Dictator's Way (21 page)

He supposed that probably her intention was to warn Peter Albert. But that was no good either. Warning him only meant directing fresh suspicion on him. Indeed what could she say except that he was one of several suspects and must be prepared for severe questioning by the authorities? But he must know that already, couldn't help. Anyhow, there was no real evidence against him. His occupancy of a flat in the block also inhabited by Macklin might have a dozen satisfactory explanations. Yates lived there, too, for that matter. Besides, Bobby felt instinctively that Peter Albert was no murderer. He had not the air. That missing hundred pounds seemed to Bobby's mind to prove his innocence. Of course, instinct can deceive, one can never be sure. Human nature is too strange a thing ever to be certain of. The most unexpected people do the strangest things. But then again there was always that missing hundred pounds. Peter Albert had plenty of money and in any case was certainly no thief. The fact of the stolen money seemed definitely to let him out. Also, and even more important, Olive was his friend and plainly trusted him still, in spite of all her fears.

Only, he reminded himself once more, anyone can be deceived and place his trust, her trust, wrongly.

Bobby told himself that all the same it would take quite a lot to make him see Peter Albert in the character of a cold-blooded murderer.

The exhilaration of speed began to possess him. This new cycle of his had a pretty turn of speed and now he was roaring through the night at something like a mile a minute.

But he did not seem to be gaining much.

Luckily it was night and on the road there was no other traffic.

By this time though they ought to have been right in the town again, if Olive was making for her home in London as he had assumed.

The road itself, for they had not turned out of it, must have swerved eastward somehow, for now they appeared to be running north-east by east. He could tell that by the position of the north star, shining on his left.

What did that mean, he wondered?

He became aware that another car was following them. It was close behind. It was travelling at the same outrageous, reckless, magnificent speed. It must be in pursuit of them since no other reason could explain such a speed or adherence to the same route.

If it was a police car, pretty quick work.

Only was it?

They had come into a main road now, one of those main roads where modern conditions have abolished the nocturnal pause and decreed that though the night cometh man must still work. Here all through the twenty- four hours, the great lorries rumbled to and fro, all the twenty-four hours the coffee-rooms and the garages were open, ready to give aid and refreshment to man and machine, and all through the hours of darkness, too, here and there by the roadside flickered small furtive fires as signs that by them less legal rest and refreshment could be obtained.

Fortunately tonight most of the traffic seemed headed London-wards, probably in order that delivery might be made in good time in the morning. It was therefore largely confined to one side of the road; so that Olive in her small, fast car, Bobby following behind, behind them both the unknown following car, had a comparatively clear way, since they were travelling in the opposite direction.

Even so, time and again, they all missed disaster by fractions of an inch as they fled on, scraping in narrow places by huge laden lorries with less than the thickness of a hand between them and the utter destruction the merest touch at that speed must have involved.

“She's crazy, crazy, crazy,” Bobby thought again and again as he saw the risks she took, risks greater for her who led, less for him who followed, less, too, by the fact that his cycle took up less space than her car; as he heard too the startled lorry drivers shouting their anger as he flashed by after Olive's car had missed them so narrowly.

As for the larger car, leaping in pursuit behind, Bobby had no idea how its driver managed to avoid catastrophe. Perhaps the lorries warned first by Olive's frantic passage, then by his own, scarcely less frantic, drew in further to one side to give more room to the next madman.

Once or twice Bobby fancied that this third car was obliged to slow down. If so, it soon caught up again, for it kept steadily in its place about two hundred yards in the rear.

“They've speed in hand,” Bobby thought; “they don't want to overtake us – yet. Why not?”

And then again he thought:

“Who are they?”

But to that question there was no reply.

Nor had he much time to consider it, as they rocketed through the night, this strange, bizarre procession, cheating catastrophe with every mile it traversed, the coffee-houses and the garages tossed behind almost as soon as they became visible, the lorry drivers with hardly time to shout their anger and their fear before light car, motor-cycle, bigger car, had flamed by and were gone.

Many a garage, many a coffee-house, heard the tale that night, in many the tale of that wild race through the night is still told – with additions.

In an earlier age indeed the story would soon have been that those cars and their drivers were of no mortal breed or make, so far indeed did it seem that they passed the limit of the possible, so little did it seem such dangers could be run, such risks taken and evaded, by those of the common race of man.

“The girl's mad,” Bobby said to himself once more.

He was extracting from his cycle every ounce of speed, even the rosy optimism of the manufacturer had boasted it could give. But though he held the light car ahead he could not overtake it, and always at the same distance behind, roared the bigger pursuing car.

Bobby was fairly sure it couldn't be a police car. It had speed in hand, too, as was proved by the way in which if it ever dropped behind, it quickly recovered position again.

“There's going to be an almighty smash before long,” Bobby said to himself as there came wild shouting from a coffee-stall they rocketed by.

A couple of lorries drawing up, one just starting off again, left here small room for passage. Olive only got past by ripping away fifty feet or so of fencing of which the impact sent her car literally leaping in the air, so that for two and twenty measured yards its wheels were off the ground.

That it did not turn a complete somersault was sheer miracle; that in fact it alighted on four wheels and went speeding on its way, was yet another. The keeper of that coffee-room still tells the tale, still shows the spots he marked and measured, where the wheel tracks showed exactly how the car had left the ground, shot through the air, come down again on the level roadway to continue its wild onward rush – and often indeed does he get called a liar for his pains.

“It's the speed done it,” he retorts, “at a speed like that, no one knows what'll happen – smithereens most like, of course, but times it's all too quick even for a smash to catch up.”

On his cycle that took up so much less room Bobby ran less risk in getting by. The big following car slowed down by necessity, since even on this night of miracle there had to be a limit to the possible. For a time Bobby thought it had been shaken off. But presently it was there again, keeping as before its old position, two hundred yards or so behind.

“Speed to spare,” Bobby thought.

A little to his own surprise he was finding a fierce joy in this madness of speed, this juggling with disaster, this drawing lots with death, this awareness of the night and all things in it flung behind as smoke tossed on the wings of the storm. It was physical life lived at its utmost. It was as though they had exceeded Nature, defied her laws, flung her a challenge, as in triumph they escaped the poor limits she thought she had imposed when she gave to man but one poor pair of legs, and let the greyhound and the deer mock him with their swiftness, and the darting birds scorn his immobility.

But what greyhound or deer had ever fled or pursued like this? what in comparison with this was the swiftness of the swoop of the falling bird?

Speed! The intoxication of it ran through his veins, fired his brain, laughed in exultation with every throbbing pulse all through his being.

Speed! It was speed, the madness, the wonder, the folly of it, that had made him almost forget his errand, forget indeed everything but itself, as it was speed, too, he supposed, that had made Olive mad.

Speed! Well, if it ended in death, as he knew was more than likely but hardly cared, at least they would have lived as none had ever lived till these days, as few indeed knew life even to-day.

Speed! How lovely, how fond, how foolish a thing when the joy of it seemed worth the purchasing even at so great a risk. He wondered a little if the soaring birds, too, thrilled to this beauty of swift motion, or the earth itself as it swung on its path through space at a speed to which his own was as though he stood still and dreamed.

Yet none the less, for he was not quite drunk with speed, he was aware of a considerable relief when he found they had turned into a quieter road, one without lorries, coffee-rooms, bungalows, one where it seemed that they fled on through an uninhabited land, where they had perforce to go less recklessly, compelled at last to some show of caution by the twistings and turnings of the road.

None the less Olive still kept the lead, Bobby still found himself unable to overtake her, the stranger car behind still kept its self-appointed place, some two hundred yards in the rear.

“She can drive all right,” Bobby found himself muttering as he watched how Olive swung round bends, cut corners, avoided the traps laid continually by tangled hedge or hidden ditch.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He shouted again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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