Death at the President's Lodging (21 page)

But presently the little path branched – and just ahead both branches could be seen branching again. And the hedges were high and thick. Horace, who was ahead, stopped, and pulled up the others. “Bless me,” he exclaimed, “if it isn’t a regular maze!”

It was. And the fugitive could now be heard more faintly, as if he had put several thicknesses of hedge between himself and his pursuers.

“Split up!” cried Mike, jumping with excitement.

“No,” said David, “keep together. We’ll know then that any noise is
him
.”

David had the master mind: his would be the best First in Schools at the end of the year. Obediently bundled together, they explored ahead, stopping constantly in an endeavour to locate such noise as the fugitive made. Sometimes it was ahead and sometimes to the side; now it was fainter and now louder. But presently it became clear to the pursuers, as they swung round the abrupt angles of the maze, that they were astray. It could hardly be otherwise if the man ahead had his bearings. And at length the sounds died away just as the trio, turning a final corner, found themselves in a little clearing. It was the centre of the maze.

“What a mess!” gasped Horace. “He’s clean away – which will take
us
some time.”

But David pointed and ran forward. In the centre of the little clearing was a raised wooden platform reached by a ladder – a sort of gazebo from which wanderers in the maze might, if necessary, be directed. David was up in a flash.

“I can just see him,” he called down presently. “He’s nearly out too. Listen, Mike. Have you got any paper? We’re for a paper chase now. Out you both go and I’ll direct you. And leave a trail so that I can follow.”

It was the most efficient plan, but a tedious business nevertheless. The afternoon was already fading into twilight and David from his perch was only just able to trace out the path that led from the maze. It took him some twenty minutes to get his companions out and five minutes to follow by the aid of the paper trail himself. Finally they found themselves reunited on the main drive, a little farther from the house than where they had broken off.

“Poor show,” said Horace.

“Distinctly where we step off,” said Mike.

“Down to the lodge,” said David: “he’s likely to have made a complete break away. Come on.”

And down they went. And just as they came within sight of the gates they heard a loud and angry voice exercising itself in picturesque imprecation in front of them. It was the postman. And he was lamenting the disappearance of his bicycle. “Come
on!
” cried David – and all three dashed into the road, with no more than a fleeting glimpse of the gesticulating official, a scared and surprised woman by the lodge, a gardener or groom hurrying up from a side path. On the open road no bicyclist was in sight – and indeed the fugitive might have pedalled off a good twenty minutes ago. The postman seemed just to have become aware of his loss: he had followed up his gossip, perhaps, by going within for a little refreshment.

“Which way – that’s the question! Which way?” Mike, as he made for his car with his companions at his heels, threw the question desperately to the wind. But it was answered in an unexpected fashion – by nothing less, in fact, than the appearance of the two very aged men, gesticulating excitedly. They were old, old men; their hands were like claws and their knees were gone. But they shuffled rapidly up the road, waving their sticks that were as crooked as themselves and screaming together in a weird, unpremeditated unison.

“There ’ee do be gone, there ’ee do be gone, zurs! There ’ee do be gone in his wickedness away!” And they pointed ahead down the narrow country lane.

In a moment the De Dion was purring. Another moment and it was roaring up the lane. “I rather think,” Mike shouted, “that this runs without a break to the Lechlade-Burford road. That’s in about two miles. We ought to get him.” He was right in his bearings. The lane ran winding between low hedges for something under a couple of miles, with no more break than here and there a gate giving upon bare fields. It seemed likely enough that the fugitive had ridden straight on. David was studying his map and by the time the car had slowed down to swing into the main road he had located their position.

“Left for Lechlade,” he said, “with a crossroad about a mile along from Bampton to Eastleach. Right for Burford, and no crossroad until the Witney-Northleach road just short of the village. I vote for Burford.”

“Wait a minute,” exclaimed Horace. “Here’s a bobby who can probably tell us for certain.” A very fat policeman was cycling slowly towards them from the Burford direction. David called out to him.

“I say, constable, have you met anyone on a bicycle along this road?”

The fat policeman got off his machine with slow dignity. “Yes,” he said, “I ’as.” And his attention being directed to the matter, a new aspect of it seemed to strike him. “Come to think on it,” he added, “’twas Will Parrott’s bicycle.” He paused, broodingly.

“Will Parrott the postman?” David asked.

The policeman nodded. “But ’twern’t Will on un.” He brooded again over this reflection, and as he did so vague possibilities, undefined implications seemed to be hovering on the borders of his consciousness. “Come to think on it,” he added slowly, “fellow on un were going fast and wild. Happen–”

He was interrupted by the sudden roar of an engine. The De Dion had dispatched itself like a bullet from a gun in the direction of Burford. The fat constable allowed himself a few moments to incorporate this fact in his reflections. And then light seemed to break on him. “It be them dratted Lunnon gangsters come about these parts at last!” He turned his bicycle round and set off in heavy pursuit.

The short November twilight was closing into dusk. It was just on lighting-up time. Peering ahead, Mike and David could discover nothing. But Horace in the back with the skip suddenly called out. “Chaps! There’s another pack on the trail – a whacking great Rolls. Open out.”

It was evidently true. Mike was already driving fast, but only a moment after Horace had spoken a large grey Rolls-Royce loomed up in the dusk almost abreast. Its horn sounded urgently and at the same instant its headlamps flashed into brilliant illumination. Mike swerved to allow free passage – and thrust at his accelerator at the same moment. The Rolls was in a hurry, but not suicidally so. It drew in behind and the cars tore down the road in single file.

Visibility was poor; it was the uncertain hour at which headlights just fail to help. And suddenly, just ahead, Burford crossroads came into view. And somewhere the telephone must have been at work, for standing across the road were three policemen. And between cars and police was the fugitive, bending low over the handlebars of the purloined bicycle and pedalling furiously. The next minute was one of confusion. The cyclist was up with the policemen, two of the policemen had made a lunge, there were shouts, a stumble – and the fugitive, by swerving wildly, had got safely through the cordon and was shooting over the crossroads to Burford Hill. Another second, and the police were jumping to the side of the road to let the pursuing cars sweep past. But Mike, who was perfectly level-headed when driving a car, had checked for the main road, and by the time the cars were across the bicycle was some way ahead again and just dipping down the steep slope.

“We’ll get him!” cried Horace.

“If there’s anything left to get,” said David grimly. “He’s going down a good deal faster than he meant to.”

It was true. Mike was plunging down the long steep street that is Burford as fast as was safe in a large, perfectly controlled car. But he was scarcely gaining on the cyclist, who had let himself plunge ahead as madly as if death itself were on his tracks. His continued equilibrium seemed a matter of miracle. But in a moment it was all over. The Lamb flashed by on the left, the church on the right; the road levelled and curved to the bridge; the fugitive, by some freak of control, was safely over; the De Dion was up with him and had edged him into the ditch. The quarry was run to earth…

“It’s not him!” exclaimed Mike, gazing at the dazed, red-headed creature in the ditch. And he was conscious of the quite slender reason there had been to suppose that it was.

“It’s a looney,” said David gently, looking at the red-headed creature’s vacant eye.

“It was a looney-bin,” said Horace, looking with his inner vision at the dismal red structure known as White House…

The grey Rolls-Royce drew up with a swish of brakes. An excited but competent little person of medico-military appearance jumped out. “Is he hurt?” he cried. “Is his lordship hurt – damn him?” And he jumped straight into the ditch and began an examination.

“His lordship,” murmured Horace sadly. “This
is
where we step off.”

The little doctor was out of the ditch again. “Nothing broken. Bit of a bruise – bit of a daze – that’s all. Yates! Davies! Help his lordship into the car. Leave that damn fool postman’s bicycle where it is. Damn these policemen – couldn’t stop a child on a tricycle. Nearly had a neck broken. Rogers! Turn her round. And now, gentlemen.”

The gentlemen eyed his lordship’s warden warily. They were decidedly uncertain as to where they stood. But it did not occur to the little doctor, seeing three prosperous youths and a more than prosperous car, to see himself confronted by the villains of the piece. “Much obliged to you, gentlemen, for your – ha – intervention and assistance. I think the circumstances will be clear to you. Lord Pucklefield is one of my patients – Dr Goffin of the White House. Nervous fellow – if anything occurs to startle him off he goes. Can’t think what can have done it this time. Gates open too – gossiping postman – won’t happen again – damme. Yates! Davies! Get in!”

And Dr Goffin took off his hat very punctiliously (Mike just got in his high-table bow) and jumped into the Rolls. A moment later Lord Pucklefield and his friends had purred smoothly away into the gathering darkness.

Horace thrummed meditatively on the skip. David took out his pipe. Mike took out his watch. “Quarter to six and ever so far from home. We
could
just make hall – hurrying.” The suggestion was unenthusiastically made and unenthusiastically received. “And I drop ten bob if we don’t,” the errant bible-clerk added.

“You’ve dropped five pounds already,” said Horace brutally, and giving the skip another slap. “Another ten bob won’t do
you
any harm. I think we’d better go and have a decent meal.”

David’s pipe was alight. “There’s the Three Doves,” he said.

With one accord the party moved to the car; in a minute they were running down to the Fulbrook crossroads to turn. And as they swept back to take the long hill down whicµh they had recently come their lamps caught for a moment a ponderous figure who had dismounted from a bicycle and was contemplating the bicycle in the ditch. It was the fat constable. He must have missed his colleagues at the top of the hill. He was brooding over an impenetrable mystery.

II

The great De Dion, foiled but not ashamed, glided beneath the discreetly flood-lit sign of the Three Doves. In the lounge there was comfort in the great fires, rest in the mellow candle light, refreshment in the preliminary sherry. The fantasy of the day was over – fantasy fortunately untouched by the fatality that had at one moment threatened. David had gone back to Pindar, Horace was lost in reverie, Mike was thinking of the dinner. They were early and the pleasures of anticipation might be enjoyed.

At the Three Doves things always fall out well. The sherry had been drained, the ode finished, the reverie dispersed, the wine planned; the moment at which anticipation turns to impatience was hovering on the clock – when the waiter hovered at the door and murmured the awaited words. They rose luxuriously, and in a formal sentence Mike dismissed the cares of the day. “You know, chaps, I should have hated really to catch him.”

They were the first in the long, dim, gleaming coffee room and the smoked salmon was consumed before the next diner arrived. It was the fluffy old party of their luncheon speculations. He was without his book this time, and he ambled over to his table with his fists pressed oddly to his shoulders…

“Tally-ho-ho!”

Mike’s cry was unearthly – and it sent the fluffy old party out of the room.

“Gone a-way-ay!”

The ensuing scene was unique in the history of a well-ordered hostelry.

The ability to smell a rat is an important part of the detective’s equipment. Appleby had smelt a rat – in the wrong place. But he was too wary to take it that a rat in the wrong place is necessarily a red herring: it may be a rat with a deceptive fish-like smell – and still a rat.

To be exact, this rat had been not so much in the wrong place as at the wrong time. Just an hour after the discovery of Umpleby’s dead body two Fellows of St Anthony’s, Gott and Campbell, had converged on one spot up the Luton road. It might have been fortuitous; it might have been by design – but if by design the purpose behind the manoeuvre was obscure. At any rate, there was a field for investigation and Appleby had felt drawn to it when he first announced to Dodd that he wanted to take a walk. He was walking rapidly down Schools Street now and as he walked he concentrated on the first point he had to consider.

On the night of the crime Campbell had gone to the Chillingworth Club in Stonegate. He claimed to have arrived there before the hour at which Umpleby was last seen alive and to have remained until within ten minutes of midnight. That, as far as the murder was concerned, was Campbell’s alibi and it would have to be checked anyway. He would begin with it now.