stones as a peasant hoed one of his terrace plots, and once a seagull circled overhead; but no one came to disturb them. John sat with his back against the bole of the tree, his right arm round Christina, and her head lay on his shoulder. Few, places could have been nearer the ideal for a first lesson in kissing, and once Christina let herself go she proved an apt pupil; but John was careful to keep matters on the level of a game not to be taken seriously. He had set out to take the girl's mind off the grim anxieties which he knew must lie at the back of it. That he had succeeded was clear, and he was thoroughly enjoying the process, but he said nothing which she could take as an indication that he was falling in love with her, as he feared that being so inexperienced she might think him in earnest and later, perhaps, suffer from disappointment.

As the sunny afternoon wore on they became drowsy and, still embraced, fell asleep. John was the first to wake and, glancing at his wrist watch, saw that it was after five o'clock. With a gentle kiss he aroused Christina, and said

`Wake up, my pretty. It's time for us to be going. We ought to have started before, really.'

As she disentangled herself and began to tidy her hair she shivered and replied, `Yes, I suppose we ought. Although the sun is still shining, it has turned quite cold.'

`At this time of the year it always does at this hour. The sun loses its power and the wind changes, bringing the icy currents down from the snow on top of the mountains. More elderly people die of pneumonia on this coast than anywhere else in the world. They only have to once forget to take an overcoat with them if they are going to be out after five o'clock, and they've had it. I don't wonder you're chilly in that light frock. Come on now! We'll step out and get your circulation going.'

She stood up and brushed down her skirt, while he crammed the empty bottle and glasses back into the basket. Two minutes later they were on their way down the hill, but its steepness prevented their pace from being much faster than that at which they had come up; so it was well past six when they arrived back at Christina's villa to collect the things she had packed that morning.

John carried the suitcase across, and in Molly's sitting room they found her with Colonel Verney. He was a tall, rather thin, man, and, as he stood up to be introduced to Christina, would have appeared to be even taller but for a slight stoop that was habitual to him. His hair was going grey, parted in the centre, and brushed smoothly back. His face was longish, with a firm mouth and determined chin; but the other features were dominated by the big aggressive nose that had earned him the nickname of Conky Bill or, as most of his friends called him for short, C. B. His eyebrows were thick and prawn like. Below them his grey eyes had the curious quality of seeming to look right through one. He usually spoke very quietly, in an almost confidential tone, and gave the pleasing impression that there were very few things out of which he did not derive a certain amount of amusement.

To Christina he said, `Well, young lady, I hear you are being pursued by bad men, but I usually eat a couple for breakfast; so you must lead me to them. Perhaps we can have a little talk after dinner, then I'll have a better idea how to set my traps.'

Christina smiled in reply. `I don't think there is much I can tell you that I haven't already told Mrs. Fountain, but I'll answer any questions you like.'

Taking her by the arm, Molly said, `Come along, my dear. Last night we had to pop you into bed just anyhow; so I'll come up with you to your room and see that you have everything you want.'

C. B. and John had already smiled a greeting at one another; so the latter followed the two women out of the room with Christina's bag. When he returned two minutes later, the tall Colonel said

`Well, young feller! How's the world been treating you?' `I've no complaints, sir, thanks,' John replied cheerfully. `And it's very nice to have you with us again.'

`To tell you the truth, I was delighted when your mother rang up. I was due to spend the next few days getting out a lot of tiresome statistics, and it gave me just the excuse I needed to unload the job on to one of my stooges.'

`I'm very glad you could come, sir. This seems a most extraordinary business, and I can't make head or tail of it.'

`You mean the Black Magic slant to it, eh? Well, I don't suppose you would. Those boys are experts at keeping their lights under bushels; so the general public rarely hears anything about them except from an occasional article appearing in the press, and they generally write that off as nonsense.'

`May I give you another drink, sir? Then perhaps you would tell me something about it.'

`Do, John.' C. B. began to refill a very clean, long stemmed pipe. `Mine's a gin and French. But why so much of the “sir” all of a sudden? I know I'm an old fogey, but you've known me long enough to call me C. B. You always used to when you were a little chap.'

John grinned. 'Ah! But I've done my military service since then, and we were taught that we should always call the Colonel “sir” at least three times before slapping him on the back.'

`Not a bad precept either. Come and sit down, and tell me what you make of this girl Christina, and the set up next door.'

`I don't think there is much to tell about her villa.' John handed the Colonel his drink, then perched himself on the sofa. `The old gardener who looks after the place and caretaker when it is empty has been there for years. Maria, the Catalan borne, is a rather surly type, but as she was engaged by Christina's father there doesn't seem any reason to suppose that there is anything fishy about her. We know definitely now that the de Grasses are simply acting as the Canon's agents, but. ..'

`How do you know?' put in C. B. quietly.

`Because Jules de Grasse told me so himself,' John replied, and went on to give an account of the visit he had received that morning.

`Sounds good enough on the face of it,' commented the Colonel. `All right. Carry on.'

`I was only going to add that, while we haven't the ghost of an idea why the Canon wants to get hold of Christina, I believe we would be more than half way to solving the whole problem if we could find out what is wrong with the girl herself.!

'Good reasoning, John. Your mother is convinced that it is a case of possession : but what do you think?'

`I'm damned if I know. There can be no question about these changes in her personality. I've seen them for myself. During the day time she is a nice kid straightforward, good natured, and as far as worldliness goes you wouldn't put her age as much over seventeen. But at night she becomes utterly different bold, sensual as a cat and, according to her own account, evil minded and malicious. If we were still living in mediaeval times I suppose one would regard possession by the Devil as a perfectly reasonable explanation; but it is a bit much to swallow in these days, isn't it?'

`For you, perhaps; but not for me. I've seen scores of such cases, John; and at this very moment there are hundreds of people in our asylums whose apparent lunacy is really due to an evil spirit or, to call it by its right name, which I prefer, a demon having got into their bodies.'

`Well,' John gave a faint smile, `as you and Mother are both so positive that such things still happen I suppose I must accept it that they do. But if what you say about the asylums is correct, why is no attempt ever made to get the devils out of all these poor wretches?'

`Because the modem medicos refuse to recognise the facts. Even if they did they wouldn't know how to set about it; and for that matter very few other people would either.'

`When Mother and I were talking about it last night, she seemed to think you would.'

`Lord bless you, no ! I'm no exorcist. I've never dabbled in Magic Black or White in my life. I regard it as much too dangerous.'

`Does that mean you won't be able to do anything for Christina?'

`That depends.' Conky Bill's voice became low and slightly conspiratorial. `If I can get a half Nelson on the Black who has bewitched her, I could. Even a few facts about minor breaches of the law might enable me to pull a fast one. There is nothing that these birds dislike so much as the police taking an interest in their affairs, and given something to go on there would be a good chance for me to exert enough pressure on them to get the spell taken off.,

'You think Mother's right, then, about her having been bewitched?'

`I am accepting that theory for the moment!

'But why in the world should they pick on a girl like Christina? She has never been mixed up in spiritualism, or anything of that kind.!

'Ask me another, young feller. But I expect we shall find that there is a tie up of some sort. On the other hand, any girl who has so few intimate relationships is always particularly vulnerable. Nine times out of ten they are the ones who disappear; because they have no friends and relatives to start a hue and cry about them. If those people at the place where she was at in Paris had been crooks, she might have been shipped off to Buenos Aires, and her father would have been none the wiser for months afterwards.'

`It looks to me as if he got in first; and it is the very fact that he got wise to it that something pretty nasty was being planned against her that accounts for her present situation.'

C. B. nodded. `Yes, you've got something there.!

'Do you think their object is to White Slave her?'

`No; although if they did get hold of her she would be a dam' sight better off in a brothel.'

`What exactly is their game, then?'

`They are always on the hunt for neophytes. Satan is a greedy master, and to retain his favour they need a constant supply of new bodies to defile and souls to corrupt. The more victims they can offer up, the greater becomes their power.'

`Apart from that, is Mother right in what she told me last night, about their being a menace to all established Governments that stand for freedom and decency?'

`Yes, if she was speaking of the high direction of the show, she was. Of course, there are lots of little outer circles, or covens, as they are called. They are generally run by ordinary crooks who have muscled in on the game. Most of the time their object is blackmail. They get hold of paederasts, lesbians and over sexed people of all ages, and provide them with the chance to indulge their secret vices. Then in due course they put on the squeeze and make quite a bit of money by it. Pedaling dope is another of their activities and generally proves a pretty useful side line.'

C. B, paused to fiddle. with his pipe, then went on, `But the big shots are right up and away above that sort of thing. In most cases I doubt if they even know the chiefs of the little covens. Anyhow, they leave it to their subordinates to supervise them and pick likely lads to form new ones. Their job is to use occult forces to destroy good influences. Their usual line is to cause the illness or death at a time of crisis of the key man who might be able to tide it over; or, alternatively, to produce conditions which will favour some unscrupulous individual getting control of the situation. The best example I can give you of an ace high Black Magician in modern times is the monk Rasputin. He did more than all the Bolsheviks put together to bring about the Russian revolution; and I don't need to tell you the extent of the evil that has brought to Russia, and may yet bring to the rest of the world.'

Molly rejoined them at that moment, and as John got up to get her a drink she enquired how he had enjoyed his day.

`Oh, all right,' he replied casually. `We found a nice place to picnic, but as a matter of fact we slept for most of the afternoon.'

`Dear me, you must have been bored then.' With a smile she turned to C. B. `This business really is rather hard luck on Johnny. Three days of his holiday have gone already, and he hasn't had a moment yet to look up his old friends or hit any of .the high spots along the coast. I think he is being very sweet to devote all his time to this poor girl.'

`Perhaps he doesn't find her as boring as you think,' C. B. smiled back; and, standing up, he carefully removed a long brown hair from the open collar of John's pale blue sweat shirt.

`Well played, Sherlock,' John laughed. `But don't let that little souvenir give either of you any wrong ideas. It signifies only the sealing of the sort of deal that Hitler used to call “A pact of Eternal Friendship” when it suited his book to enter into a political understanding with someone for a few weeks.' He told them about his phony engagement to Christina, and the reason that had prompted him to suggest it.

`Now I'm here, I'll be able to get the French police moving, should we need them,' C. B. commented, `but all the same it was quite a sound idea.'

Then Molly added, `Christina showed me your father's ring and explained why she was wearing it directly we got upstairs. She told me, too, about Count Jules' visit after I left this morning.'

`John has just given me particulars of that.' C. B. stretched out his long legs, and went on thoughtfully, `In view of young de Grasse's threat, I think we ought to set a watch to night, just in case they attempt a snatch. We could put an armchair on the landing outside her room. I need very little sleep, so I can easily sit up reading until two. Then if John relieved me until five, I'd come on again then. By seven your bonne will be about, so I could get another couple of hours shut eye before breakfast. How about it, John; are you game to do the three hours before dawn?'

`Sure. Longer if you like. After all, now she is my fiancée I don't have to stay outside her door, do I?'

`Any nonsense of that kind, and I'll pack you off back to England,' his mother said severely.

He gave a mock sigh and shot an injured look at the Colonel. `You see, sir, how old fashioned she is in her ideas about the latitude that should be allowed to engaged couples. I do wish you would try your hand at educating her up a bit for me.'

Both of them picked up the innuendo. C. B. let his gaze fall to his big feet. Molly flushed and said quickly, `I really came down to say that if you want to change tonight, it is time we went up.'

The Colonel levered himself out of his chair. `It is just as you like, my dear. As I always have a tub before dinner,

I find it no more trouble, and considerably more enlivening to the mind, to get into le smoking, as they call it out here.'

`I know you do,' she smiled, `so while you are with us I have put dinner back to eight thirty. But you and John will have to share the guests' bathroom, and it is nearly half past seven now.'

Finishing up their drinks, they followed her out. An hour later they reassembled.

John was first down, and having switched on the lights he mixed another round of cocktails. When his mother joined him he noted with secret amusement that she was considerably more made up than usual, and was wearing a very pretty frock that he had not seen before. C. B. came in a moment later, gave her one appraising glance, and said

`Molly, my dear, you're looking positively stunning. If it wasn't for John, here, I'd stake my oath that you couldn't be a day over thirty.'

She gave a happy laugh. `Well, they say a woman is as old as she looks and a man is as old as he feels, so perhaps we had better leave it at that. But you're not looking so bad yourself. I don't wonder you like to change in the evenings. Dark, well cut clothes instead of those baggy things you wear in the day time take at least ten years off you.'

`You sweet children,' purred John, as he handed them

their cocktails. `How I wish I were your age; then I should have so many new experiences to look forward to.'

`You insolent pup!' C. B. made a pretence of cuffing him; and they continued laughing together until the gong went.

`Christina has been an awfully long time dressing,'

Molly remarked, `but we will give her a few minutes' grace.'

They shared out the remaining contents of the shaker, but still Christina had not appeared; so Molly said to John, `I think you had better slip up and find out how much longer your fiancée is going to spend titivating herself for your benefit.'

'Right oh!' he nodded, and, leaving the room, ran upstairs. A minute later he came pounding down again, shouting as he came, `She isn't there! Her room's empty! She's gone!'

8

Kidnapped?

As John burst into the room, C. B. gave him a rueful smile. `Seems we've been caught on the hop. Any sign of a struggle?'

`I don't think so: I didn't notice any.'

`We should have heard it if there had been,' said Molly.

`I doubt if we would have taken any notice, while we were up there dressing, unless she had let out a shout; and we might not even have heard that during the past ten minutes while we've been joking together down here.'

`She must have been gone longer than that. Her evening frock is still on the bed. Come up and see.' Turning, John hurried from the room.

`After you, my dear.' C. B. politely stood aside for Molly. He had not so far raised his voice, and his movements, although actually as quick as those of the others, appeared quite leisurely.

Upstairs they halted together in the doorway of the big room at the back of the house that Christina had been given. At first glance there was nothing to suggest that she had been forcibly removed; neither was there any paper prominently displayed, which might have been a note left by her, giving a reason for her having left of her own accord.

`I suppose she has gone?' C. B. murmured. `Better look in the bathroom, though. I've known young women faint in hot baths before now.'

Swinging round, Molly ran to a door on the opposite side of the passage and thrust it open. The bathroom was empty. Hastily she tried the W.C. next door, but that was empty too. Her face showed her distress as she cried

`This is entirely my fault! It has been dark for well over an hour. It was criminal of me to forget the way her personality changes at nightfall, and that she might take it into her head to go off somewhere. I should never have left her on her own. I could so easily have arranged for her to have changed in my room with me.'

`I'm just as much to blame, Mumsie,' John said miserably. `I promised her this afternoon that I'd take care of her; and now I've let her down the very first time that I ought to have been on the look out for Jules.'

`If anyone is to blame, it is the old professional,' C. B. put in quietly:

`Nonsense!' Molly protested. 'You had only just come on the scene.'

`For God's sake don't let's stand here arguing.' John's voice was sharp with anxiety. `We must get after her. Come on ! Hurry! '

`Half a mo', young feller. So far there is nothing to point to the de Grasses having snatched her, and it doesn't always pay to jump to conclusions. Your mother may be right. Knowing we are on the side of the angels she may have taken a sudden dislike to us after sundown, and gone back to her own villa. Just step over and see, will you?'

`Right oh!' John ran down the stairs and the others followed more slowly.

When they reached the hall, C. B. said:

`Got a telephone directory, Molly? There is a number I want to look up. John may find her at the villa, but I doubt it. My own bet is that the de Grasses have got her. Young Count Jules told John this morning that they had undertaken to get her to England before the 6th and to day is the 3rd; so they haven't much of a time margin.'

Molly found him the directory and he began to flick through it, but went on talking: `That is why I felt pretty certain they would try something to night, and suggested keeping watch. It was stupid of me, though, not to anticipate that they might get to work immediately darkness made the girl vulnerable to suggestion.'

`No, Bill; you are being unfair to yourself. No one would

expect kidnappers to stage a raid while all of us were moving about the house. They would wait till we were asleep.'

`You are wrong there, Molly my love. The changing hour is a very favourite one with cat burglars. They shin up a drainpipe, cling on there, and take an occasional peep through the window of the room which they intend to burgle. Then, when its occupant goes along to the bathroom, or has finished dressing and goes downstairs, they nip in and do their stuff. If they have to make a certain amount of noise, it doesn't matter, because if the servants hear it they think it is being made by their employers, or one of the guests who is still upstairs changing.'

`Do you think, then, that they got Christina out by way of the window?'

`No. The dressing table had not been pushed back out of place, and the blind was still down. It isn't easy to pull a blind down from outside; and, anyway, why should they bother?'

`Perhaps they got her out by the window in the passage. Surely we should have heard them if they had carried her downstairs?'

`Not necessarily, provided they were fairly careful about it. As I've said, with a servant getting dinner, and people bathing and banging cupboards all over the place, no one takes any notice of noises at that hour. Besides, it is possible that she went because she wanted to, and walked quietly out on her own.'

C. B. broke off for a second. 'Ah, here we are Malouet, Alphonse. Do you remember him?'

`By name, yes. Wasn't he the Inspector of Police who put up such a good show in Nice during the Resistance?'

`That's him. The old boy retired a couple of years ago. Apparently he is now living out at Cimiez. The address looks like that of a flat in one of the big hotels there that they have converted into apartments since the war. Although he is no longer on the active list, he will be able to pull more guns for me than some bird I don't know, if we have to call in the police.'

Flicking over the leaves again, he added, `In case we can't get hold of him to night, I had better look up the number of the Prefecture at Nice. That is the top police H.Q. in this part of the world, and in a case like this it is a waste of time going to the small fry.' He had just found the second number when John came rushing in. Still breathless from having run up the steep garden path, he panted

`I was right! The de Grasses have got her. Jules carried her off from her own villa about an hour ago. Come on! I'll get out the car!'

`Steady on!' C. B. admonished him. `Let's have such details as you can give us first.'

Between gasps to get his breath back, John reported, `Old Maria says Christina came in at about a quarter to eight. She ran upstairs and came down again two minutes later. She was carrying a small suitcase and immediately went out with it. But she returned almost at once. Maria didn't see her come back, but she saw the lights go on in the sitting room. From her kitchen she can see the glow they throw from ... from the side window of the sitting room on to the trees in the garden; so ... so she looked in to see who was there. It was Christina and a chap who answers the description of Jules. They were arguing about something. She must have given him a drink and had one with him. Their glasses are still on the table. Maria didn't hear them leave. But she doesn't think they could have remained there much more than ten minutes. She happened to glance at her clock just before the sitting room lights were switched off again, and it had not yet gone eight.'

`Good! Now we at least have a line of enquiry we can pursue.' C. B. picked up the telephone.

`What are you going to do?' John asked impatiently. `Ring up the police or rather an old friend of mine who is an ex police officer of exceptional ability.'

`Then for God's sake hurry ! They must be nearly at

St. Tropez by now. If we don't start at once we may not

arrive in time to prevent him from putting off to sea with

her in that damn' yacht.'

C. B. gave the number of Inspector Malouet's apartment, then covered the receiver with his hand. listen, partner. I'm not going to let you run your head into a hornet's nest, or land up in a cell at a French police station either, if I can prevent it. We are by no means certain yet that Jules is taking her to the yacht, and ...'

`Where the hell else would he take her?'

`Maybe to some hide out anywhere between Nice and Toulon. There must be plenty of places along the coast where he has pals who would keep her locked up for the night. Remember, he has got to get her back to England by the 6th, and he couldn't possibly do that by sea. Getting her on to the yacht could be only a temporary measure anyhow. He probably means to drug her, then have her flown home.'

`Still, the fact that he tried to get her on the yacht last night is the only line we have to go on.'

`Agreed; and we'll draw that covert as soon as I've made this call.'

`Can't you telephone your police friend later if we fail to find her on the yacht?'

No, we must get this chap moving as soon as we possibly can. You don't seem to realise what we are up against. That yacht is private property, just as much as if it were a house. You can't go busting your way aboard like a bandit. If you did, de Grasse's boys would be fully entitled to slog you on the head, then hand you over to the police. You have to be able to show justification for any act of that sort.'

`C. B., you make me tired! What better justification could we have than knowing that poor kid has been carried off by thugs?'

Molly had never known her son display such rudeness to an older man. It crossed her mind that, blare about girls as he liked to think himself, Christina, by striking an entirely new note, might have bowled him over. That could explain both the extreme agitation he was showing and his lapse of manners. Nevertheless, she spoke with unusual sharpness

`That will do, John. Colonel Verney has not wasted an unnecessary moment; and he is the best judge of what should be done.'

`Sorry!' he muttered. `But I'm damned if I'll let Jules get away with this. I'm damned if I will.'

At that moment the telephone began to make shrill whistling sounds. C. B. jangled the receiver, said, "Allo! 'Alto!' and repeated the number, but nothing happened the other end; so he turned his smiling grey eyes on John.

`What I meant was some legal, or at least moral, justification. Strictly speaking, we are not entitled to take any action ourselves, and should turn the whole job over to the police. If there had been signs of a struggle in her bedroom, or old Maria had seen her hauled from her villa by a couple of woolly headed Negroes, we'd have some excuse for taking a hand ourselves; but as it is ...'

Again the telephone made odd noises, but again no satisfactory result followed; so he went on, `As it is, she walked out of this house of her own accord, and left her own villa a quarter of an hour later with Jules. He is, for all practical purposes, a respectable citizen, and as far as we know she went with him perfectly willingly; so if you butted in, from the legal point of view you wouldn't have a leg to stand on.'

`I'm her fiancé, aren't I?' John demanded truculently.

`Yes. And I give you full marks now for your foresight in thinking up that bright idea. In France, as marriage is so mixed up with cash and property, people take a much more serious view of a fiancé’s rights than they do in England. But even that would not condone your breaking into what amounts to a private dwelling, without obvious cause. It will help, though, in getting a search warrant if we can bring evidence to the effect that she was definitely taken on to the yacht.'

Once more noises came from the telephone, and this time it proved to be the number that C. B. had called. With a nod to the others, he said, `Our luck is in. It is Malouet himself.' Then he spoke for several moments in his own particular brand of French. It was good French from the point of view of fluency, but it did not sound good, as he spoke very quietly, and without using any of the ejaculations or inflections of the voice which are such a feature of that language.

When he hung up, he said, `As you may have noticed, I had to be a bit obscure; but the old boy tumbled to my meaning. He confirms my own view of the matter. In the remote chance of our happening on somebody prepared to vouch for it that they saw Christina either taken aboard by force, or carried aboard unconscious, the authorities will not hold it against us if we force our way on to the yacht and insist on being taken to her. But if such evidence as we can get is to the effect that she went aboard of her own free will, the only way in which we can insure against a nasty come back is for John, as her fiancé, to swear an affidavit, stating that he believes her to have been lured aboard for an illegal purpose; then we will be granted a search warrant.'

`So that is all we have been wasting a precious ten minutes to be told,' said John sarcastically. `Why didn't you get on to your office in Whitehall and ask them to send us a . couple of hundred forms to fill up?'

`Johnny!' his mother exclaimed. `You will apologise at once!'

`Sorry, C. B.,' he murmured a trifle sullenly. `But for goodness' sake, let's get going and do something.'

C. B. gave him a good natured pat on the shoulder. `That's all right, John. Now you can run and get the car out.'

`I'll just slip upstairs,' said Molly.

John gave her a quick look. `Going to collect the armaments, Mumsie? Good! I'll come with you.'

`What's that?' exclaimed C. B., as they ran across the hall. Then he called after them, `If you are thinking of taking any of those museum pieces of yours, Molly, scrap the idea. Otherwise you can count me out.'

Both of them ignored him, and as John ran up the stairs close on his mother's heels he muttered, `Funny he should say that, isn't it? Just the line I took with you last night; but now things are different.'

With a sigh C. B. decided he had better check up on them. His long legs moving effortlessly, he took the stairs .three at a time, and entered Molly's work room just as they went down on their knees in front of a cupboard.

She pulled it open, revealing on the bottom shelf an array of highly dangerous objects. Among them were pistols, bowie knives, grenades, a garotter's cord, several stilettos and coshes, a knuckle duster and a stick of gelignite. Looking down between their shoulders, he asked

`Has that Mills bomb still got its detonator in?'

`Of course!' Molly replied with an air of pride. `Otherwise it would not be a perfect specimen.'

`You crazy woman ! Some day a maid will have the bright idea of cleaning it, and when she pulls the pin out it will go off.'

`Oh no. I'm much too fond of my little collection to let anyone clean it except myself,' she replied lightly.

John was quickly cramming 9 mm. bullets into the spare magazine of the larger of the two automatics. C. B. stooped and with a swift, unexpected grab picked up the weapon. `Nothing doing, partner,' he said firmly, pushing it into his own pocket. `If you insist on risking a spell in a French prison, that is your look out; but I dig my toes in at your taking a running jump to land on the guillotine.'

Turning an angry face up to him, John protested, `You said yourself that if anyone saw her shanghaied we could bust the yacht open without waiting for the police. It's only common sense to take a weapon of some kind.'

Stooping again, C. B, selected a light cosh. It was a beautiful thing, about twelve inches long, its head egg shaped and filled with lead, its stock a thin nine inch steel spring, the whole being covered with dull black leather. `Here, take this then. But don't lam anyone on the head with it; a blow on the shoulder would be quite enough to land most people in hospital for a week.'

`Thanks,' John murmured a little ungraciously; and he began to stuff it first in one pocket, then in another, in an endeavour to find a suitable place for it.

`Ram it down the front of your trousers,' C. B, advised. `Provided you don't push it too far, the top end will keep it from slipping, and it won't prevent you from sitting down in comfort. It is easy to draw from there, and if anyone frisks you for a weapon, in that position there is quite a good chance of it being overlooked.'

As John tucked away the cosh, C. B. turned to Molly. Relieving her of the smaller automatic, which she had been just about to slip in her bag, he said in a tone of mild reproof, `Now, ducks, I really can't allow you to go around shooting people.' But slipping out the magazine he handed it back to her and added, `Lord forbid that I should rob you of all your fun. You can point it at anyone you like now, and it's a small beer to a magnum of champagne that it will prove every bit as effective.'

`Oh, really, Bill!' she pleaded. `Can't I have just one bullet in the chamber, in case I get a chance to fire it? I do so want to see how much light the flash gives.'

`No. I'd rather you took a pot shot at me in the garden to morrow night, if you must have a human target to aim at.'

`You are rude! You infer that I couldn't hit a haystack.'

`Come on!' cried John angrily, from the doorway. `By nattering like this you two are chucking away our only chance of saving Christina.'

C. B. glanced at his watch. `It is just twenty two minutes since we discovered her disappearance. Not bad, considering I had to make a telephone call to Nice. But we would have saved four minutes if you had gone to get the car out when I asked you to, instead of abetting your mother in her whimsies about weapons. Get cracking now.'

John dashed downstairs. The others followed him and collected their coats from the hall. As they walked down the garden path, C. B. said to Molly, `I'm taking you only as a spare driver, if we have to leave the car. I'll have my hands quite full enough preventing that boy of yours from sticking out his neck. You are under orders again. Is that clear?'

`Yes, sir,' said Molly, out of ancient habit and quite meekly.

Once they were in the car John lost not a second, and the moment they were under way he jammed his foot down on the accelerator. As they rounded the second comer they met one of the big auto buses returning from the St. Raphael direction to Cannes and had to swerve violently to avoid it. Molly was thrown sideways on the back seat; C. B. stiffened his long legs and cried

`Go easy, young feller, or you'll break all our necks!' Then he went on in his normal voice. `Don't get the idea that I am sitting down on the job, but the fact is that five minutes either way is unlikely to make much difference now. Try to consider our prospects dispassionately. Jules has the best part of an hour's start of us. If he meant to take her to the yacht and the crew were only waiting till he got her on board to put to sea, they will have sailed long before we get there. We couldn't have caught them, even if we had set off the moment we discovered her disappearance. On the other hand, he could not have been certain that he would succeed in getting hold of her, or if he did at what hour he would be able to pull it off; so the odds are that he would not dare have ordered his crew to stand by from half past eight till dawn, and will have to collect them.'

`That shouldn't take him long.'

`It all depends how many of them there are and whereabouts they live when they are on shore. But that is not my main point: it is his mental attitude of which I am thinking. Once he has got her on board I see no reason at all why he should burst a blood vessel in getting the yacht out of harbour.'

`He would hardly be such a fool as to gamble on our not learning of Christina's disappearance until to morrow morning. She may even have told him that we were expecting her to dine with us.'

`True, but what has he to fear if we do turn up? If we go on board he can have us thrown off again that is unless we are accompanied by the police with a search warrant.'

`How long do you reckon it would take us to get one?'

`As we have not got the ghost of a case, we should have one hell of a job in persuading the police that we had real cause for alarm. We should have to show great persistence and tell our story four or five times before we got high enough up to secure action. With waits between interviewing a series of unenthusiastic officials, that might take us anything up to three hours. Jules must know all about the slowness of police procedure when the applicant for help can produce no definite evidence that any crime has been committed; so up till about eleven o'clock he can afford to snap his fingers at us. Anyhow, that is my appreciation of the situation. Either the yacht has sailed already or we'll find when we get to St. Tropez that, like Drake, we'll have plenty of time for a game of bowls before we go into action.'

`I suppose you are right,' John admitted grudgingly. `I wish that I could take matters so calmly.' But he moderated his pace a little, and did not let the car out full again until they were through St. Raphael and had entered the long flat stretch round the curve of the great bay. It was ten to ten when he jammed on the brakes and brought the car to a halt on the cobbles of St. Tropez harbour.

In summer, at that hour, it would still have been thronged with people, drinking both at the scores of tables outside the cafes and on the waterfront and in the cabins of dozens of craft in the port itself. But it was too early in the year to sit outside at night, and the season for the small yacht owners had not yet begun.

Like most of the ports on that coast, the harbour formed a rectangle with tall, ancient houses on three sides of it. The basin was partially filled by several groups of shipping moored beam to beam. Most of them were fishing boats, or sailing yachts that had been dismantled for the winter; a few were larger, fully powered craft, although not of the size that millionaires had kept for luxury cruises in those waters before the war. Apart from riding lights, it was from the cabin of these bigger vessels that the only lights showing in the harbour came, but the landward end of it was lit by the windows of several cafes, which were still open and occupied by a sprinkling of people.

Scrambling out of the car, John glanced quickly up and down. Outside the cafes the broad quay was deserted, except for a group of three loungers standing some distance away on the edge of the pavement. In the uncertain light they looked like seamen, and he began to run towards them.

`Hi!' C. B. called after him. `Where are you off to?' Slowing his pace, he called back over his shoulder, `I'm

going to ask those chaps which the yacht is if she's still in the harbour.'

No, you're not.' In a few long strides C. B, caught up with him and added in his conspiratorial voice, `We don't want to let the whole town know our business. You go back to the car and leave this to me.'

After giving the crestfallen John's arm a friendly squeeze, he walked on to the end of the block and entered a cafe on the corner. He was absent for about six minutes. When he returned, he said

`She hasn't sailed yet; but you can't see her very well from here. Her berth is up near the entry to the port on the right hand side; and from the description I was given we can't mistake her. I'm told there is a good little fish restaurant up there that will still be open, and I'm beginning to miss my dinner; so while we are waiting for developments I think we'll have a snack at it.'

`Damn it, C. B.!' John exploded. `How can you be so heartless while that poor girl. ..'

`I know! While that poor girl is at the mercy of a double dyed villain. Try to be your age, John. Count Jules' only interest in Christina is to get her to England and collect a nice wad of banknotes. The odds are that he is feeding her on asparagus and peche Melba at the moment and that, in her present state of mind, she is thoroughly enjoying herself.'

`But you spoke of “waiting for developments”. Since the yacht's still here we mustn't waste a moment in finding out if she is on board. Why should we wait for anything?'

`Drive me to my chosen grazing ground, sonny, and I'll tell you on the way.'

With an ill grace John got the car moving, and C. B. went on in a lower tone, `I didn't telephone old Malouet only to ask after his health. The police always have several narks on tap in all these ports. I wanted the name of the best one here. He told me to ask for Henri at that cafe on the comer. It is the favourite bistro of the yacht stewards, and as barman there Henri picks up from them most of the dirt about what goes on. He pointed out de Grasse's yacht to me and he is going to slip out for a quarter of an hour to get us a little info'. By the time we have fortified the inner man with oysters and a glass of wine, I shall be very surprised if he is not able to let us know definitely whether Christina is on that yacht.'

In the back of the car Molly burbled her admiration for his efficiency with the same delight that a mother will display at seeing her offspring do its Parlour trick, but John only asked

`What happens if the yacht puts off in the meantime?' `Then you've had it, chum. There is nothing you can do to stop her sailing, anyway.'

They pulled up at the fish restaurant and went inside. Two of its tables only were occupied, by people lingering over the last stages of their dinners. C. B. chose one in a corner, which was well away from the other diners, and ordered marennes with a bottle of Pouilly. While they ate he talked in a low monologue about butterflies, the collection of which was his hobby; but his companions appeared singularly disinterested. When they had finished the oysters, he invited them to join him in attacking a dish of sea urchins, but they declined; so, still discoursing on the habits of the Papilo machaon, he set about a plate of the spiky crustaceans himself.

He was only half way through when the outer door opened and a short, tubby figure came in. C. B. glanced casually in the direction of the newcomer, then as though suddenly recognising an old acquaintance cried, `Hello, Henri! How is the world using you?'

The plump man had been advancing towards a buffet on which were displayed a selection of sea foods, fruit and cheeses. At the greeting he turned his head, smiled, swerved from his course and, coming up to the table, bowed politely. `Thank you, Monsieur; I cannot complain. It is a pleasure to see you here; but unexpected so early in the year. Do you stay long?'

`No, I am only down here on business for a few days this time.' C. B. added something about Henri mixing the best Angel's Kiss on the coast and introduced him to Molly and John in a mumble that made their names unintelligible. Meanwhile the patron of the place had come out from behind the buffet.

At his approach, Henri said, `Excuse me, please,' turned, shook hands with him and asked, `Can you let me have two dozen rosés? I have an American in my bar. He is a little drunk and he demands rosés to eat while he goes on drinking; so I said I would slip out and get him some.'

`Certainly.' The patron smiled. `A pleasure to oblige you, Monsieur Auer.'

As he went off to get a paper bag in which to put the prawns, Henri said to C. B., in a voice hardly above a whisper, `The crew were warned for to night, but given no hour of sailing. The girl is on the yacht. She arrived in the car of Count Jules at about nine. His chauffeur and the boatswain, Chopin, were with them. Chopin went off on foot I expect to let his crew know the hour at which they will be wanted. Count Jules took the girl on board. There was no suggestion of violence. They were laughing together.'

`Any idea when the yacht will sail?' murmured C. B.

`Not for a while yet, I think; otherwise the crew would have reported by now. It is possible that Count Jules is expecting a second passenger to arrive at a later hour. I fear there is no more that I can tell you.'

`Thanks; you have been most helpful.' C. B. slipped a five mille note into Henri's hand, and when the patron returned with the bag of prawns they were talking of the prospects for the summer season. Having shaken hands all round, Henri bowed himself out, and C. B. looked across at John.

`Now we know where we stand, anyway; and the situation might be worse. It would be if Jules had taken her to some dive along the coast, and we hadn't the faintest idea where to look for her. But her having gone on board willingly rules out your doing the irate fiancé stuff except at the risk of being arrested if you offer him or his people violence.'

`I could go to the yacht and demand to see her.'

`You could, but I doubt if it would get you much further. The odds are they would let you go below, then beat you up and afterwards hand you over to the police with a cut and dried story about your having started it.'

`To do that they would have to call the police in. Once they came on the scene I could bring a counter charge of assault against Jules and demand a full enquiry. There

would be a good hope then of the authorities preventing the yacht from sailing. To morrow morning Christina will be herself again, and whatever may happen to me, you and Mother would be able to get her away from them.'

C. B. shook his head. `I'm afraid it wouldn't work out like that. They are much too leery to call in the police before the yacht sails. They would probably just put you ashore in a boat just as she is leaving harbour. Or they might take you along to keep you out of mischief; then swear afterwards that the row had started only after she had sailed!'

`What do you suggest then?' John asked impatiently. `I flatly refuse to just sit here and let things take their course.'

`Since you feel that way. about it,' replied C. B. thoughtfully, `I can put up to you two alternatives. Malouet should be here round about midnight and ...'

`Will he?'

`Yes. At the end of our talk on the telephone the old boy agreed to get out his car and start at once. But it is the best part of a two and a half hours' drive from Nice. He will go straight to Henri's cafe and I am to meet him there. The police will take his word for anything that may happen while he is with us; so when he does turn up he could accompany you on board for a show down. In his presence they would not dare to touch you.'

John nodded. `I must say you have done everything you possibly could in the circumstances, C. B., and I'm jolly grateful to you. But the devil of it is that the yacht may have sailed by midnight.'

`I know. The period during which Jules can reasonably count on immunity is getting short now; so my bet is that she will sail within the next half hour.'

`Then what is your alternative to waiting for Malouet, and probably missing the boat?'

C. B. put a finger alongside his big nose, winked and whispered, `To go with her.'

9

Illegal Entry

John regarded C. B. with a puzzled frown. `I don't get the idea. How could we manage to do that?'

C. B. shook his head. `This would not be a case of “we”, I'm afraid; and I'd better make my own position clear. I am a Civil Servant and have very definite responsibilities; so I have to think twice before I risk blotting my copy book. If I had been put on this job officially I might consider it worth while to take that risk. If Jules were just off to Russia with our latest H bomb secrets in his pocket, I certainly would. But if I got myself arrested and was unable to convince my Chief that it had happened while I was engaged on some matter of real importance to British interests, there would be the hell of a stink. Still worse, it might seriously prejudice the outcome of other work on which I am engaged.'

`I quite understand that. It seems, though, that you have changed your mind about me, and are about to suggest that I should do something illegal.'

`I am. Mind, I wouldn't, but for the fact that you've just said that you refuse to sit here and let things take their course. What I am about to propose may land you in for the very things I have been trying to keep you out of namely, a beating up and finding yourself in the cells tomorrow. I don't like it a bit, but ...'

`Since there seems to be no legal means of intervening on the yacht, I mean to take that risk anyhow.'

`It will be a certainty, instead of a risk, if you simply go on board and demand that Christina should be restored to you. My idea is that you should attempt to slip on board unobserved.'

`What then?'

`Lie doggo. If the yacht has not sailed by midnight we will come aboard with Malouet. Then you can come out of hiding and stake your claim to Christina. If the yacht sails earlier, you will sail with her as a stowaway.'

`I don't see how that would improve my chance of getting Christina out of their clutches.'

`It won't if they find you; and I've already warned you that by going on board at all, without the police, you are asking for a packet of trouble. But if you can remain hidden for eight or ten hours there is quite a good chance that you may succeed in pulling the chestnuts out of the fire.'

'How?' asked Molly, now considerably concerned for John's safety.

C. B. leaned across the table and his voice sank still lower. `They have got to get her to England by the 6th; so they can't be taking her far. Toulon or Marseilles, perhaps. But at present we have no idea of their destination. If she sails in the yacht as things are, we lose track of her; but we won't if John is in the yacht too and has succeeded in keeping himself under cover. At the first opportunity to morrow morning he could get ashore and let us know where the yacht has docked. By that time Christina will have, as one might say, come out from under the influence. Now, she would probably tell us all to mind our own damn' business, but by then she will be ready to scream “murder”.

As soon as John informs us where the yacht has got to, we'll come down with Malouet like wolves on the fold, and young Jules will be darn' lucky if he doesn't find himself in quod for kidnapping. See the idea?'

Molly nodded rather ruefully. `As a plan, it is as good as anything we can hope for; but I'll never forgive you if they do John a serious injury.'

`At least it gives a sporting chance for him to keep out of trouble.' C. B. shrugged. `I put this up only to prevent his butting his head right into it.'

`That's true enough, Mumsie,' John declared. `Don't you dare blame C. B, if anything goes wrong. But it is nearly half past ten; so if I'm to get on that yacht without being spotted we had better be moving.'

C. B. paid the bill and they went out into the darkness. The yacht lay only two hundred yards or so further seaward along the quay. Keeping in the shadow of the buildings, they walked along until they were opposite to her.

At a steep angle her fo'c'sle sloped up from the base of her single mast and bridge structure, which were placed well forward. The two thirds of her abaft the bridge lay much lower in the water. No trail of smoke came from her one large squat funnel, as she was diesel engined. Her design gave the impression of rakishness and power; and C. B. judged her to be of about eight hundred tons burthen.

Some of her main cabins were lit, but as their portholes lay just under the level of the wharf edge the light from them came only as a diffused glow amidships. Except for a pool of brightness below her mast light and another on her bridge, her upper structure was plunged in deep shadow. A gangway, the slope of which was scarcely noticeable, led up from the quay to her main deck, just astern of her bridge. She might have been completely deserted, had it not been for an occasional movement in her bridge house, which showed that someone was keeping watch up there.

After they had studied her for some moments, C. B. said to John, `I thought you might have to borrow a small boat, approach her from the seaward side, and shin up on deck as best you could; but I don't think that is necessary. Her deck is so near level with the wharf, and she is made fast so close against it that you should be able to jump to the rail near her stern and scramble over. All that is needed to give you a good chance of getting aboard unseen is for us to occupy the watchman's attention while you approach as quietly as possible.'

`Johnny,' Molly whispered anxiously, `you are not used to this sort of thing. Do be careful, won't you?'

He gave her a swift kiss on the check. `Don't worry, Mumsie; of course I will.'

Ignoring the interruption, C. B. went on, `Let's all go back to the car now. Molly and I will get in it, and we will give you a bit of a lead before we start. Walk right on the edge of the quayside, so that you will have only to swerve and jump at the critical moment. Don't walk too fast, because I want to pass you in the car about fifty yards before you come level with her stern; but for God's sake don't give the impression of stealth, in case anyone notices you. The noise of the car engine will drown any noise you make, and when I pull up opposite the bridge of the yacht our lights will be pointing away from you; so you will have the extra benefit of the contrasting darkness behind us. Whatever you do, don't jump before we have pulled up and you have heard me hail the chap in the bridge house; otherwise he may be looking in your direction. I shall pretend that we are trying to find another yacht that was supposed to have docked this evening, and will hold his attention for about three minutes. That should be ample time for you to do your stuff.'

Still keeping in the shadow of the buildings, they walked back to the fish restaurant. While they did so C. B. made Johnny repeat their programme, to make certain there should be no slip up. He had only just finished when they reached the car.

Knowing that C. B. disliked driving, and never did so if he could get anyone else to do it for him, Molly gave John's hand a quick squeeze, then slipped into the driver's seat.

C. B. said to him in a low voice, `Should anything go wrong, and you have to make a bolt for it, go round a few back streets then come to Henri's cafe. Your mother and I will be waiting there until Malouet turns up. Off you go, now. Good luck!'

With a nod and smile, barely glimpsed in the semi darkness John turned away, while C. B. got in beside Molly. He did not at all like the idea of letting the boy tackle such a dangerous business on his own, but had seen no way to prevent it. In the past he had on many occasions risked worse things than were likely to happen to John, but he was not his own master, and knew it to be unfair to his department to embroil himself in matters that had no definite connection with his job. He could only console himself with the thought that, as from the first John had shown a determination to stick his neck out, he had at least now been manoeuvred into doing it in a way that might, perhaps, prove well worth while.

Molly, meanwhile, was torn by conflicting emotions her confidence in C. B., which gave her assurance that any plan of his would combine the maximum amount of caution possible with a fair prospect of success, and her distress that her beloved Johnny must inevitably run considerable risks in carrying it out. For a few moments she watched him walking away, until he had disappeared beyond the beams thrown by the car lamps; then she started the engine and slipped in the clutch.

The timing was good, as when the car passed John, and he was momentarily thrown up in the glare of its headlights, he was still too far from the yacht to be noticed by anyone in her. He had just about halved the remaining distance when the car pulled up, and by the time he drew level with the yacht's stern C. B. already had the watchman engaged in conversation.

John's glance switched to the gulf that gaped between the quayside and the yacht's rail. For a second his heart contracted. It was much wider than he had expected. Poised there on the edge, he stared down at the oily water gurgling sinisterly ten feet below him. If he bungled his jump and fell into that dark crevasse it could easily prove a death trap. Wide as the gap appeared on the wharf level, it looked much narrower further down, and the horrid thought flickered through his mind that he might find himself jammed between the ship and the wharf with his head under water. Yet he knew that every second was now precious; so striving to suppress his qualms, he launched himself into space.

Those nervous fears lent extra strength to his muscles; so his leap would have carried him double the distance. His outstretched hands overshot the mark, and instead it was his stomach that came into violent contact with the top of the rail. The wind was driven from his body; his arms and legs flailed wildly. For a moment he was in acute danger of slipping backwards into the gulf before he could get a foot or hand hold. A desperate wriggle saved him. His head went down, his legs up, and he fell inboard on to the deck.

Alarmed at the noise he had made, he scrambled hastily for the nearest cover. It was a hooded wooden hatchway leading down to the deck below. Crouching behind it he wondered what he had better do next. The obvious course seemed to creep down and look for a good place in which to hide; but while leaping on to the rail he had glimpsed a thing which was inconspicuous from the level of the wharf. On either side of the long after deck there were three large sloping skylights, and the four nearest were all aglow, suggesting that the saloons below them were occupied. If he went down this after companionway it seemed highly likely that he would run straight. into somebody.

Peering round the side of the hatch, he saw that all was still quiet forward. It was darker up by the bridge; so it seemed probable that there were fewer people below decks there. Feeling certain that if he could reach the waist of the ship unobserved he would find another companionway, he left his cover, but at a crawl, so that he could instantly flatten himself out beside one of the skylights if he heard anyone approaching.

He took the starboard side of the deck, and on reaching the first skylight paused to peer down through it. Below lay the galley, bright with steel and copper fitments. In it two men were eating at a small square table. From their dress, one was obviously the chef and the other the steward. A bottle of wine stood between them, and it looked as if they were making a hearty supper from the planned surplus of a meal that had been served earlier in the dining saloon.

Wriggling on again, John peered through the next skylight. Below him now was the dining saloon. Although the light there was still on, the table had been cleared and the room was empty. He was just about to move towards the skylight further forward, from which no light showed, when he heard, faint but unmistakable, a laugh that he felt certain was Christina's. It had come from the skylight opposite, on the port side of the deck, which was open a little for ventilation.

Regardless of the fact that three minutes had already gone, so it was not to be expected that C. B. would be able to keep the watchman in conversation much longer,

John could not resist the temptation to slither swiftly across the deck and peep through the skylight from which the laugh had come. It gave on to the saloon, which occupied as much space on the port side as did the dining saloon and galley together on the starboard side. By holding his head at an awkward angle, John could see both Jules and Christina.

She was sitting in a corner with her legs up on the banquette that ran along the ship's side. Jules was ensconced opposite her in an armchair. Between them on a small table stood two squat, tulip shaped glasses and a bottle of Grand Marnier. No one else was present, and they were talking and laughing together like old friends.

Looking at them had a curious effect on John. He knew that he should have been pleased to find Christina safe, well and apparently happy, but he was not. Even making allowances for her change of personality after dark, it annoyed him to see her enjoying Jules' company. He now admitted to himself that, in spite of the additional danger in which it would have placed him, he would rather have come upon her in some difficult situation, from which there could have been no excuse for his not attempting her immediate rescue.

Even as it was, he began to play with the thought of endeavouring to get her away before the yacht sailed. The lights glowing through the four skylights had suggested that quite a number of people were down there in the compartments below the after deck. But that had not proved the case. There were only the chef and steward in the galley and Jules and Christina in the saloon.

John felt that if he could surprise Jules he would have quite a good chance of overcoming him. But what then? Even if Jules were swiftly rendered incapable of giving a general alarm, the sounds of the struggle might bring the two' servants from across the passage. And what of Christina? If she came willingly and at once they might gain the deck, race down it and across the gangway on to the wharf, before they could be stopped. But if she at first refused to budge if he had to waste precious moments trying to persuade her to come with him the steward and the chef would be upon them before they could even get up the companionway.

Reluctantly, John decided that he dare not chance it. He must stick to C.B.'s plan and stow away until the morning, when he would be certain of Christina's co operation. Stealthily he moved again towards the darker area of deck amidships.

Suddenly a horn sounded, the arcs thrown by headlights swept across the buildings on the far side of the wharf, and a car ran past moving in the direction of the town. John knew that it must be C. B. and his mother. They had done their job, and he was supposed by this time to be under cover; but he was not, and now the watchman was again free to keep a general look out.

It was the first time that John had ever done anything of this kind. He was not at all frightened, but felt terribly excited. His worst handicap was that, owing to lack of experience, he did not realise the importance of making swift decisions. While he was still hesitating whether to risk going forward towards the bridge, another horn sounded, lights flashed again on the quay, and a camion drew up opposite the gangway. Out of it piled seven or eight men, who came aboard laughing and joking.

Crouching behind the nearest skylight, John watched them vanish down the companionway in the middle of the bridge structure that he had hoped to use himself. He reckoned that the crew of such a yacht would number somewhere around a dozen. With one on the bridge and two in the galley, the newcomers nearly made up that complement.

As they had all disappeared, the long stretch of deck to the gangway was now clear again, but he no longer dare risk going below by the midships companionway, even if he could reach it unseen from the bridge. The arrival of the crew had left him no choice but to retreat down the after hatchway in the hope of finding a good hiding place somewhere in the stern of the vessel.

Cautiously, he made his way back to the hatch behind which he had first hidden. After listening for a moment, he tip toed down the stairs beneath its hood. The first flight brought him opposite a long passage, in which he knew that the galley and dining saloon were on the right and the saloon on the left; a second flight, immediately under the first, led down to a lower deck.

Feeling that the further he could get from the major activities on board the yacht the safer he would be, he crept down the second flight. Again he found himself faced by a long corridor, but in it there were double the number of doors. On each side there were six, and evidently they were those of the cabins for the passengers. Beyond them a bulkhead, with a door in it, presumably cut the after part of the ship off from the engine room and crews' quarters.

Advancing stealthily, John peered through the partly open door of one of the cabins. It was empty, and showed no sign of occupation; so he wondered if he dare doss down there for the night, but he decided against it as too risky. Moving on, he reached the bulkhead, cautiously opened the door in it and looked through.

As he did so the hum of engines struck his ears, and only then did he realise that they had been almost imperceptibly reverberating through the ship for several minutes past. Evidently she was very shortly about to put to sea.

For a moment he stood where he was, wondering whether to step through the door in the hope of finding a good hiding place further forward, or to return aft and look for a tubby hole right in the stern. He was still trying to decide which course offered the better possibilities when all chance of making a choice was suddenly snatched from him.

Without any sound of warning, a cabin door some ten feet beyond the bulkhead was pulled open. Through it stepped a big, ginger haired man. His uniform, and the single band of gold braid round its cuffs, showed that he was a junior officer. His glance instantly fell upon John. Surprise dawned in his blue eyes; then, striding towards him, he exclaimed

`Who are you? What do you want down here?'

10

`Once Aboard the Lugger ...?'

The unexpected encounter had taken John as much by surprise as it had the ginger haired officer. For a moment they stared at one another. John's first impulse was to turn and run, but he knew that would be fatal. This was obviously a case for bluff if he could only think of one. He wondered what line C. B. would have taken in these circumstances, but could not, for the life of him, imagine. The big man spoke again, more sharply

`What are you doing down here? Answer me!'

`I am looking for Count Jules,' John blurted, that being

the first plausible lie that had come into his head. `How did you get aboard?'

`By the gangway, of course.'

`And the watchman did not give you directions where to find Monsieur le Comte?'

`No, he was busy talking to someone else at the time.' `Why did you not wait and ask?'

`I was in a hurry, and I thought that in a small yacht like this I would have no difficulty in finding him.'

John's voice gained confidence as he developed his bluff, but his heavily built questioner continued to stare at him suspiciously, and muttered with a scowl, `You are a foreigner; are you not?'

There being no point in denying it, and his accent making it futile to do so, John nodded. Then, in an attempt to escape from this dangerous interrogation, he said, `I'm

sorry to have invaded the private quarters of the ship, but I

must have come down a deck too far by mistake. I'll go up again and ...'

Before he could finish his sentence and turn away, the man interrupted aggressively, `What do you want with Monsieur le Comte?'

`I am an old friend of his.'

`Is he expecting you?'

For a second John hesitated, and in that second he was lost. His `Yes' came too late to carry conviction. The blue eyes staring into his showed frank disbelief. In two strides the officer was upon him. Seizing John my the arm, he rapped out:

`Very well! I will take you to him.'

John's brain worked quickly enough now. He realised that if he once allowed himself to be taken up to Jules his goose would be cooked. He might have tackled Jules alone, had he followed his impulse of a few minutes back to take him by surprise in the saloon, but he could not hope to overcome both Jules and this strapping young man. It seemed certain now that he had let himself in for just the sort of thing C. B. had feared might happen to him if he took the law into his own hands by coming aboard the yacht. They would first beat him up, then hand him over to the police. Such a prospect was bad enough, but the thought which infuriated him beyond all else was that his attempt to protect Christina should be foiled almost before it had started. It was barely ten minutes since he had come on board, and he was now to be lugged before her as a captive. It was revolt at such a swift and ignominious end to his venture that spurred him to action.

The officer had him firmly by the left arm, but his right was free. Thrusting his hand under his coat, he whipped out the cosh, raised it, and struck sharply at his captor. He did not need to deliver a second blow. The leather covered egg shaped piece of lead came down on the man's uniform cap with hardly a sound; but his blue eyes suddenly bulged, his grip on John's arm relaxed, and he slumped in a heap on the deck.

For a second John held his breath; then he felt himself beginning to tremble. He had belatedly remembered what C. B. had said about using the cosh with caution. If he had killed the officer it would be a clear case of murder. Thrusting the weapon back into his trouser top, he stooped, and with frantic hands pulled the limp body towards him, so that he could thrust off the cap and examine the man's head.

The passage was lit only dimly by the small blue ceiling lights that are usually kept on permanently in ships' corridors. Anxiously John peered down at his victim's mat of short, ginger curls for signs of blood. He could see none, and, his searching fingers found only a little wetness. With intense relief he realised that the man's cap and the thickness of his hair must have saved him from serious injury. Even if his skull was slightly cracked the absence of any mushy depression or copious bleeding seemed clear indications that there was no risk of his dying.

Relief at being freed from the awful thought that he might have killed a man was swiftly succeeded by a lesser, but still pressing, anxiety. If he had not got a corpse on his hands, he had something like it. The limp body at his feet showed no signs of returning animation; so he was not faced with the unhappy choice of either humanely rendering it assistance at his own peril or giving it another biff on the head to prevent its calling on anyone else to do so; but if he left it lying where it was some other member of the crew might come upon it at any moment. Should that happen, and a general alarm be raised, unless he had first found himself a safe hiding place, he would again be caught before the yacht left harbour.

The obvious course was to carry the unconscious officer back into the cabin from which he had emerged. John knew that good old `crack' and others of his mother's fiction characters performed such feats without the least difficulty; but, being of slight build himself and having already felt the dead weight of the powerfully built body, he had serious misgivings about his ability to get it there. Nonetheless, feeling that to be the only step by which he could prevent the discovery within a very short time that an act of violence had been committed aboard, he set about . the job with feverish energy.

Getting his hands under his victim's arm pits, he endeavoured to half lift, half drag him towards the cabin; but the best he could manage was to pull him a few inches at a time along the floor. At every tug his head jerked and rolled ludicrously on his shoulders, his arms flapped like mechanical fins, and the heels of his boots scraped noisily on the boards. While John heaved, strained, and panted from his exertions, he expected every moment that someone would appear at one or other end of the corridor and catch him red handed; but after three minutes' gruelling struggle he had the body over the door sill. For him to have got it up on to the bunk unaided would have required further precious moments of exhausting effort; so, instead, he pushed a pillow under the injured man's head before stepping out of the cabin and closing its door behind him.

Breathless, and still trembling a little, he again considered whether his best prospects of coming upon a good hiding place lay forward or, through the bulkhead, astern. As he hesitated a sudden thought struck him with fresh dismay. Getting the unconscious officer back into his cabin had only put off the evil hour of discovery. In a crew of only a dozen or so he would soon be missed. Someone was certain to come down to his cabin to look for him. Had John been able to lock it, there would have been a chance of them assuming that the officer had been detained ashore and missed his ship. But there was no key in the door, so whoever came to look for him would walk straight in on his body.

That would mean an immediate enquiry. Perhaps by then he would have come round sufficiently to describe how he had been attacked. In any case he would do so before many hours had passed. The yacht would then be searched from stem to stern as a precaution against the foreigner who had attacked him still being on board. An 8oo ton yacht was very different from a liner, or even a tramp; it had no great air ducts, baggage holds or mountains of cargo, which would help a stowaway to elude a search.

As these disconcerting thoughts ran through John's mind he was quick to see that wherever he concealed himself the chances were now at least ten to one on his being dragged from his hiding place within the next hour or two. By knocking out the ginger haired man he had burnt his boats, and could now only save himself by getting ashore again before the yacht sailed. If he failed to do so he was not only liable to be rough handled by the crew, but would later find himself faced with a charge of having assaulted a ship's officer in the execution of his duty.

Visions of a French prison spurred him to fresh action. A few swift steps took him back through the bulkhead. Pausing only to close the door in it behind him, he hurried along the semi dark corridor to the foot of the after companionway. In going up it he proceeded with more caution, and, before exposing himself to view in the better lighted corridor above, peered along it at deck level, to assure himself that it was still empty.

It was, and as his glance swept it the sight of a key, protruding from the lock of a door which he knew must be that of the galley, stirred in him a sudden impulse to rail against fate. He felt that it was ill luck alone that had brought his venture to naught, and compelled him to abandon it so quickly; for he might have been safely hidden by now, had he not had the misfortune to run into the officer; and, even then, had that key been in the door of the man's cabin, instead of in that of the galley, the simple act of turning it would at least have spared him the mortification of having to make a bolt for it from fear that a hue and cry might start after him at any moment.

On tip toe he ascended the upper ladder of the companionway, and from behind its curved hatch peeped out along the deck. It was still in semi darkness, and the members of the crew whom he had seen come aboard were still below decks. He glanced towards the rail, but decided against again leaping the gulf between the ship and the

quay, as the rail would make it so awkward to get a good take off from this direction. Not much more than sixty feet of clear deck lay between him and the gangway. He had only to cross it at a run and before anyone had a chance to stop him he would be ashore. The watchman might shout after him, but that was very different from being challenged when coming aboard. Even if he were pursued he should have no great difficulty in getting away down

one of the dark alleys that intersected the buildings facing the quay.

Swiftly now his thoughts flowed on. Why should he risk pursuit at all? There was still no sign of any intention shortly to take the yacht to sea. If he walked calmly along the deck and down the gangway the watchman would probably think that he was one of the crew going ashore for ten minutes on some small errand, and would not even challenge him.

Standing up, he moved out from behind the hatchway, his eyes fixed on the bridge. It was dully lit, but he could see no one up there; so it looked as if the watchman was either in the wheel house, which faced forward, or behind the canvas screen at its starboard side, where, leaning on the rail, he could look down on the wharf. With firm, light steps John walked forward along the starboard side of the deck.

As he reached the first skylight he gave a swift glance through it. Below in the galley the steward and the chef were still at table : the latter was busily mixing a large bowl of salad. A few paces further on John came level with the skylight through which he had seen Jules and Christina. It lay on the port side, and ten feet away, but he could not resist the temptation to cross over for a quick peep. On his way he glanced up at the bridge to assure himself that nothing had altered there; then he peered down between the brass protecting rods of the skylight into the saloon. Jules and Christina were still sitting on either side of a small table and, apparently, had hardly altered their positions since he had last seen them.

In the interval he had been subject to so many emotions that it was difficult for him to realise that not much more than ten minutes could have passed; and that during them events had entirely re orientated the impulses that governed his actions. Then they had been inspired by a determination to protect Christina; now, they were the outcome of a craven fear to get out of danger as quickly as he could.

It was looking down on them again that made him aware of the change in mentality he had undergone, and no sooner was he conscious of it than he began to feel terribly ashamed. It had been bad luck to run into that officer, but he had handled the situation promptly and, as yet, had no reason at all to suppose that anyone else suspected his presence on board. As a result of the encounter he might find himself in very hot water unless he got off the yacht before she sailed; but that was no reason why he should not attempt to take Christina with him.

His prospects of succeeding in such an attempt were considerably better than they had been when he had contemplated making it ten minutes earlier. The major part of the crew could not turn up unexpectedly just as he was hoping to get Christina away, as they had arrived and gone below already. Having now had experience in using his cosh effectively, he felt far more confident of his chances of rendering Jules hors de combat before he could give the alarm. The way was clear from the after hatch to the gangway. Above all, he knew now that he had but to turn the key in the galley door to ensure that the only two people within Jules' call would be unable to come to his assistance if they heard him give a shout.

With a fresh wave of shame, it was borne in on John that he had been granted as near perfect conditions for a rescue as anyone could hope for, yet had very nearly thrown the opportunity away during a brief period of unjustifiable panic. He quailed at the thought of what C.B.’s opinion of him would have been afterwards had he done so, and that imperturbable secret agent had ever learned the facts. It needed only this last goad to his amourpropre to confirm John in his new resolution. Turning away from the skylight, he walked swiftly back to the after hatch.

Losing not a second now, he ran lightly down the ladder, turned the key in the galley door, crossed the passage, opened that of the saloon, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.

Lack of experience in resorting to violence robbed him of an advantage he might otherwise have taken. Jules was sitting with his back to the door. A gangster or professional agent would have had the cosh ready in his grasp as he entered the saloon; so he could have run forward and laid Jules out with it before he had time to get up and swing round. John took a couple of strides, then had to pause while he pulled the cosh out of his trouser top. Short as the delay was, it was long enough for Jules to spring to his feet, half turn, and kick the chair in which he had been sitting against John's legs.

John had the cosh only shoulder high as the chair caught him. He stumbled and fell half across it, his arms shooting forward. Instantly Jules leapt at him. With his right he struck John a glancing blow on the side of the face, with his left he seized the wrist that held the cosh and gave it a violent twist. The attack was so sudden that, still off his balance as he was, John had no chance to defend himself. A second blow from Jules landed on his left eye. Again his wrist was wrenched down and backward. With an `Ouch' of pain, he dropped the cosh.

For a moment more they struggled with the chair between them, then Jules let go John's wrist, gave him a swift push, and stepped back. John was panting and uneasily aware that so far he had had the worst of the encounter. He too stepped back, and his glance swiftly swept the floor, seeking the cosh, in the hope that he might recover it; but it had rolled away under a settee. Jules had seen where it had gone and, now that he had disarmed his attacker, appeared fully confident of his ability to deal with the situation. He was not even breathing quickly, and an amused smile twitched his full lips as he said

`I thought you might put in an appearance in spite of the warning I gave you. I told my father so, but he said it would not matter if you did; and, of course, he was quite right, as you cannot possibly bring any charge against us.'

`Don't you be too certain of that,' John snapped, and his eyes switched to Christina.

As he burst in she had removed her long silk stockinged legs from the banquette and, with a newly lit cigarette between her fingers, half risen; but had then sat down again. Now, she had both elbows planted on the table and was smoking calmly, while watching the two men with the detached air of one looking on at a scene in a play.

Jules laughed. `If you are expecting my charming guest to go ashore with you and tell the police that I brought her here by force, you are much mistaken. We have been having a very pleasant time together. You, on the other hand, have come aboard clandestinely, and assaulted me. We are waiting only for my father to join us before putting to sea. I will leave it for him, when he arrives, to decide if we shall have you thrown into the harbour, or hand you over to the police.'

John had recovered his breath and, now that he had landed himself in real trouble, found his brain working with unexpected clarity. It seemed obvious that he could expect no help from Christina; but if he could get round the chair there was a chance that by hurling himself on Jules he might yet put him out of action.

Without taking his eyes from John, Jules spoke again. `Christina ! Just behind you there is a bell push. Please ring for the steward. He is quite a gorilla; so we'll let him take charge of our uninvited guest. Then we can resume our conversation.'

`No,' replied Christina composedly. `I am enjoying this. You can fight it out between you.'

Shaken out of his complacency, Jules shot her a surprised glance. It gave John just the opportunity for which he had been hoping. The second that Jules' eyes left his, he thrust the chair aside and sailed in.

John was much the slighter of the two, and at both school and university he had tended to despise athletics; but during his military service he had been made to take up boxing and had not done at all badly for his weight. Now, these bouts under the exacting eyes of tough Army instructors stood him in good stead. Jules put up his fists, and awkwardly fended off the first blows, but he was driven against the after partition of the saloon. John slammed a left to his chin and his head banged against the wooden panelling. As it jerked forward he opened his mouth to yell for help, but John drove a right into his stomach. With a gasp he half doubled up, thrusting his head out and clutching at his belly. He was now so obviously helpless that for a second John was reluctant to strike again; but he knew that to forgo this chance of finishing him off would be crazy. Stepping back a pace, he landed a blow that had all his force behind it under Jules' left ear. The

Frenchman pitched over sideways, struck his head hard on the leg of a chair as he went down, and rolled over, out cold, face upward on the carpet.

`Well done! Oh, well done!' The words came from Christina more as breathless gasps than exclamations.

Sucking the broken skin of his knuckles, John turned towards her. She had stubbed out her cigarette and was standing up now, her huge brown eyes round with excitement. Pushing her way out from behind the table, she ran to him, flung her arms about his neck and, opening her mouth wide, glued it on his.

It was the sort of kiss calculated to rock any man's senses, and John was no exception. She had nothing on over her thin day frock and through it he could again feel the warmth of her body; yet it seemed an entirely different body from that which he had held in his arms during the afternoon. That had been soft and hesitantly yielding with occasional tremors due to girlish diffidence. This strained against him with a fierce virility, and every few seconds was shaken by a spasmodic trembling caused by uncontrollable passion.

Momentarily overcome as he was, his brain instantly protested that this was no time or place for love making. Then instinct rowed in and told him that love played no part in this monstrous embrace, or even natural passion. It was night and Christina was not her true self. She was the victim of a primitive emotion which had been aroused in her by witnessing a scene of violence. She was the female who had just seen two males fighting over which one of them should possess her. With shock, and almost a feeling of nausea, it suddenly came to him that had he been the senseless body on the floor and Jules the victor, it was Jules whom she would now be seeking to devour with her luscious, breathless kisses.

Lifting his arms from about her, he grasped her wrists, broke her grip round his neck, thrust her away from him, and cried

`Christina ! Pull yourself together ! We've got to get out of here; and at once.'

She seemed to sober, and murmured, `All right,' but gave him a slightly sullen look as she turned to pick up from the back of a chair a heavy Shetland tweed coat, and added, `Now you have settled matters with Jules, what's the hurry?'

`I'll give you all the reasons later,' he said, endeavouring to humour her rather than bully her, as he helped her into the coat.

`Anyhow, there is time for you to get this off me.' As she spoke she turned. He noticed with vague surprise that she was wearing gloves, and drawing off the left one she thrust her hand out towards him.

`D'you mean my ring?' he asked in a puzzled voice. `But why?'

`Of course, stupid!' she exclaimed, turning away her head. `It has been hurting me all the evening. It's like a hot band round my finger, and I can't look at it. Every time I do it dazzles me.'

He stared at the signet ring and wondered if he could possibly be imagining things. To him it was not dazzling, but its gold seemed to be shining with a brighter, purer light than it had ever done during the years he had worn it himself. His father, to whom it had originally belonged, had not been a pious man, but upright and fearless, and the thought flashed into John's mind that perhaps the precious metal had mysteriously absorbed some of his father's qualities; so was now having on Christina, in a minor degree, a similar effect to that of the crucifix his mother had thrown to her the previous night. Seeing that the knuckle above the ring was red, angry and swollen, he said

`You have been trying to get it off yourself, and failed; so I don't suppose I can.'

`That was Jules,' she replied with an impatient shrug. `I asked him to try, and offered to kiss him if he could; but he couldn't; so I wouldn't. But you put it on; so you must get it off.'

Suddenly it occurred to him that the ring might, perhaps, be acting to some extent as a charm against evil and, as long as she wore it, would reduce the strength of her nocturnal inclinations to play into the hands of her own enemies; so he shook his head.

`No. I'll take it off to morrow morning for you if you like; but there is no time now. We've lost a couple of minutes as it is. And Jules isn't the only person I've had to lay out in order to get hold of you. Ten minutes ago I slogged an officer. Any moment. ..'

`Did you?' she broke in, her eyes glowing again. `Oh, John, I think you're wonderful ! Let's get away then. I'll go anywhere you wish.'

`Right; come on!' He grabbed her by the arm and hurried her to the door. `It's not Jules I'm worried about, but the other chap. The Captain may send someone to look for him. The moment they find him the hunt will be up. Alarm bells, lights all over the ship, and God knows what else. If that starts before we can get ashore our number will be up.'

The passage was empty. No one was battering on the door of the galley; evidently the steward and the chef had not heard the struggle in the saloon, or yet discovered that they were locked in. Still holding Christina by the arm, John drew her up the companionway after him. As his head emerged above deck level he glimpsed through the stern rail a man standing on the quay, some thirty feet away, by a bollard round which was looped the yacht's stern hawser. It looked as if he was awaiting orders to cast off, but the deck of the yacht was still in darkness.

Feeling certain that if they ran the length of the deck they would be bound to attract the watchman's attention and that, with his suspicions aroused, he would dash down the ladder from the bridge in an attempt to stop them before they reached the gangway, John whispered

`Steady, now. We must walk off just as if we had dined aboard and I was no going to see you home. With luck the watchman may take me for Jules, as he and I are about the same height. If we could be laughing over something, that would be all to the good. My mind is a blank about funny stories at the moment, but perhaps you can think of one.'

`Yes,' replied Christina promptly, as they set off along the deck. `Do you know the one about the five brides describing to one another what had happened on the first night of their honeymoon? The first said, “My husband was just like Roosevelt, he ...” '

The rest of her sentence was drowned by the siren of a car. Next moment its headlights rolled back the darkness from the quay. As it ran past them it was slowing down and its driver brought it smoothly to a halt opposite the gangway.

`Hell!' exclaimed John, pulling Christina up. `That will be the Marquis ! Quick ! We must hide!'

But it was too late. He had scarcely got the words out when there was a movement on the bridge, a whistle shrilled, and all the lights were switched on. Momentarily dazzled by the glare, they were caught in it, standing between two of the skylights right in the middle of the deck.

The passengers were getting out of the car; two tall men and one short one. A bearded officer, who looked as if he might be the Captain, was leaning over the after bridge rail looking down at them. Another man stood beside him. Two more sailors ran out from the bridge house and took up positions on either side of the gangway.

Suddenly it dawned on John that of all these people not one was looking in the direction of Christina and himself. If they could get below again and find some place in which to conceal themselves Jules would believe that they had succeeded in getting ashore before his father's arrival. With luck they might remain as stowaways, undiscovered, until the yacht reached its port of destination, then slip ashore there. Swiftly he turned Christina about and pushed her towards the after hatch at a quick walk.

They still had ten feet to go when they caught a muffled shouting from the galley; then, as they reached the hatch, a loud banging on its door. The steward and the chef had just discovered that they were locked in, and were endeavouring to draw attention to their plight.

Before John was half way down the companionway, the banging abruptly ceased. As he neared its bottom he saw the reason, and consternation seized him. Jules had come round from being knocked out and striking his head on the chair leg much more quickly than he might have been expected. Perhaps he had pushed the buzzer for help, and it was that which had led to the steward, on going to answer it, finding that the galley door was locked on the outside. In any case, Jules had staggered out into the passage and, only a moment earlier, unlocked the door. He now stood swaying, a little drunkenly, as the steward and the chef tumbled out through it.

Once more John's lack of experience in affairs of violence had let him down; but it was vain now for him to curse himself for not having had the forethought to tie Jules up and gag him while he had the chance.

A trickle of blood was running down from a cut on Jules' forehead into his left eye. With a shaky hand he brushed it away and focused his unsteady glance on John's legs as they appeared down the companionway. The second he saw his faces he flung out a pointing arm and shouted to his men

`There he is! Get him ! Get him!'

The chef was a small plump man with a mild expression, and did not look at all the type who would willingly get himself mixed up in a rough house; but the steward was a brawny specimen with a low forehead, flattened nose and bull dog jaw. Jules' description of him earlier as `quite a gorilla' had been an apt one.

John gave the group one glance, swung about, yelled to Christina to get back up the ladder, and scampered after her. Quick as he was, they would have been on him before he was half way up had it not been that the chef, who was nearest, hesitated a second and the steward had to push past him.

Christina stubbed her toe and tripped over the top step. Hopping out on to the deck she let go a spate of foul language that sounded peculiarly shocking coming from her young, innocent looking mouth; but John registered the fact only subconsciously. In tripping she had held him up for a moment. The gorilla like steward was right on his heels and grabbing at them. He cleared the top step only just in time, but, swinging round, managed to kick his pursuer in the face.

With a howl of rage and pain, the man swayed backward. His eyes goggling and his hands clutching frantically at the empty air, he hovered for a second, then overbalanced. More yells came from below as his heavy body went crashing down on the little chef and Jules, who had been mounting the ladder behind him. Seizing the advantage this debacle had given him, John stepped back, swung to the double doors of the hooded hatch cover, and. flicked over into its staple the stout iron hook that secured them.

But his victorious retreat from below gained him no more than a breathing space. The shouting and sounds of strife had been heard up on deck. The group from the car were now half way along it. In the lead was the tall, hatchet faced Marquis, and beside him a man of about forty, with a large, fair, fluffed out moustache of the Syle favoured by some R.A.F. pilots. Close behind them were the little man, who looked like a valet, and the two sailors who had stood by the gangway. Others were running up from amidships, and the officers on the bridge were now staring aft to see what the commotion was about.

John gave a hurried glance over his shoulder. The stern rail was only a few feet behind him. In three paces he could reach the spot where it curved in towards the wharf. To balance on it for a jump would be almost impossible; but he could scramble over, cling to the rail with one hand, then leap. The ease with which he had cleared the gap when coming aboard proved that it was nothing like as formidable as it looked.

Now, though, his situation was very different. Someone on the yacht had only to call `Stop Thief' to the wharf hand, who was waiting to cast the hawser off from the bollard, for the man to run forward and grab him as he landed on the quay. Then there was Christina : her legs were long enough to make the jump, but might easily become entangled in her heavy coat. To urge her to attempt it would be asking her to take an appalling risk.

These thoughts flashed through his mind within a moment of his fastening the doors to the companionway; but even in that brief span of time the dispositions of the other protagonists in the scene had changed. The approaching group and Christina had both taken a few quick steps towards one another. Barely fifteen feet now separated them. With a swift contraction of the heart John accepted it as certain that in another minute he would be attacked,

and that against such odds he had no possible chance. Then all his preconceived ideas about what was about to happen were suddenly altered by the totally unexpected attitude of the Marquis.

Sweeping off his hat he made a smiling bow to Christina. `My apologies, Mademoiselle, that a tiresome appointment should have prevented me from joining you earlier. And Mr. Fountain, is it not? This is an unexpected pleasure. When we met the other night in Cannes, I did not know that you were an old friend of Jules. I trust that he has been giving you both a pleasant time?'

John was so nonplussed that he could think of no immediate reply. Then it occurred to him to take the Marquis's words at their face value, in the wild hope that he meant them. Hastily he blurted out, `Thank you, sir. Yes, it's been grand. I'm sorry you should arrive to find us on the point of leaving.'

By then the Marquis had taken Christina's hand and was going through the gallant motion of kissing it. By then, too, Jules, the chef and the steward had had time to sort themselves out at the foot of the companionway, and one of them had run up it. There came a loud hammering on the doors of the covered hatch, accompanied by muffled shouts and curses.

The Marquis glanced in that direction, shrugged, and said suavely, `I fear some of my new crew are ill disciplined fellows. No doubt the reason why Jules is not with you is that he remained below, endeavouring to quell a brawl among them. I am desolated that your visit should have been terminated so unpleasantly. Permit me to escort you to the gangway.'

He was still holding Christina's hand. Drawing it

through his arm in a paternal manner, he turned and led her forward. John could hardly believe his ears and eyes,

but followed automatically and found himself in the middle of the little group that had come aft.

As they walked forward the Marquis conveyed kind messages to Christina from his wife. It seemed that the Marquise had also intended to dine aboard, but had been prevented from doing so by a slight indisposition. Had she not been aware that young English ladies were quite accustomed to dispensing with the presence of a chaperon she would naturally have made a special effort, but as things were she felt sure Christina would forgive her.

No one said a word to John. The sailors and the little man had deferentially stepped aside, so were now behind him; the tall R.A.F. type with the fluffy moustache was walking at his side, but in silence.

The sixty feet of after deck was soon covered. They passed round the big squat funnel. Just beyond it, to starboard, lay the gangway. Six feet further on the bridge structure rose up across the whole breadth of the yacht. Between it and the funnel lay a band of deep shadow. It was broken only in the middle by the glow of light coming up from the main companionway, which lay under the centre of the bridge.

The Marquis turned towards the gangway, and said to Christina, `I see there is no car here to fetch you. But no matter; you must allow me to send you home in mine.'

Suddenly into John's brain there flashed an explanation for the Marquis's strange behaviour. The reason why he had pretended not to grasp the fact that he had come upon them endeavouring to escape, and continued to ignore the shouts and banging that still came faintly from the stem, must be because it had never been intended to take Christina to sea in the yacht. As C. B. had pointed out, their contract was to get her to England by the 6th, and they now had barely two days in which to do the job. It must be that Jules had got hold of her much earlier than he had expected; so brought her to the yacht as a temporary measure until his father had completed their other arrangements. The Marquis had arrived only to collect her, and was now in the act of doing so.

In an instant John forecast the next move. The Marquis would put Christina in the car, get in himself, then give a swift order to his men. They would seize him, so that he could not attempt to follow, while the Marquis drove off, carrying Christina to some dive where she would be doped, then put on a plane for England. There were only a matter of seconds to go and John raked his mind frantically for a means to sabotage this plan at the last moment.

There were four men round him and others within close call; so he knew that any attempt to stop the car or rescue

Christina was far beyond his powers. The only thing he could do was to anticipate the order to seize him. If, the second his foot was on the wharf, he dodged between the men about him and ran for it, he might get away. Should he succeed, he could be with C. B. at Henri's bar in ten minutes; and although he would temporarily have lost Christina, they could at once set about tracing the car in which she had been kidnapped.

These swift thoughts had barely coursed through John's mind when the Marquis reached the head of the gangway. Still keeping hold of Christina's arm, he halted and looked back. Suddenly he shot out his free hand, pointed it at John and cried

`Throw him down the hatch!'

11

The Marquis Calls the Tune

Before John could raise a finger, the man with the moustache and one of the sailors were upon him. His assumptions had been only partially correct. The Marquis had, in fact, assessed the true situation at a glance as soon as he had come on board; but his subtle tactics had had a different aim from the one that John had guessed. He had been quick to realise that a fight on the open, brightly lit deck could be seen from the buildings on the quay, and that later police enquiries might elicit the fact that a woman answering Christina's description had been involved in it; so he had led his visitors into the shadow cast by the bridge and funnel before resorting to violence to prevent their escape.

The melee in front of the companionway was brief. John saw the Marquis pull Christina back from the gangway and push her towards a dark doorway that stood open in the bridge structure. After that he had only a confused impression of a violent struggle with himself as its centre. Both his arms were seized and he was forced forward. Next moment he was hurtling down the companionway ladder. He struck the middle steps, which slightly broke his fall, and slithered head foremost to the bottom. Following him came the sound of pounding feet, and before he could rise his attackers were on him again. One kicked him in the ribs; two more grabbed him by the shoulders and lugged him to his feet. As he stood swaying there, half dazed between them, the man with the moustache hit him hard beneath the chin. Stars and circles in vivid array danced on a background of dense blackness before his eyes he felt his knees sag, and he passed out.

When he came to, his first sensations were the throbbing of his head, a horrid ache in his ribs, another in his right forearm, and several minor pains in various parts of his face and body. After a moment he remembered how he had come by them and realised that he was still on board the yacht.

For a while he lay unmoving, wondering vaguely how long he had been unconscious. The yacht was pitching slightly, so obviously she was now at sea, and he had the impression that it was days ago that he had been flung down the companionway, although he knew that it could not really be so.

Gradually he began to take stock of his surroundings. He was lying on a hard bunk in a narrow, dimly lit cabin. It had no porthole, so must be below the water level. Such light as there was filtered in through an iron grille in the door, which suggested that this was not the first time the place had been used as a prison. That, he concluded, was why his captors had not bothered to tie his feet and hands.

Getting painfully off the bunk, he verified the impression. The door was of steel and had no bolts, handle, or even a keyhole on its inner side; so even had he had some implement available he could not have attempted to pick the lock. The cabin had no furniture other than a single chair and a small, dirty wash basin with a cracked mirror above it. There was no bulb in the solitary electric fitting in the ceiling, so he could not switch on a light. But his eyes were now getting accustomed to the little light there was, and peering at his face in the mirror he turned it first one way, then the other, in an endeavour to assess the damage it had suffered.

His dark hair was rumpled and his face streaked with dirt. The left side of his chin was swollen and very tender, where the man with the moustache had hit him. It gave his face a slightly lop sided appearance, which was accentuated by the fact that his left eye was half closed and colouring up, as evidence that Jules had had the best of their first encounter.

Pressing the single button tap, he ran some water into the basin and, as there was no towel, used his handkerchief to bathe his hurts. The cold water refreshed him and helped to clear his head a little; but there was nothing he could do about the injuries to his body. His forearm was scraped raw where he had slithered on it down the last few stairs of the companionway, and his side pained him every time he took anything approaching a deep breath, although on gingerly feeling his ribs he did not think that any of them were broken.

While examining himself he found that his pockets had not been rifled and, rather belatedly, it occurred to him to look at his watch. On holding it up to the light from the grille he saw that its glass had not been broken and that it was still going. To his surprise it was only twenty five minutes past eleven, and as a single blow to the chin could hardly have rendered him unconscious for over twelve hours it now seemed clear that he must have come round quite soon after the yacht had left the harbour. Seeing that it was not yet midnight made him realise that, wherever she was bound, there was small likelihood of her reaching port for some hours to come; so he lay down again on the bunk.

A little grimly he began to wonder what they would do with him when she did reach port. C. B. had warned him that if he went aboard without an authority to do so he would risk a beating up, and he had been beaten up; but he did not now think it very likely that they would hand him over to the police, as C. B. had forecast they would should he find himself in his present circumstances. Any police doctor would attest that injuries such as he had sustained could not normally have been received simply while being prevented from attacking someone. It would be clear that it was he who had been attacked, and handled much more brutally than even being caught while committing a theft could warrant. Moreover, he could now justify his having come on board to look for Christina. Whatever might have happened earlier, he could swear that when he, as her fiancé, had been escorting her ashore, he had been set on himself and had seen the Marquis forcibly prevent her from walking down the gangway.

The de Grasses would surely not willingly give him the opportunity to make a sworn deposition of that kind.

On the contrary, it was to their interest to keep him silent. But how would they do that? His close acquaintance with his mother's professional efforts immediately suggested the now unnerving phrase, `Dead men tell no tales.' Yet he could not believe that the de Grasses would run the risk of committing murder in order to cover up the much lesser crime of kidnapping. It seemed far more probable that they would keep him a prisoner until they had got Christina safely to England and had had a chance to manufacture ample evidence that she had gone willingly. They would then have very little to fear if they released him, particularly if they first gave him a crack on the head, followed it when he came round with a shot of something to keep him muzzy, and then took him to a hospital with a story that they had found him wandering. There would not be much point in his mother and C. B. swearing that they had seen him board the yacht illegally; and any evidence he might give of recent events would be most dubiously regarded owing to his condition.

Such a prospect was very far from pleasant; but he felt that Christina's prospects were infinitely worse. He had good reason to suppose that she was still on board, but if she had been taken off after he had been thrown down the companionway, that made no difference. She was now in the clutches of these people and there was not a soul who could do anything to aid her.

At the moment, under the strange influence that night had upon her, it was probable that she was not at all apprehensive about her future; but she would wake tomorrow a young and frightened girl, knowing herself to be at the mercy of men she knew to be her enemies. It seemed unlikely that the de Grasses would do her any injury; but what would happen to her when they had delivered her in England? If C. B. was to be believed and his word

must be accepted as authoritative on all criminal matters she would be drugged, hypnotized, bedeviled and given

over to the lusts of evil men, until such time as the evil had entered into her to the exclusion of all else and, debauched in mind and body, she willingly lent herself to every filthiness that imagination could suggest.

The thought of what she would suffer during periods of lucidity, and the awful fate that must finally overtake her, made the perspiration break out on John's forehead. For a long time he sought desperately for possible ways of saving her, but each grew more far fetched and hopelessly impractical, until at last he drifted off to sleep.

He was woken by the steel door of the cabin being swung back with a clang. Starting up, he saw two seamen standing in the doorway. Both were brawny, tough looking fellows with hard eyes. The elder, whose hair showed grey at the sides under a rakishly worn peaked cap, beckoned to him to come out, and said

`Get between us; and keep your hands at your sides, or it will be the worse for you.'

The yacht's diesels had been stopped and her only movement now was a gentle rise and fall; so it seemed that she must have entered a port or have anchored in some sheltered bay. John gave a quick glance at his watch. It was a quarter past three. That told him that she might have run between forty to fifty miles along the coast, but in which direction he had no means of guessing. Obviously this was no time to argue; so he slid off the bunk, placed himself between the two sailors, so that the three of them formed an Indian file, and in this manner allowed himself to be escorted up on deck.

He saw then that he had been right in believing the yacht might be anchored in a bay. The moon was almost down, but the stars were bright and there was sufficient light for him to make out a headland on either side, from which the land dropped away. Between them rose an outline of dark hillside, with low down on it several lighted windows which appeared to be in one large, solitary house.

A rigged gangway, slung from davits on the yacht's port side, had been lowered. John was marched on to it, and saw that a motor launch was rocking gently beside the square grating which formed the lowest stage of the ladder. As he walked down to it he began to play with the thought of taking a swift dive; but he was not much good at swimming under water; so he was very doubtful of his ability to get out of sight before he could be spotted and recaptured. The idea was definitely rendered stillborn when they reached the launch by the grey haired sailor producing an ugly sheath knife, showing it to him and saying

`Should Monsieur show any desire to go for a swim, he will enter the water with this in his liver. Those are my orders.'

Evidently the man felt that it was not for a member of the crew to enter the launch's cabin, as he prodded John towards the bow and made him sit down on the fore deck with his back against the cabin's forward end, then sat down beside him. A moment later John heard voices, and among them Christina's, confirming his belief that the Marquis had not taken her off in his car, but detained her on the yacht. By turning his head he caught a glimpse over the low top of the cabin of several people coming down the gangway, and she was among them. The party scrambled on to the launch and, as soon as they had settled themselves in the cabin, it cast off.

John's spirits were now on the upgrade. As long as he had been in his cabin prison he had thought it certain that he would be kept there, perhaps for several days or anyway until Christina had been got safely away, and that it was even possible that he might never see her again. But now it looked as if they were both to be taken to the house with the lights, and that the place was to be used as a staging point in the arrangements for getting her to England. If so, it was at least conceivable that a chance might occur for him to rescue her, or to escape himself and let C. B. know where she was before she was moved on again.

Two thirds of the way to the shore these new hopes were sadly dashed. The launch passed close to a small seaplane that lay rocking gently at its moorings. The sight of it instantly brought into John's mind the tall man with the fair fluffy moustache. He looked a typical pilot and probably this was his aircraft. If so, here were the means by which Christina was to be transported to England, and the odds were that they meant to fly her off at dawn. With so short a time to go, all chance of rescue, or bringing C. B. and Inspector Malouet on the scene, would be ruled out.

John had barely assimilated this new cause for depression when the launch pulled in at the shoreward end of a long curved mole that formed a small private harbour. The party in the cabin landed first, and he could now see that it consisted of Christina, the Marquis, Jules, the pilot type and the little man who looked like a valet. John's escort again showed his knife, then signed to him to follow them.

With the Marquis and Christina leading, they crossed the hard, went through a gate in a low wall and entered a garden. The trees there made it darker than it had been on the water, but there was still enough light to see by. The ground sloped up, but not sufficiently to require a path with hairpin bends, and as soon as they were within a hundred yards of the house John could make out its main features.

Unlike most large properties on the Riviera, it was a flat faced, pedimented eighteenth century chateau with tall windows. It had two floors only of residential accommodation and from the first jutted out a broad terrace. Below the terrace the facade was broken only by a low central door and on either side of it a row of small, square windows protected by iron grilles. As John was aware, it was usual for the ground floor of such buildings to be used solely as cellarage, store rooms and offices; and as no lights showed from any of the small windows it seemed that this chateau was no exception.

The central door opened on to a small, stone flagged hall with a low vaulted ceiling, and a curved stairway having a wrought iron balustrade, which led up to another much loftier hall on the main floor. When they reached it the Marquis opened a pair of tall, white, heavily gilded double doors and bowed Christina through into a brightly lit salon. With its panelled walls, tapestries, Aubusson carpet and delicate furniture, it had all the elegance of a genuine Louis Seize apartment. The others followed, but as John stepped inside Jules said to the sailor who had brought up the rear of the party

`You may go now, Chopin. Monsieur Upson and I will take care of your prisoner.'

The Marquis meanwhile was addressing the little man who on closer inspection was obviously a servant, and John heard him say:

`Frederick, see that all is in order in the du Barry room. Mademoiselle may like to rest there for a while before she sets out on her journey. Then prepare our special accommodation downstairs for Monsieur Fountain. He will be our guest for some days.'

These orders confirmed John's belief that within a few hours they intended to fly Christina off in the seaplane. It was the first chance he had had to get a proper look at her since they had been separated on the yacht, and as Jules closed the door behind him he shot a glance at her.

She was half turned away from him, so he could not catch her eye; but he was given a swift indication of her mood. As the valet left the room by a further door, she asked the Marquis angrily

`Where are you sending me?'

`To England, Mademoiselle.' He waved a hand towards the pilot type, who was now leaning negligently against a large marble topped table. `I have already presented Mr. Reg Upson to you. He was an ace airman in the last war, so you need have no fears for your safety while he flies you home.'

Jules and John were standing within a few feet of the door to the hall. Seeing that everyone's attention was concentrated on Christina, this seemed to John as good an opportunity as he might ever get to make a bolt for it. Taking a swift step back, he seized the door handle.

Quick as his movement had been, Upson's was quicker. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen John brace himself and guessed his intention. Whipping a small automatic from a shoulder holster, he cried in English:

`Halt; or I fire! '

John had not even got the door open. Under the menace of the pointing pistol there was nothing he could do but let go of the handle and give a resigned shrug. Jules then grabbed him by the arm, pulled him into the middle of the room and pushed him into an armchair.

The airman laid his automatic down on the top of the table and said in a lazy drawl, `It's just as well you stopped when you did, or I'd have put one through the calf of your leg.'

Riled by Jules' rough handling of him, but knowing it to be no time to start another fight, John turned and snapped at Upson, `If you are an ex R.A.F. officer you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'

`Got to earn a living somehow,' Upson replied indifferently. `And I'm paid darn' well for taking care of troublesome types like you.'

Christina was still staring at the Marquis, and she suddenly burst out, `I will not be sent home! I wish to remain out here!

'We are not concerned with your wishes, Mademoiselle; and you will do exactly as you are told,' said the Marquis coldly.

She was standing within a few feet of Upson. Turning towards her, he said, `And while you are with me, little lady, don't try any funny business. Can't afford to do gentle restraining acts in a small aircraft like mine. If you start anything, you'll get a backhander, hard, right on your snub nose. Understand?'

With glaring eyes she spat at him, `I am not coming with you! I'll scratch your eyes out if you try to make me.'

Upson shrugged, and looking across at his employer broke into French. `Monsieur le Marquis will agree that it would be dangerous to take her up in her present state, as she might easily bring about an accident. May I suggest that she should be given a shot of dope?'

The Marquis nodded and Jules commented, `We thought that might be necessary. Obviously it is, and we'll see about it in good time before you start.'

Christina's lips drew back in a snarl. `I will not let you! I will tear the face off the first one of you who touches me Then, after a moment, she added in a different tone, `I will go only if you let John Fountain come with me.'

`That,' said the Marquis firmly, `is impossible.'

Jules turned to John and said, `I may as well tell you now what we intend to do with you. I warned you that you would get hurt if you tried to interfere with us, and you have. I got hurt, too, although not as much, and that's all in the day's work; so I bear no malice. But that is beside the point. By butting in you have seen enough to bring a case against us for kidnapping; therefore we cannot: afford to let you go. In fact, you have made it necessary for us to keep you out of the way for a considerable time. You will remain here for a few days, then you will be picked up by one of our cargo steamers on its way from Marseilles to North Africa.'

`Africa!' John exclaimed, aghast.

`Yes. You will be put ashore without money or papers in some small Libyan port, and by the time you have made your way home all this will be ancient history. Should you still bring a case, we shall be able to show that you went at your own wish, and had been suffering from mental trouble.'

John had come to his feet, but he endeavoured to keep the anger and apprehension out of his voice as he asked, `How would you show that?'

`Because you are going to write a letter to me, saying that, owing to overwork, you have recently caught yourself imagining things and fear a nervous breakdown; so feel that a long sea trip is just what you need to put you right, and are very glad to accept my offer to send you round the Mediterranean in one of our vessels. Incidentally, should it come to a case, our Captain will swear to it that you left the ship without warning him of your intention to do so; and to land without money or papers will be further evidence that you have been off your nut.'

`And what if I refuse to write such a letter?'

Jules sighed. `I fear that we shall be unable to provide you with food or drink until you do.'

To everyone's surprise Christina cried, `Send me to North Africa with him!'

`You are going to England,' declared the Marquis, his lean face for the first time showing irritation.

`I am not! I refuse!' cried Christina furiously. Then she pulled off her left glove and, looking away from it herself, displayed the glistening ring on her swollen finger.

`Do you not see? I am tied to him by this. I must go wherever he goes.'

Jules stared at her in astonishment. `But.... but you told me this evening that your engagement to him was only a phony one.'

She shuddered and violently shook her head. `That was before the two of you had a fight. When he overcame you I knew I was his. Now I am bound to him ... bound to him.'

Flecks of foam had appeared at the corners of her mouth, and they all thought that at any moment she was going to have a fit. The Marquis moved quickly over to a side table on which there was an array of drinks. A siphon was among them, and squirting some soda water into a glass he carried it over to her.

`Mademoiselle, calm yourself, I beg,' he said. `Drink this, and sit down for a moment.'

Christina took the glass and drank most of its contents. She did not sit down. No one spoke for a moment, then Jules said to John

`There is another letter which it would be advisable for you to write. This one would be just as much in your interest as in ours. It would be to your mother, to allay her anxiety about your disappearance. You could simply say that you have accepted an invitation from me to go for a cruise round the Mediterranean and expect to be back in about six weeks.'

`You want me to do that in the hope that it will stop her putting the police on to you?'

`Exactly. She will realise, of course, that the “invitation” was one which you were not allowed to refuse; but if she knows what has happened to you and believes you to be safe, there will be no point in her asking the police to trace you.'

`Again, what happens if I refuse?'

`Nothing!' Jules smiled. `We shall have to have you kept on board the ship a few weeks longer, to counteract the possibility of a French Consul having you flown back, should your case have been put on his list by the police if your mother asked them to conduct a search for you; but that is all. The point is that once you are on board it will be quite impossible for the police to trace you until you land. And no one else will inform your mother what has become of you, unless you agree to do so yourself. Therefore, if you refuse this offer, she may be caused great distress for some time to come, believing you to be dead. It was to suggest to you that you should write this letter now, for delivery to morrow, that we had you brought up here instead of putting you straight into a cell. Come, what do you say?'

John found himself caught in a cleft stick. The last thing he wanted to do was to protect the de Grasses from police enquiries, and by giving a reason for his disappearance he might hamper his mother in getting them to take the case further than a routine questioning of Jules who, of course, would have a plausible story all ready for them. On the other hand, he knew how desperately worried his mother would become if she had no news of him. To allow her to remain in a state of terrible anxiety for several weeks, when he could easily reassure her, was unthinkable. So he said

`Very well. I will write to my mother on the lines you suggest.'

It was at that instant that Christina shot the Marquis.

12

The Fight in the Chateau

John did not see Christina grab the gun up from the table, or fire it. He was looking at Jules; and Jules, the Marquis and Upson were all looking at him, waiting to hear whether he would decide to write the letter to his mother. Christina had taken advantage of that moment. She had stretched out her hand as though to pick up the glass she had set down a few moments before and finish the drink the Marquis had given her; instead, she snatched the automatic that Upson had left lying within a few inches of his own hand, aimed it, and pressed the trigger.

Simultaneously with the crash of the pistol, the Marquis clasped his right shoulder. Reeling back, he collapsed on a Louis Seize settee. It was as well for him that he did, as Christina sent a second shot at him. It thudded into the Gobelin tapestry behind his head.

Upson was the first to move. The Marquis had hardly staggered under the impact of the bullet before the airman swung a blow at Christina's head. She ducked it as she fired her second shot, sprang away and turned the pistol on him. There was murder in her eyes. Seeing it, his face blanched and he made a futile gesture, throwing out his hands as though to ward off the bullet.

There was barely four feet between them; so had it not been for John he would certainly have been shot. But,

as he had struck out at Christina, John had swung round on his other side, run in, and struck at him. The blow landed squarely on the side of his face. He was already slightly off balance and it sent him spinning. Christina's third shot sang harmlessly over his shoulder.

Jules was standing near the table on which was the tray of drinks. Snatching up a bottle of Dubonnet bythe neck, he flung it at Christina. The cork came out as it flew through the air, and the sticky liquid splashed all over her face and neck, but the bottle missed her.

Letting out a scream of rage, she ran towards him, firing as she went. With extraordinary agility he flung himself aside, pirouetted like a ballet dancer and kicked her on the thigh. She went over with a crash and the pistol exploded for the fifth .time. Her fourth shot had missed Jules, but the fifth paid an unexpected dividend. At that moment the door by which the valet had left the room opened, and he poked his head in. The bullet fired at random splintered the woodwork within an inch of his chin. His eyes popping with fright, he jerked back his head and slammed the door shut again.

As Christina measured her length on the floor Jules ran at her, but John was in the act of rushing at him. They collided. John's rush had carried him half across the room, so there was more force behind it. Jules went over backward, striking his head hard on the parquet floor. He rolled away, then struggled to his knees, but remained there grasping a chair with one hand and swaying from side to side, temporarily incapable of further action.

Christina was up again, the automatic still clutched in her hand. The Marquis had also staggered to his feet, and with his sound arm was clutching a silken bell rope. As he jerked it up and down a bell could be heard clanging in the distance. Christina had pitched forward to within a few feet of him. No sooner was she up than she pointed her gun at his heart. Only just in time to stop her from committing murder, John knocked it aside. The bullet shattered the centre panel of a cabinet displaying a beautiful Sevres dinner service.

The tinkle of glass and china merged into the thunder of

feet charging across the parquet. As John and Christina stood together Upson was coming at them from behind

with a chair raised above his head. They swung round to

face him. For a second it seemed certain that it must fell one, or both, of them.

There was no time to step aside; no time even for Christina to bring up her pistol. John gave her a push that sent her reeling back on to a chaise longue. Lowering his head he went right in under the chair and butted the airman in the stomach. Upson lost his grip on the chair; it crashed to the floor behind John's back. He managed to keep his feet, but Upson went over backwards, the breath driven from his body, and lay writhing in agony.

From the time Christina had fired her fires shot, not one of these violent, kaleidoscopic actions had occupied more than ten seconds; yet in this bare minute or two the crack of the shots and the clanging of the bell had roused the house. The sound of running feet could be heard pounding along a corridor somewhere beyond the door through which the valet had poked his head.

As Christina pushed herself up from the chaise longue on to which John had thrust her, he grasped her arm, turned her towards the double doors by which they had been brought in, and cried

`Quick! The servants are coming! This way, or they'll catch us!'

Still clutching the pistol, she ran through into the hall. He darted after her, but as he slammed the door behind him he had the presence of mind to swing round and turn the big ornate key that protruded from the lock. In three strides he reached the head of the short flight of stone stairs. Christina was halfway down them. Suddenly she lurched sideways, let out a yell, and fell sprawling the last few steps to bring up against the terminal post at the bottom of their curved wrought iron balustrade.

`You hurt?' he panted, helping her to her feet.

She took a couple of steps and screwed up her face with pain. `It's my ankle. It twisted under me.'

The little automatic had been dashed from her hand, but had not exploded. John stooped, grabbed it up, put on the safety catch and slipped it into his pocket as he cried anxiously, `Will it bear you? Can you possibly manage to run?'

`It has got to,' she gasped, her eyes flashing with determination.

`Well done! Here, lean on my shoulder.'

She flung an arm round his neck, and together they trotted across the stone flags to the outer door. On emerging from it they could hear loud banging on the doors of the salon, and excited shouts. Jules was yelling for the servants `Marcel ! Henri ! Frederick ! Where the devil are you?'

As the fugitives ran out into the garden, by contrast with the brightly lit interior of the chateau it seemed pitch black. The moon had, now set and the stars gave only a pale light in the open spaces between the trees. Their instinct was to take the way they had come and head down the broad walk for the harbour. But no help was to be expected there, and, after a second, John realised that they would stand a better chance of getting away if they could find a side entrance to the grounds. Swerving to the right, he ran Christina along under the terrace till they got to the end of the building. A wall continued from it, in which there was a tall arch with a wrought iron gate leading to a stable yard.

By the time they reached the arch, the windows of the salon had been flung open and several people had run out on to the terrace. Jules was shouting to the servants, `Get out into the garden. Quick now! Quick!'

John pushed open the iron gate. As he did so a furious barking started and a big wolfhound came bounding from a kennel towards him. Christina screamed and he swiftly pulled the gate shut. At that instant two men ran out from the main door of the house. Hearing the barking and the scream, they swerved to the right and came racing towards the stables.

The second John had the gate shut, he and Christina made a dash for a path that led down the side wall of the garden. It was screened from the chateau by a belt of trees and thick shrubs which hid it in almost total darkness. Fifty feet along it he came upon the thing he had been hoping so desperately to find a postern gate. As his hand grasped the latch he prayed frantically that it would not be locked. His prayer was answered : at the first pull it flew open. With Christina still leaning on him, he stepped through it.

One glance in each direction, and his heart sank with dismay. It gave on to the road leading up from the harbour to the carriage entrance of the chateau, and on, inland. On its far side was a steep bank topped by another wall, which ran unbroken both ways as far as he could see. Behind them they could hear the flying feet of their pursuers nearing the stables. Christina was moaning with pain, and the tears were running down her face. The road between the two walls was like a long, curved corridor, and in it there was no scrap of cover. Once, out on it, the stars would give enough light for them to be seen. However game Christina's effort, within two hundred yards they must be run down and caught.

Pulling her back, John whispered, `we must hide: it's our only chance.'

Leaving the postern door wide open, he drew her swiftly with him down the path. Fifty feet farther on he pushed her in among the bushes and they stood there with their hearts pounding, trying to still the rasping of their breath.

It was none too soon. Jules' men had found the iron gate to the stable yard still shut and the hound baying on its far side. Realising that the fugitives could not have gone that way, they darted towards the path. Fifty feet along it they came upon the open postern. As John had hoped, they ran through it. He gave them a minute, fearing that, seeing no one up or down the road, they might come back. Then, after a mutter of voices, he heard their running steps again as they headed towards the nearest bend, which lay up the slope.

Coming out from their cover, John and Christina continued to follow the path, but now at a quick walk and making as little noise as possible. Temporarily they had escaped from the likelihood of immediate capture; but people calling to one another from the centre of the garden told them that Jules, Upson, and perhaps some of the other servants had come out to join in the hunt; and where the shrubbery was thinnest John twice caught the flash of torches.

He knew that now there was little chance of slipping unseen out of the gate down by the port, and was desperately casting about for some place where they might hope to lie concealed when the hunt moved in their direction. By this time they were nearly at the bottom of the garden and could see part of the wall that ran parallel with the shore. Above it showed the starry sky, but at the corner where the two walls met a patch of blackness reared up to double their height, its faint outline having the appearance of a square, topped by a triangle. After a second John realised what it was, and whispered

`That's a gazebo just ahead of us. With luck they will think we got away along the road. They may not look in there. Anyhow, it's our best bet. We must chance it.'

`A what?' murmured Christina.

`A gazebo a raised summer house built on the corner of the wall, to give a view of the bay.'

Swiftly but cautiously, they covered the short distance to the end of the path and made their way up the curving wooden stair they found there. The door of the gazebo was not locked, but it squeaked a little and, fearful of being heard; when they had crept inside they closed it gently behind them. For a moment they could see nothing, then panels of greyness showed the position of the windows and they realised that the place was sexagonal with a window in each of its sides except that occupied by the door. By groping about they found that it held basket chairs with cushions in them, a table and a low cupboard. Lowering themselves into two of the chairs, they subconsciously stilled their breathing while listening anxiously for sounds outside.

Muffled now by the wooden walls of the garden house, they could still hear the calls of the searchers. Once they caught the quick tread of heavy feet nearby, and the reflected glow from a torch lighted one of the windows on the garden side; but after a quarter of an hour of agonising apprehension no sound had reached them for several minutes, so it seemed that the search had been abandoned.

Till then neither of them had dared to speak from fear that one of Jules' people might be hunting about in the shrubbery beneath them: but now John thought it safe to ask in a whisper

`How is your ankle?'

`Not too bad,' Christina whispered back. `It gave me hell while we were running; but since I've had it up on a chair the pain has eased a lot. I don't think it's sprained only twisted.'

`It ought to have a cold compress on, but there's no hope of that. Still, I could bind it up tightly, and that may help when we have to move again. Shall I try what I can do?'

By this time their eyes had become a little accustomed to the darkness; so he could just make out her nod. `I wish you would; but do you think you can see enough?'

`We could use my cigarette lighter, but I don't like to risk it. This place may be visible from the house.' As he spoke he knelt down and groped about till he found her foot. Having taken off her shoe, he felt the ankle gently with his finger tips. It was swollen, but not very much. Getting out his silk handkerchief, he folded it on the seat of a nearby chair, as well as he could by touch, cornerwise in a long strip. Then he said

`You had better take off your stocking.'

She undid the suspender and rolled it down for him. He peeled it off and for a moment held her bare foot in his palm. It was cool, firm and delightfully smooth. His hand closed round it easily, and on impulse he remarked

`You were grumbling this afternoon about the size of your feet. I can't think why. This is a lovely little foot.' The words were scarcely out when he regretted them from the sudden fear that she might take the compliment as an amorous overture. He had experienced how swiftly she could be aroused to uncontrollable passion during the dark hours, and the last thing he wished for was to have to repel advances of which she would be ashamed in the morning light.

His fears were not altogether unfounded. After a second's hesitation, she said very softly, `If you like to kiss the place that might make it well.'

Instead, he laid on the bandage. It was the handkerchief he had used to bathe his face in the cabin, so it was still damp and cold. As it touched her she gave a little gasp, and, to distract her mind from the thoughts on which he felt sure it was running, he told her about the use to which he had put it; then, as he drew the bandage tight and tied the pointed ends in a knot a few inches above her heel, went on to describe the hurts he had received on the yacht.

The ruse served to some extent, as she immediately became all concern. Then leaning forward she found and stroked his face, as she murmured, `Poor John! You've had a frightful time. And all for my sake. But I'll do anything I can to make it up to you.'

He got her stocking on over the bandage, then told her to pull it up; but she gave a low laugh.

`No; you do it for me, darling. I'm glad you like my feet; although you'd find them much bigger than you think if you saw them. Of my legs, though, I have real reason to be proud. They are a lovely shape and above the knees as soft as satin. Just feel, here by my suspenders.'

Suddenly taking his hand, she pulled it forward till it touched the inner side of her thigh on a line with the top of her other stocking. The flesh there was like a cushion of swans down under a taut stretched skin of tissue thin rubber; it had that indefinable quality of being cool at first touch, then instantly radiating heat. The back of his fingers were pressed for only a second against it. Jerking them away, he tore his hand from hers, and snapped

`That's quite enough of that! Do it up yourself.'

For a moment she was silent, then she said in a voice near to tears, `Oh, John, you are unkind. Have you been playing with me? Don't you love me at all?'

His mouth had suddenly become dry. He swallowed, but his words came huskily in the darkness. `If you want to be seduced, ask me to fix your stockings for you tomorrow afternoon. But I'm damned if I'll make love to you now, while you are under some accursed influence.'

She sighed. `But it's now I want you to. I'd make you if I wasn't so tired.'

He laughed a little grimly. `You would probably succeed if I wasn't so tired myself. My ribs are still giving me gyp, and I'm one big ache all over. It must be past four o'clock, too; so it is over twenty hours since we had any sleep,

except for our nap in the olive grove.'

`That was nice.' Her tone was warm at the memory.

`But I'm such a stupid little fool in the daytime. I was nervous of you then.'

`I like you better when you are like that, because you are your real self.'

`What is my real self?' she asked cynically. `My feelings are as real by night as they are by day. I shall be the way you like me best again soon, though. The change always comes an hour or so before dawn, and I can feel it coming on. But you can't have it both ways. If they find us here and we have to try to escape again I'll probably behave like an hysterical schoolgirl, and I'll never have the pluck to fire that gun.'

`Don't worry. I have it, and I felt it over soon after we got in here. There are still two bullets left in it. They should be enough to give us a sporting chance of a breakout if we are found here, but it looks as if they have made up their minds that we got away along the road. The thing that troubles me is your ankle. I should like to give them another half hour, then go out and reconnoiter. If no one is about it would be the perfect opportunity to slip away inland behind the chateau. No one would ever find us up there in the marquis. But there is always the chance that we might be spotted leaving the garden and have to run for it again; and, anyway, I'm sure your ankle would never stand up to a long tramp over broken ground up into the hills.'

`No, John. I'm afraid I should let you down if we tried that. Still, if they don't look for us here soon, it is very unlikely that they will tomorrow; so we could stay here in hiding all day. By the evening my ankle will be much stronger and we could slip away soon after dark.'

`We'll be jolly hungry and thirsty by then; but it would certainly be our safest plan.'

`A day's fasting won't do either of us any great harm. If you agree, let's try to get some sleep now.'

`All right,' he said, standing up. `There is a bigger chair here with a pull out for the legs. I'll pile some cushions on it and you had better have that.'

When he had arranged the chair, she rested one hand on his shoulder and pulled herself up beside him. Quietly, with no hint of seduction in her voice, she asked, `Do you care about me at all, John? Tell me honestly. I want to know.'

`I can only say that in a very short time I have grown very fond of you,' he hedged. `I've already told you that I refuse to make love to you except in the daytime.'

`You are still afraid of me,' she whispered, `but you needn't be. The windows are lighter already, with that pale light that comes before dawn. But I still have enough shamelessness left to tell you something. I love you. You may think that is just because I've never been kissed by any other man. It's not. It's something deep inside me. I know that at night my wanton thoughts might make me easy game for anybody; but during the day, although I am shy and awkward, I long every bit as much to feel your lips on mine. I love you. I love you terribly. I'd die for you, John, if I had the chance.'

He could find no words with which to reply, and after a moment she went on, `Even if you are only a little fond of me, do something for me, please. Let's lie down in the chair together. I want to feel your arms round me. You have been so gallant in the way you have protected me; but at any time my enemies may prove too much for you. We may never have this chance again. Although you can't tell me that you love me, let me go to sleep making believe that you do.'

Gently he lowered her on to the pile of cushions, then lay down beside her and took her in his arms. She put her cheek against his, but made no attempt to kiss him. Her limbs relaxed and she gave a sigh of contentment. On a sudden impulse that overbore all his scruples, he murmured, `I love you, Christina. I love you,' and drew her more closely to him.

For making love the pile of cushions on the long basket chair was quite adequate, but not for a prolonged sleep. It was too narrow, and beneath the cushions its arms dug into their backs. Dozing was all that either of them could manage, and some three hours later John kissed Christina lightly on the forehead, then got up.

He did so cautiously, as it was now full daylight; and if he showed himself above the level of the window sills of the gazebo there was a risk that he might be seen. First he peeped out on the garden side. He could see no one in it, and the iron roller blinds of the chateau windows were all down. A glance at his watch showed him that it was just after half past seven, so the lack of activity was not surprising in view of the fact that its occupants could not have got to bed much before half past four.

Still crouching, he crossed to one of the windows overlooking the shore. That, too, presented a peaceful early morning scene, but a disappointing one. John had hoped to see there at least a few fisher folk who in an emergency such as Jules suddenly thinking of the gazebo later in the day and ordering it to be searched could be called on for help. There was not a soul to be seen and it was quite clear now that the little harbour was a strictly private one. The only craft in it were a twenty foot sailing yacht, a sailing dinghy, a speed boat and Upson's seaplane. The big yacht in which they had been brought there was still lying at anchor about a quarter of a mile beyond the point of the mole. Made fast to it were the launch in which they had come ashore and another more powerful vessel that looked like a converted submarine chaser.

He was just wondering if they could get out of the garden unobserved, swim out to the speed boat and make off in it, when the submarine chaser cast off from the yacht and turned her nose in towards the harbour. In a graceful curve she rounded the point of the mole, reversed her engines, and manoeuvred a little until her pilot had brought her skilfully alongside its outer end. Two sailors with lines jumped ashore and she was swiftly made fast. A moment later a gangway was put out and a group of people landed from her.

Suddenly John jerked himself erect and gave a shout. `Christina ! We're saved ! There's Mumsie! I'd know that absurd hat of hers anywhere. And there's C. B. ! They've got the police with them. Hurrah! They must have found out where the yacht had gone, and come to rescue us.'

Christina had still been dozing. She scrambled to her feet and joined him at the window. Both of them could make out the group clearly now, as it advanced along the mole. In addition to Molly Fountain and C. B. it consisted of a very tall old man with a drooping grey moustache, and three men in uniform.

`Come on!' cried John. `Let's go down and meet them. But how is your ankle? Is it up to walking?'

She tried her weight on it. `Yes, it's much better. I'll be all right if you give me your arm. Oh, John, what wonderful luck their coming and finding us here.'

As she spoke they turned to look at one another. It was the first time they had done so in daylight since the evening before. Neither realised what a sight they themselves presented, and grinned at the marks of battle on the other.

`You are in a mess,' Christina laughed. `Your chin's all swollen and you have a glorious black eye.'

`You look as if you had been dragged through a hedge backwards, yourself,' he retorted cheerfully. `The sticky liquor from that bottle Julies shied at you has collected so much dirt that you'll have to scrape it off your neck with a knife; and your hair is a veritable bird's nest.'

As he spoke he took the little automatic out of his pocket, and added, `I'll keep this handy, just in case anyone tries to stop us between here and the gate. Come along now! Let's go!'

When he opened the door of the gazebo the garden still appeared to be deserted; so they went down the steps to the path. On their way to the gate he said, `Now that the police have been brought into this we ought to be careful what we say. If I had had the wit and the chance to snatch this gun last night I have no doubt I should have shot someone with it myself; but such acts usually have repercussions. Mind, I don't think there is the least likelihood of the Marquis bringing an action against you. He would find it much too difficult to explain away his part in the affair. I'm only a bit worried that wounding with firearms may be what is termed a crime against the state. If so, and the French police are told about it, they would have no option but to arrest you; so I think we had better skip your grand performance with the heavy armaments.'

`Tell them what you like,' she shrugged. `I was mad as a hatter at the time; so I suppose it's lucky I didn't kill someone; but I'm not feeling a bit like Two gun Annie now.'

`May be,' he answered with a smile. 'But it would be pretty mean of me to let them infer that I rescued you, when it was really you who rescued me, I think I'll say...'

`Oh, don't be silly, John! I could never have got away without you. The less you say about my part in it, the better. They are much more likely to believe that you slew all the dragons and carried me away across your shoulder. Anyhow, I'll leave all the talking to you.'

On reaching the gate they found that it was not locked, so they walked straight out on to the hard; and there, now only fifty feet away, were, the group from the submarine chaser.

With exclamations of surprise, followed by shouts of delight, the rescuers joined the rescued. Molly was so overcome at seeing her boy safe and sound that she dared not kiss him from fear of bursting into tears; so, much to his surprise, she shook him vigorously by the hand. With a laugh, he picked her up and hugged her. Then, in turn, she hugged Christina. C. B. introduced the tall old man as ex Inspector Malouet, and the senior police officer as Sergeant Bouvet. The next ten minutes passed in a gabble of questions and explanations.

It emerged that they were on the island of Port Cros, the smallest of the three main islands known as the Iles d'Hyeres. The de Grasses had long owned the chateau and a fine estate there, but otherwise it was almost uninhabited. On arriving at St. Tropez, Malouet had suggested it as the most likely place for the yacht to have taken Christina, as in any public harbour along the coast the arrival of a vessel of her size would at once have been reported. After a lengthy discussion with the local police, he had persuaded them to co operate by getting the customs temporarily to place at his disposal one of the fast craft they used for the prevention of smuggling. On reaching the Ile de Port Cros they had boarded the yacht with a search warrant. Her Captain had refused all information, so they had spent an hour going through her; then, having drawn blank, they had just come ashore to pursue their enquiries at the chateau.

John gave an abbreviated version of what had happened to him and Christina, concluding with their escape to the gazebo. When he had done, Sergeant Bouvet said

`It appears that Mademoiselle accepted an invitation to go aboard the yacht, and that Monsieur joined her there in an irregular manner. However, that could not excuse the treatment to which you allege that you were later subjected. Does either of you wish to make a charge? If so, I must take down your deposition in detail.'

`Hold yourself, my son, hold yourself,' said the elderly Malouet, patting him kindly on the shoulder. `Your enthusiasm does you credit, but there is more in this matter than appears on the surface. If you will permit me, I should like to talk privately with these young people before they commit themselves to any legal action.'

`But of a certainty, Monsieur,' replied the sergeant, and from his tone it was clear that he regarded the ex inspector with a sentiment akin to veneration. `It is a privilege to have your guidance in such an affair, and you have only to make your wishes known to me.'

Malouet favoured him with a courteous little bow. `Since you are so kind, I suggest that we should all return to our ship. For the time being I think it would be as well if we made it as difficult as possible for anyone to trace Mademoiselle's movements. I am, therefore, loath to take her back to St. Tropez. Perhaps on your way there you could land us at some little frequented place. Later, should it be decided that a charge is to be preferred, you may be sure that I shall lose no time in getting in touch with you.'

`As you will, Monsieur. Let us go back on board, then. Have you as yet decided whereabouts you would like us to land you?'

For a minute or two the old man did not reply; but when they had covered about fifty paces towards the submarine chaser he said, `If we take the route between the islands and the coast we must pass a little place called Cavalaire. The village is on a shallow, sandy bay, facing eastward; but it is not that I have in mind. To the south of it there is a headland, and on the headland is a small hotel called the Sur Mer. In the old days it was owned by a man named Gandini and was famous for its good food, as he was once a maitre d'hotel at the Negresco. He has long since sold it, but it has a private bay on which we could be landed from a boat.'

`I know it!' The sergeant waved an airy hand. `You are as good as there already, Monsieur. A perfect spot to go ashore discreetly, observed only by a handful of people. So early in the year I doubt if even the hotel itself will be open.'

`I had rather hoped it would,' Malouet confessed, `as I am beginning to feel the need for my pent dejeuner. But if it is not, we can walk down to the village, hire a car there, and drive to some other small place for a meal, before progressing further.',

Ten minutes later they were on board and the vessel had cast off. Having installed Molly, Christina, Monsieur Malouet, C. B., and John in the after cabin, Sergeant Bouvet tactfully withdrew; so they were able to talk more freely.

Rounding the western point of the Ile de Port Cros, they left the much larger Ile de Porquerolles on their left, and headed in towards Cap Benat on the mainland. Meanwhile, John and Christina gave the old walrus mustached ex inspector a more detailed account of what had happened to them during the night, suppressing only Christina's hectic performance with the gun. Then Malouet asked her to tell him of her earlier meetings with the de Grasses, and anything else she could remember having a possible bearing on her case that had occurred since she had come to the South of France, and she did so while the low throbbing craft carried them swiftly across the bay towards Le Lavendou.

Although it was still only the first week in March, no cold or boisterous wind disturbed the serenity of their short voyage. The sun was shining in an almost cloudless sky of pale blue, and its rays could already be felt, promising another day of pleasant warmth. The sea still held the greeny blueness of early morning, but its surface was unruffled by white horses and the wave crests were hardly perceptible except where they creamed upon the rocks along the shore. Behind them lay the Ilex d'Hyeres, now holding the suggestion of romance that always attaches to green islands set at a distance in a sparkling sea. Ahead rose up the indented coast of the mainland, with its rocky foreshore, verdant slopes and background of snow topped mountains.

The twenty miles was soon covered and by half past eight the ex submarine chaser was nosing her way into a small bay with rugged cliffs on either hand. A dinghy was lowered, Sergeant Bouvet and the captain of the vessel were taken leave of with warm thanks for their help, and the shore parties were landed on a flat shelf of rock at the foot of the right hand promontory, from which visitors to the hotel bathed in summer.

Slowly they made their way up the rough, steep path to the hotel. It was a small two storey building, having only a dozen bedrooms and a single salon, the whole length of its ground floor on the seaward side being devoted to a covered terrace which served as its restaurant. It had not yet been opened for the season, but the proprietor and his wife readily agreed to provide breakfast for their unexpected visitors. A small boy was dispatched on a bicycle to buy croissants in the village, `Monsieur' set about his preparations for making a big ham omelette, and `Madame' showed her guests up to five bedrooms that had fixed basins, so that they could freshen themselves up after their night out.

John was still in his shirt sleeves, putting the finishing touches to his hair with a borrowed comb, when there came a gentle knock on the door of the room he had been given. On his calling, `Come in,' Christina limped in and closed the door behind her.

She held out her left hand. The middle of the engagement finger was covered with a thick lather, and she said, `I've come for you to get your ring off. The knuckle is still a bit swollen, but I think you will be able to wriggle it over now I've made it slippery with soap.'

`Why do you want to take it off?' he asked in surprise.

`You said you would this morning. You promised to just after you had had your fight with Jules in the cabin of the yacht.'

`I wasn't speaking seriously. I said that only to pacify you at the time. You know how different you become from your real self at night.'

She coloured, looked quickly away from him, and stammered, `I . . . I'd rather not talk about last night. I mean about . . . about what occurred between us. Although my memory of it is a bit blurred now, I know that I behaved abominably. I feel terribly ashamed.'

`You needn't be.' He smiled, cutting her short. `You were really very sweet once we had settled down in the summer house.'

`It was you who were sweet to me. You said you loved me, and I shall never forget that.' Her words came out in a rush now. `I know you don't really, and that you probably said it only to comfort me, but please don't admit it, or protest that you do, out of kindness. You see, you may have really meant it just for that brief time. Anyhow, I'd like to believe so, because it will be a lovely memory to take away with me.'

`Take away!' he echoed. `What on earth are you talking about?'

She extended her hand again. `That is why I want you to have back your ring. I'll have no more use for it now, even for make believe. I thought it all out while we were dozing early this morning. I have repaid your mother's kindness by causing her a night of desperate anxiety about you, and I brought you into a situation where you might have lost your life, or anyhow have been seriously injured. That isn't right. This horrible affair is a matter for myself and my father. If anyone is responsible for me, it is he; so I have decided that the time has come when I must disobey his orders. I am going back to join him in England.'

13

Prison for One

`You can't do that,' John said quickly. `He brought you out here to keep you out of danger.'

Christina nodded. `I know that was his idea; but it has failed. The danger has caught up with me just the same. As soon as our secret enemies discovered my hiding place his plan broke down; so there is no point in my staying here any longer.'

`Oh, yes there is. For some reason we can't yet guess at, they want to get you back to England. To go there would be to play into their hands.'

`You may be right about that, but there is a chance that when Father knows what has happened he may be able to think of a new plan to foil them. Anyhow, I have caused your mother and you more than enough trouble already. You've both been wonderful to me; but I can't let things go on like this. If Father is in no position to help me I’ll go into hiding somewhere and face what is coming on my own.'

`No you won't ! I won't let you.'

`John, I've made up my mind about this, and I am in my right senses now. Please take off your ring.'

He shook his head. `Nothing doing, my dear. While you were distraught last night you declared that it bound you to me. As far as you are concerned I am on the side of the angels, and if you felt that so strongly even in the dark hours, it is a symbol that you cannot yet afford to do with out. So you are going to stay bound to me until we have seen this business through. Afterwards you can give it back to me if you like.'

`All right then,' she sighed. `I'll keep your ring. But that doesn't alter what I said about going back to England.'

`We'll talk about that over breakfast,' he hedged. Then with a sudden grin he held out his arms. `In the meantime you continue to be my fiancée; so come and give me a kiss.'

Her big brown eyes were full of tears as she put up her hands, took his face between them, and said, `Very well then; but this is good bye.'

`No it isn't, silly,' he smiled. `It is only good morning.'

As they kissed another knock came on the door, and `Madame's' voice called, `Breakfast will be ready in about five minutes, Monsieur.'

'Merci, Madame,' he called back, and they broke their embrace; but, seeing that her left hand had made the right side of his face soapy, Christina picked up a towel and began gently to wipe it. As she did so, she murmured

`What a good thing that I didn't mess up the other side. Your poor eye still looks awfully tender.'

`If it is not too repulsive a sight, a kiss on it might help to make it well,' he suggested.

As soon as he had spoken he regretted his words. Christina went scarlet, exclaimed, `How horrid of you to make me remember!' and throwing down the towel, ran limping from the room.

Down on the terrace he found his mother, C. B. and Malouet already assembled; but it was some time before Christina joined them, and when she did he saw that she had been crying. During the first part of the meal she was very silent; then gradually she seemed to forget the episode that had caused her such distress, and responded more readily to the questions Malouet put to her.

Although the previous afternoon now seemed days away to all of them, it was not yet twenty four hours since C. B. had left London, and so far he had had no opportunity to hear Christina's own version of her story; so when the meal was finished he asked her, for his own benefit as well as Malouet's, to tell them all she could about her life from the beginning.

It took her the best part of an hour, and while there was

nothing new to Molly and John in her account, when she had done both the old Frenchman and C. B. agreed with their view, that she was suffering from possession. As John had expected, none of the others would listen to her when she announced that she had decided to return to England; so he felt that he could leave it to their united firmness to dissuade her. They all pointed out in turn that the worst that was likely to happen to her while she remained in France was that the de Grasses might yet succeed in kidnapping her; whereas a far graver danger would threaten her once she had crossed the channel; so it would be absurd for her to go to meet it voluntarily, when they might be able to save her from it altogether.

As she proved very stubborn, a prolonged wrangle ensued, but eventually their various arguments based on the same theme took effect and she agreed to stay on, at least until after the 6th, which appeared to be the target date for whatever was being hatched against her.

However, out of her wish not to expose her friends to further trouble and danger, one new factor of considerable importance had arisen. Previously she had been adamant in her determination that her father should not be informed of what was happening to her, in case any communication by her should jeopardize his own plans; whereas now she had conceded that he was ultimately responsible for her safety as well as his own, and had proposed to go home and tell him what had happened herself. From this it followed that she no longer had any real grounds for objecting to anyone else doing so.

At first she protested, but both Malouet and C. B. pointed out that her father alone held the key to the mystery that surrounded her, and that it was not only unreasonable, but now also illogical, for her to insist on their fighting her battle for her in the dark. C. B. proposed that he should return to England that afternoon, and on his promising to use the utmost discretion in getting in touch with her father, she was persuaded to agree.

The next question was how best to protect her from further attempts by the de Grasses to get hold of her until C. B. returned and, having found out what they were really up against, some new plan could be made.

`Couldn't we stymie the de Grasses by bringing an action against them for kidnapping and assault?' Molly asked.

Malouet shook his head. `I would not advise it, Madame. That is why, having made use of our good friend Sergeant Bouvet, I temporized with, and got rid of, him. Mademoiselle went on board the yacht willingly .and your son clandestinely. Although they were both forcibly detained later, you may be sure that none of the crew would give evidence to that effect. There is the fact, too, that your son knocked out one of the officers who was quite rightly asking what business he had on board. That renders his position most precarious, and would certainly lead to a counter prosecution if we started anything. They are very averse to having the police enquire into their affairs; so I think it most unlikely they will bring an action against him. On the other hand, I am equally strongly of the opinion that he may get into serious trouble unless we let sleeping dogs lie.'

Thinking of the Marquis with a bullet in his shoulder, John remarked, `In view of the rough handling we managed to give them before we escaped from the chateau, I should have thought there was quite a good chance that they may feel they have had enough of this affair. After all, they are only acting as agents; so they may quite well decide that the game is no longer worth the candle, and throw their hand in.'

`Perhaps.' Malouet pulled thoughtfully at his long moustache. `The sum they were offered was a thousand pounds, was it not? That would not mean very much to M. le Marquis, and you will note that he has hardly appeared in this matter himself. That the sailing of the yacht was delayed for him last night suggests that his reason for going to the Ile de Port Cros had no connection with Mademoiselle. It seems probable that from the beginning he regarded the matter as small game, and so handed it over to Count Jules. M. le Comte may, as you suggest, now feel that it has become too troublesome a way of earning the amount concerned; but I think we should be most unwise to assume that.'

`Besides,' C. B. glanced at John, `no one likes being made a monkey of; and, the money apart, your having got the best of Jules may now have made him hopping mad to get his own back on you. In any case it is up to us to take all the precautions we would if we were certain that he meant to have another crack.'

John admitted that his idea had been prompted by unreasoning optimism, and said that he did not mean to suggest for one moment that they should relax their vigilance in guarding Christina. They then reverted to their discussion about what to do with her.

It was obvious that her own villa and Molly's were no longer safe; and Malouet thought that if they took her to any hotel upon the Riviera there was a strong probability that the de Grasses' grape vine would soon locate her; so there would then be an immediate renewal of the risk that they would again succeed in luring her away. To form a more accurate estimate of that risk, he asked her to tell them again in more detail how Jules had managed to do so the previous night, and exactly what her feelings had been while she was with him.

Looking at Molly, she said, `You will remember that when John and I came in I spent only a few minutes downstairs being introduced to Colonel Verney; then I went up to my room to arrange my things. Darkness had fallen some time before I had finished and began to think of changing for dinner. It wasn't until I had had my bath that the thought of the frock I was going to wear came into my mind. I had brought over rather a quiet little thing, and I decided that I should look much nicer in a red and silver affair that I bought just before I left Paris; so I slipped on my day dress again and went over to my villa to fetch it.

`I put it with its etceteras into a small suitcase, and had just left the house when I met Jules coming up the garden path. He told me that he was on his way back from Cannes to St. Tropez with a friend, and felt that he must just look in to see if I had quite recovered from my attack on the previous night. By then we had walked back to the sitting room, and although I had only fruit juices I felt that I ought to offer him a drink. Rather to my surprise, he accepted, and naturally I had one with him.

`Perhaps he slipped something into mine when I was not looking. I couldn't say for certain. All I know is that after I had finished my drink I felt a little muzzy; and I don't remember anything more very clearly until I found myself sitting with him in the back of a big car. A chauffeur was driving it, and with him in front there was a grey haired man wearing a yachting cap, whom I later heard them call Chopin.

`By that time we were halfway to St. Tropez; and, although no mention was actually made of it, I was subconsciously aware that I had already agreed to dine with Jules in the yacht. I had the sort of light headed, irresponsible feeling that I get at such times, and was rather amused at the thought that you and John would wonder what had happened to me. In fact, far from having any sense of guilt at my rudeness in going off without a word, I felt that I had played quite a clever trick in slipping away; and when the car drew up alongside the yacht I went on board without any suspicion that I was running into danger.

`Temporarily, the memory of my resistance to Jules' previous attempts to get me on to the yacht was entirely obliterated. To dine on board was a novel experience for me, and I thoroughly enjoyed it apart from one petty annoyance. That was the discomfort caused me by John's ring. It was not only physical discomfort, owing to a queer heat that it seemed to be generating, but that tied up in some way with a growing mental uneasiness, vaguely suggesting that, although I was enjoying myself, I was playing with fire.

`But it was not till John actually appeared on the scene that I was seriously disturbed. Then I suddenly found myself a prey to violently conflicting emotions. One half of me intensely resented his intrusion; the other demanded that I should do whatever he told me to. I felt like that all the time he was fighting Jules, but the moment he knocked Jules out the tension disappeared. I knew then without a shadow of doubt that John had come to save me from something terrible, and that at all costs I must get away with him.'

For a moment they were silent, then C.B. said, `That is interesting about the ring. Don't take it off whatever you do.'

Malouet shrugged. `It is a strange phenomenon and one of which I have never previously heard; but clearly it is not sufficient to protect her. I wonder if M. le Comte did slip anything into the fruit drink? I think he must have, as how else can we account for her sudden muzziness followed by a lapse of memory lasting some twenty minutes?'

`I don't think the point of much importance,' C. B. rejoined, giving his big nose a quick rub. `In my view the crux of the matter lies in Christina's sudden impulse to wear a more striking frock. It was that which got her out of the house, and it was followed by another to ask Jules into her villa, instead of threatening to shout for help unless he cleared off. Those two mental processes taken in conjunction show that she was being influenced by some occult force to her own detriment before Jules even had a chance to open his mouth, let alone dope her drink.'

`I am sure you are right,' Molly agreed, `and it is that which sets us such a problem in devising means for her protection. All I can suggest is that we should go to some small hotel, and that she should share a room with me. I should be on hand then to counter these dangerous impulses, and at least that would make it much more difficult for anyone to get at her.'

`It would certainly be a big help,' C. B. conceded. `But I'm afraid even an arrangement of that kind would be far from watertight. You see, I consider it certain that the Satanists who are interested in Christina are having her overlooked from time to time by means of a crystal. That is how they know the right moment to send out a thought wave which gives her a certain impulse such as that which led to her going across to her own villa last night just as Jules was due to come up the garden path. If you come into the picture they will try to work on you too.'

`Then they won't have much luck,' declared Molly truculently.

`Don't you be too certain of that. They are much too clever to try to make you do anything abnormal, but they might get at you in ways you would never suspect. You have got to sleep sometime; so they would send waves of sleep at you in the hope that you would drop off and leave them a free field with her. Even if you managed to keep awake all night, I am sure you would find it difficult to

remain with Christina for every moment between dusk and dawn; and if they could succeed in separating you from her for only a few minutes that might prove enough for them to get her away altogether. Then, occult forces apart, if Jules has his dander up he may try a snatch. Remember, he came with a pal and a driver last night, which shows he was prepared to use violence if he did not find Christina open to suggestion.'

`Well, can you think of any better plan?'

`Not for the moment. I feel sure that it was Christina being overlooked that enabled the Canon to discover her first hiding place so quickly. For that reason I don't think it would help if you took her off to Lyons or Genoa. He would soon locate her and offer some local gang the thousand quid to do a snatch. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, and we do know the de Grasses; so I think it would be wiser to keep her down here. I was only pointing out the sort of thing you and John may find yourselves up against while acting as her guardians.'

`How about pretending she has had a nervous breakdown and putting her temporarily into a private mental home?' John suggested. `The nurses and porters in such places would never allow a patient to walk out in the middle of the night.'

C. B. shook his head: `You are wrong there, John. We could not tell them that we had put her there to prevent her being kidnapped; so it would be easy to distract their attention. Our unknown enemy would have her out of a place like that in no time.'

`I could have solved the problem for you had the war

still been on,' smiled Malouet. `At times, when the pace was getting too hot for some key man in the Resistance, we used to pretend to mistake him for an habitual criminal, pick him up under the criminal's name, fake a charge against him and pop him inside. The Boches never got wise to our using the prisons as hiding places, and as soon as the hue and cry died down we let our friend escape. If only we could put Mademoiselle behind bars for a few days, neither the de Grasses nor a score of Satanists would be able to get her out. But unfortunately for our present business, it is no longer possible to commit a person on a false charge.'

John was sitting beside Christina. He gave her a swift glance, then took Upson's pistol from his pocket and showed it to her under the table. She nodded; so he said to Malouet:

`What would happen, Monsieur, if I had shot somebody

through the shoulder last night, and now surrendered my

self at a police station, confessing what I had done?' `They would take you into custody pending an enquiry.' `And then?'

`Presumably the person you had shot would come forward and charge you with having caused him grievous bodily harm.'

`Say that for his own reasons he preferred not to bring a charge and denied that anything of the kind had happened?'

`Then you would be discharged as a harmless lunatic.'

`Say he did bring a charge? I take it that in spite of my confession I should still be entitled to plead that I shot my man in self defence?'

`Certainly; and if you could bring a reliable witness to swear to that, or even sound circumstantial evidence in support of your plea, the probability is that a verdict would be given in your favour. That, too, would be rendered all the more likely through your having surrendered yourself in the first place.'

Again John looked at Christina, and again she nodded. He laid the pistol on the table, and said, `Then Christina and I propose that she should give herself up for having shot the Marquis de Grasse with that soon after half past three this morning.'

His announcement created quite a stir. At first the others would not believe that it was Christina who had used the weapon; but John gave them the true version of the fight in the chateau, and Christina filled in some of its more lurid details herself. Their account was so vivid that it carried conviction, and when they had done Molly exclaimed, with an envious glance at Christina

`Oh, you lucky girl! What wouldn't I give to have had such an experience.'

`Her luck is that she didn't kill him,' commented C. B. grimly. `If she had, she could not possibly escape being tried for murder; and as she went on the yacht willingly, even a plea of self defence might not have saved her from a nasty sentence for manslaughter.'

`Nevertheless, I congratulate Mademoiselle on her courage.' Old Malouet made her a courtly little bow. `And I am sure this will enable me to arrange matters. We will not, I think, make use of our friend Sergeant Bouvet at St. Tropez. It will be better if I take you in to Nice, as I am more intimate with many of the officials there; so can make certain that you have every comfort that is allowed during your stay in prison.'

`Thank you,' said Christina. `You are very kind. Going to prison is a far from pleasant prospect, but it certainly seems the best idea for my protection, and I am sure you will do your utmost to make it as little disagreeable for me as possible. How long do you think they will keep me there?'

'To day is Thursday, the 4th. Should M. le Marquis decide to charge you, the case could not come up for a first hearing before Monday. You would then be remanded while the lawyer we should find for you prepared your defence, and we could get you out on bail if that was thought desirable until you had to come up for trial. But, as I have already said, I think it very unlikely that the de Grasses will wish to have their affairs gone into in open court. Should M. le Marquis say that you shot him by accident and fled in panic afterwards, as he probably will, you will be released; but again, not before Monday, as once having been taken into custody you must be formally discharged by a magistrate. So in either case you will remain in prison over the weekend. And that is the important thing, for Saturday the 6th appears to be the critical date by which your enemies wish to get you to England.'

Christina gave a rueful smile. `My birthdays have never meant very much to me, but all the same it seems a bit hard that I should have to spend my twenty first in prison.'

`What's that?' exclaimed C. B. `D'you mean that you will be twenty one on the 6th? If so, that may be very important. Why didn't you tell us so before?'

`I'm sorry,' Molly put in. `Christina did tell me the first time I talked to her. I ought to have told you, but there has been no mention of it since, and it entirely slipped my memory when I was telling you her history last night.'

`Why may it be important?' Christina asked.

`Because it is the principal landmark in anyone's life. In addition the three sevens have a special magical property. As it is Satanists who are after you, that would explain why they are so anxious to get hold of you by that particular date. It looks now as if they are planning some special ritual at which the presence of an unmarried girl of twenty one is required. To make use of her on her actual birthday would, of course, enormously increase the potency of the conjuration. In fact, that is probably essential to the success of the whole business.!

'If that is so, and we can protect her over Saturday, she will be out of the wood then?' John put in eagerly.

C. B. nodded. `Yes, if we can do that I think the worst danger to her will have been averted. But we should still have to get her freed from this spell, or whatever it is, that causes her personality to become evil at night. Her father must hold the key to that; so putting her in prison will not affect my decision to go and demand his help.'

John looked at his mother. `If Christina is to be put behind bars there will be nothing that I can do here; so, if you don't mind, Mumsie, I think I'll go with C. B. to England. Should Christina's father resent C.B.’s interference, I could justify it by telling him that I am her fiancé. That might make him more willing to co operate.'

`Yes, that's true. Then go by all means, dear.

'If you do, and her old man thinks you would make a good husband for her, this fake engagement of yours may land you in for a breach of promise case,' C. B. grinned.

`Not a bit of it.' John laughed. `If she jilts me, it is I who will bring the action. You've forgotten that she is an heiress.'

Christina coloured slightly, but joined in the general laughter.

After a glance at his watch, C. B. said, `It is half past ten; so if John and I are to get to England to day, we ought to be moving. I wonder which is the best bet for an aircraft, Nice or Marseilles.'

`Nice is some thirty kilometres nearer,' replied Malouet, `and there is a plane that leaves at one o'clock for London. Even if you cannot get places on it, a lot of air traffic passes through Nice now; so you should be able to get an Air France or some other line by which you could go via Paris.'

`Going by Nice has the additional advantage that you could collect your things at the villa on the way,' Molly added.

`Come on, then.' C. B. stood up. `I'll pay the bill while one of you telephone the .local garage for a car.'

Malouet did the telephoning, and ten minutes later an ancient but comfortable car arrived from the village to pick them up. The sun was hot now and as they skidded down the rough track they could smell the scent of the pines and wild thyme growing in the marquis through which it ran. At the village they turned on to the main coast road and three quarters of an hour's drive brought them to Molly's villa. There, Christina, John and C. B. hastily packed suitcases and said good bye to her. Another three quarters of an hour, with the driver urged on by the promise of a handsome pourboire, and the others were set down at the Nice airport.

It was twenty five to one when they got there, and they were lucky enough to pick up two seats that had been returned that morning on the B.E.A. plane. C. B. sent a telegram to his office, asking that his car should be sent to meet him at Northolt; then, as there was still a quarter of an hour to spare, they had drinks and some delicious snacks at the airport bar.

When the time came to say good bye, John and Christina both tried to make light of the matter; and he jokingly told her that when he met her at the prison gates on Monday he would have his pockets sewn up, as it was certain that by then she would have become a real old lag. Since they were in public he made no attempt to kiss her, but their eyes held one another's in a long glance as they parted. Malouet watched with her until the plane had taken off, then they returned to the car and did the last four miles in to the centre of Nice.. By two o'clock Christina’s name had been entered on the prison register, and, now a number, she was being escorted by a fat, garlic breathing wardress to a cell.

The journey in the aircraft proved uneventful; and, having been up most of the night, John and C. B. slept through the greater part of it. The Cote d'Azur, with its sun and palms, was soon left behind. Over Avignon they ran into cloud and only occasional patches of land or sea were visible for the rest of the way. When they same down at Northolt it was raining. Everyone at the airport was polite and helpful, so the formalities of landing were over in a few minutes, and a pretty air hostess led them out to the place where C.B.’s car was waiting. He took it over from the junior who had bought it out, made John get into the driver's seat, and soon after four o'clock they set out for Essex.

North of London the earliest daffodils and almond trees were not yet out, so there was no colour in the gardens, and the branches of the trees still displayed their winter bareness. The skies were grey, a chill wind was blowing and the rain lashed against the windows of the car; so their sixty mile drive was a depressing contrast to the one through a smiling land of summer they had taken only that morning. It was already dark when at six o'clock they entered Colchester.

There, they engaged rooms at the Red Lion for the night, dropped their bags, and, having enquired the way to Beddows Agricultural Tractor plant, drove straight out to it.

As the factory was working night shifts, it was brilliantly lit and still a hive of activity. On asking for Mr. Beddows they were told that he was not there, and had not been to his office for a week or more. They then asked to see his secretary. She had gone home for the night, but after stating that their business was personal they were shown into a garish modem waiting room. Presently a Mr. Hicks came down to see them, and he proved to be a senior member of the staff. In spite of all their pressing that they must see Mr. Beddows on a matter of the utmost urgency, he assured them that his chief had gone abroad ten days before, leaving no address, and orders that all correspondence was to be dealt with in his absence as he could give no certain date for his return.

Their failure to learn Beddows' whereabouts was a bitter disappointment; so they returned to the Red Lion, had a wash, and sat there very despondently drinking Gimlets until dinner was served. The meal, and even a bottle of claret, followed by half a bottle of port, to wash it down, did little to cheer them.

There was, however, still a chance that something might be learned at Beddows' home, so at half past eight they got out the car again and took the road leading east out of Colchester to Walton on the Naze.

The country they were now entering was that northeastern segment of Essex which has its curve upon the sea and its two sides formed by the Rivers Stour and Colne. Its only towns of any size are the pleasure resort of Clacton in the south and the naval base of Harwich in the extreme north. For many centuries the two rivers almost enclosing it shut it off from easy communication with neighboring districts; so no great highway passes through it, and to this day it remains almost as unindustrialized as it was when Cromwell raised a company of his Roundheads from its scattered hamlets.

When they had covered a few miles the road forked, and they ran on through a series of narrow, winding lanes. Twice they took wrong turnings and had to ask their way once at an old thatched cottage and once of a benighted cyclist from whose mackintosh cape the rain was streaming : but at length they came to a triangular village green with half a dozen buildings dotted round it. One was a pub called the Weaver's Arms. On C. B. enquiring at it, they found that this was Little Bentford and that The Grange lay about two miles beyond it on the road to Tendring.

After following a sharp bend for half a mile, they passed an ancient stone church with a squat, square tower, and a little further on a moderate sized private house of hideous Victorian Gothic design; they then ran through a wood and out again into the open country.

From the description C. B. had been given, they had no difficulty in finding The Grange. It stood some way from the road in a slight hollow and a curved drive led down to it. As the car approached and the headlights threw it up, they saw it was one of those inelegant, nondescript houses, not uncommon in the English countryside, which have resulted from two or more generations adding bits in the Style of their own day to an original building. No light showed in any of its windows; in spite of the rain a suggestion of mist lurked round it up to the first floor level, and it had a chill, forbidding air.