The Camelot Caper (4 page)

“'Ave the law on 'im, I will,” remarked the elderly laborer vindictively. “Just you wait till we gets to town. I'll 'ave—”

Jess, shaking with a horrible combination of laughter and fright, realized, too late, that she was on the verge of a mighty sneeze. The floor of the bus had collected the dust of ages. Fortunately her muffled explosion was drowned by the laments of Mrs. Hodge, now on the brink of convincing hysterics, and by the general uproar. The voice of the intruder rose over the cacophany; it sounded slightly hysterical itself.

“Please, please, ladies and gentlemen! Madam, calm yourself! I wouldn't dream,” the voice added sincerely, “of coming any closer. Look here, just let me say something, can't you?”

“Speak up, then,” Sam growled. “Wasting our times like this. I'm behind schedule as it is, and the company—”

“Please! Sir—madam—friends—er, that is—I'm a medical man, looking for a young lady, run away from my nursing home, placed there by distraught family; thought she was recovering nicely, not dangerous, we don't think, but—”

“You don't think?” Mrs. Hodge repeated. “What's this, now? You've let some loony escape, that'll maybe murder the lot of us? Call yourself a doctor!”

Jess could almost feel sorry for her pursuer; she imagined him perspiring gently, mopping his forehead with a large white handkerchief. But her sense of humor, ordinarily good, was soon subdued by a new fear. The tale was lame enough and, thanks to the man's confusion, poorly told. But what if her allies believed it? The man's accent was certainly not that of an American movie hoodlum. Would Mrs. Hodge—could Mrs. Hodge—believe that a respectable Englishman might be involved in the white slave trade?

She need not have feared her friends' loyalty. It was their enthusiasm that almost finished her; the discussion went on so long that she felt sure she would be asphyxiated before the intruders left. The passengers were having the time of their collective lives; by the time they got through, Jess almost believed that she had left the bus twenty miles back, “at Woodhole, right at the Burning Babe—rolling her eyes something frightful, gentlemen. I thought at the time, I thought…”

The rolling eyes were Mrs. Hodge's contribution; it was Sam who added, “Talking to herself she were. Made me come over queer, it did.”

Jess was of the opinion that this was overdo
ing it. But the general effect was convincing. The pursuers had little choice; they could not search the bus without exposing themselves, and they had no reason to doubt the story. She heard the spokesman begin his apologies; then the airless space and her stretched nerves got the better of her. She was dimly aware of the bus jolting on, but she lay in a daze until a firm hand plucked off several layers of camouflage and dragged her up into the open air.

“Fainting away, poor child,” said Mrs. Hodge. “Mr. Woodle, let's have your flask back here.”

Jess tried to object, but her position, on her knees on the floor, was not conducive to rebellion; she took a swallow of brandy, gasped, gagged, and was finally allowed to droop forward, her head and arms on the seat.

“It's all right now; they've got out of sight,” said Mister Hodge, nose flattened against the rear window.

“She'd best stay down, all the same.”

Jess agreed; the effect of brandy on an empty stomach made her quite sure that a disaster of some sort would occur if she tried to stand. When she found herself sliding helplessly across the seat, she thought at first it must be the brandy. Then she realized that the bus had
made an acute-angle turn at its top speed.

“Sam, where are you going?” asked the maiden lady.

“Thought we'd better get off our route, just to play safe,” Sam shouted; now that the bus was moving, conversation had returned to its former intensity. “Sorry about the bowling, Miss Aiken.”

“The bowling is tomorrow night,” yelled Miss Aiken. “An excellent idea, Sam.”

“I think it's safe for her to get up now,” said Mrs. Hodge, and assisted Jessica onto the seat. “You're a sight, child—covered with smuts. Sam never sweeps this bus, that's clear. Get your handkerchief, my dear, and your bits of makeup, while we discuss what's to be done. Where were you going? Have you friends who'll look after you?”

Jess thought of the old house in Cornwall, and rejected it, violently and at once, with an instinct which she was not to understand for another twenty-four hours.

“London,” she said, groping obediently for her lipstick. “I thought…London.”

The suggestion had to be submitted for committee approval, and everyone agreed.

“Scotland Yard,” Mr. Woodle said. “That's the place. They'll know how to deal with these international crime rings.”

By now they were careening wildly along narrow lanes flanked by thick-grown banks so high that the bus moved through a false twilight. Jess wondered, as branches snapped past the windows, what they would do if they met another car. She decided not to think about it.

The brandy had gone to her head, and she felt giddy and relaxed. Most helpful of all to her shattered nerves was the atmosphere. The unquestioning, positive goodwill of these strangers created a small, warm world around her—a world as insane, in its own way, as the unexplained persecution to which she had been subjected, but one which restored her shaken faith in humanity.

“Where are we?” she asked. “If I can get to a train station…”

“I've a better idea,” said Mrs. Hodge. “Sam—we're not far from St. Mary's Underhill, unless I'm mistaken.”

“Right,” Sam bellowed back.

“Then that's the place we want. Drive around a bit more, Sam, till it starts to get dark. Now, child, here's what you'd best do. Harry Marks in St. Mary's has a brand-new automobile, the young fool, that he can't afford, and he's always behind on the hire-purchase payments. He'll drive you straight to London and be glad of the
money. Tell him you're a friend of mine and he'll not dare to overcharge you. D'you need money?”

She had her pocketbook open before Jess could reply, and the girl felt her eyes fill with tears as she caught the plump hand.

“You're being so kind,” she muttered. “And I'm a stranger…”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Hodge calmly. “There are only two sorts of people in the world, right ones and wrong ones. I can tell the right from the wrong, at my age. Now. Do you need money?”

“I don't have much English money,” Jess admitted. “I had planned to cash a traveler's check at the hotel.”

“Traveler's check?” Mr. Woodle came reeling down the aisle and took the seat in front. “I can cash one for you if you like. Give you a good rate of exchange.”

“Shame on you,” Mrs. Hodge began indignantly.

“No, please—I'd be very grateful. I have plenty of money, really, but perhaps—what's his name? Harry?—would rather have cash than a check, and on Sunday—”

“Quite right,” said Mr. Woodle briskly. “Ten or twelve pounds should see you through. Now
the exchange rate as of yesterday morning…”

According to plan, it was dusk when the bus wheezed to a stop in the village of St. Mary's Underhill. It was the smallest village Jess had yet seen, which was saying a good deal, and she regarded its tiny huddle of buildings with dismay. Half a dozen cottages, hugging the ground…. Neurotic houses, lonely and dark in the twilight. Only one of the buildings had any lights, the building in front of which they had stopped; but the light filtered, meager and unwelcoming, through closely curtained windows. A sign swung above the door, but it was too dark for Jess to read it.

“The Blue Boar,” Sam announced, swinging Jess's bag down with a gesture which, in a southern European, might have been a flourish. “Let me give you a hand, love.”

Her suitcase beside her, Jess turned to survey her friends and fellow conspirators, all of whom were now at the windows on her side, grinning and waving encouragement. Mrs. Hodge stood in the doorway of the bus. Her mouth was grave, though her eyes still twinkled with reminiscent enjoyment.

“Send us a postal card, child, will you? Mrs. Hodge, Westbury, that's all the address you'll need.”

“I'll telephone,” Jess promised; no extravagance seemed quite good enough. “Thank you—all of you…”

“You'll be all right now,” Mrs. Hodge said firmly.

“Come along now, Mrs. Hodge.” Sam pushed her back up the stairs and mounted them himself. “We don't want to linger here, in case they should pick up our trail.”

As the bus lumbered off, Jess saw Mrs. Hodge's round face at the back window. One of her hands was raised in a sign Jess knew only from books and movies; with a queer contraction of the heart, she realized that Mrs. Hodge had lived with that victory sign and the years of disaster it had valiantly denied. Then Sam turned off the interior lights and the bus became a dark shadow which might have been some smelly prehistoric beast retreating into the night.

Jess turned to contemplate the doorway of the Blue Boar, and took an instant dislike to the place. It was probably snug and sheltered inside; from the outside it gave precisely the opposite impression. Lifting her eyes for a last look at the village, she saw a huge square darkness outlined against the luminous sky. St. Mary's itself, no doubt; the tower of the church
from which the village took its name. But what a tower for a cluster of six cottages and a pub! It should have been a symbol of comfort, but the towering bulk loomed like a curtain designed to cut off the friendly stars. With a shiver Jess picked up her suitcase, squared her shoulders, and reached for the doorknob.

T
he door opened onto a corridor, poorly lit and prosaic. The whitewashed walls were dirty, the floor was worn, and the single piece of furniture, a table on the right, held a used beer glass, one grimy gardening glove with the thumb out, and a collection of rusty nails.

There were three inner doors, one on either side and one at the end of the hallway. They were all uncompromisingly closed, but from behind the door on the right Jess thought she heard a clinking sound. She turned the knob and pushed the door open.

She had guessed correctly; this was the bar. Knowing English pubs only from guide-book descriptions, Jess found this one a crushing disappointment. There were no blackened oak beams, no quaint old prints, no fireplace. Correction, she thought; there was a fireplace, but it was no robust, stone-manteled Tudor survival. Small enough to look grudging, it had
been refaced in a kind of fake brick, and contained, instead of a fire, a portable electric heater, which was not turned on.

The furniture consisted of a slot machine, a calendar with a picture of a drooling Scottie and four tables placed up against a bench built around two of the walls. Someone had made a desperate attempt to brighten the room up by painting the walls bright coral and upholstering the bench in red. The attempt had failed, and clearly the decorator had given up when he got to the carpet; it was gray, figured with blue and rust. The bar proper was at the back of the room, to her left; a wooden counter with three stools in front of it and shelves of bottles and glassware behind.

Also behind the bar was a man. The publican, Jess wondered? Mine host? The jolly innkeeper? He was no Chaucerian Harry Bailey; Jess had never seen a glummer face, and the sight of her did nothing to increase the fellow's happiness.

Jessica would have left it there had been anyplace else to go. Suitcase in hand, she closed the door behind her and advanced, with as much dignity as the brandy circulating through her bloodstream allowed, toward one of the tables.
She sat down gingerly on the bright-red bench. The eyes of the man behind the bar never left her, and his mouth never opened.

Jess cleared her throat.

“I'm looking for a man named Harry Marks.”

The pause was long, but not pregnant; it was dead, without even a hint of potential life. Finally the affable bartender grunted, “Not here.”

He took a glass off the shelf and began to polish it.

“I see he's not,” Jess said coldly. “But I was told that you would know where to find him. I want to hire his car.”

Another unpromising pause ensued.

“Can't.”

“What do you mean, ‘can't'? You can't find him?”

“I mean, you can't hire him nor his car.” The bartender leaned forward, both elbows on the bar, and eyed her with sour pleasure. “He's gone and he won't be back. Not before morning. And in no fit condition to drive then.”

Jessica's mental state is better imagined than described. She felt as if she had been hit over the head with a large blunt mallet. After the first shock she lost her temper.

“Of all the nasty men! I wouldn't have believed anyone as nasty as you could live in the same country as those wonderful people on the bus! You love giving people bad news, don't you? What's your problem—your stomach, or your wife, or—Don't you dare glare at me! Just keep a civil tongue in your head and tell me how I can get out of this horrible place tonight.”

“With me,” said a voice from the far, window end of the room. “Anyone who can talk to Alf like that deserves a lift.”

Jessica's new bravado, and her breath, went out of her in a gasp. It was not only the shock of finding that there was another person in the room; it was the familiarity of the voice.

Then the speaker extracted himself from his shadowy corner behind the curtains and came out into the light; and she realized that the voice had seemed familiar only because of its accent. The man was someone she had never seen before. He was tall, and painfully thin, with a long narrow face. His hair was black and untidy, his eyebrows were lifted; but the rest of his features were overshadowed by a nose of such lordly proportions that she forgot all else in the wonder of it.

The man saw her stare and, with the readiness of experience, interpreted it correctly.

“‘
C'est un roc!
'” he exclaimed, striking an attitude. “‘
C'est une péninsule!
When it blows, the typhoon howls! When it bleeds—the Red Sea!'”

“You shouldn't 'be so morbidly self-conscious about it,” Jess said. “It's not that bad. Certainly not as bad as Cyrano's.”

The newcomer sank ungracefully into the chair opposite.

“An American. The accent, plus the off-the-cuff psychological analysis of people you've just met…But—a pretty American. That does compensate.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Come now, you're capable of better repartee than that.” His long mouth curved up in an unexpectedly attractive grin. “Why so pale and wan, ladee? Hungry? I could do with a bite myself. Alf, with your usual gourmet skill, conjure us up a couple of plates of bacon and eggs. The same again for me, and a large sherry for the lady.”

“I don't want—”

“But you should. Food, first and always; then we'll make plans. What's your name? Mine's Randall. David Randall. Do not call me Dave.”

“Jessica Tregarth.”

“Ah, the Cornish Tregarths. Good God, don't
start so. I never heard of you or your family. Don't you know that old rhyme about the Cornishmen—Tre, Pol and Pen? Jessica. It doesn't suit you. I shall call you Jess.”

“I wish you wouldn't.”

“But if you're going to be intimately occupying the front seat of my automobile all the way to London, we must be friends. The intimacy is inevitable; I don't drive a Rolls. Look here—don't be put off by my feeble attempts at light conversation. If you want to leave this metropolis tonight, it will have to be with me.”

From the open doorway behind the bar floated a smell which made Jess realize that she was really very hungry. In her preoccupation with her stomach she lost track of the conversation—if it could be dignified by that name. Randall leaned back in his chair and studied her with an odious smile. He said no more until Alf reappeared with two thick white plates and deposited them on the counter with an aggressive thump. Randall unwound his long legs from the chair and carried the food to the table. Jess was embarrassed at the speed with which she emptied her plate.

“That's better,” Randall said. “Ready to leave now? You'd better powder your nose, or what
ever. Actually, your nose is in need of some attention. What did you do, fall off a horse? A bicycle? I've been trying to puzzle out how you could have reached this oasis. But of course I'm too well bred to ask.”

“I came by bus,” Jess said.

Alf's snort and Randall's delicately raised eyebrows conveyed the same reaction. Alf put it into words.

“Nearest bus goes to Castlebridge. Three miles from here.”

“It was a bus from Salisbury.” For the first time in hours Jess felt like a human being—warm, fed, and safe. Her sense of well-being went to her head and joined forces with the brandy lingering there. She took a deep swig of sherry and said recklessly, “Two men are chasing me. I don't know who they are or what they want, but they're chasing me. I got on the bus to get away from them, but they followed the bus and stopped it back there—somewhere—and got on, and told everybody that I was an escaped lunatic, but the other passengers were awfully nice, they hid me under a seat and told the—the—”

“Bad guys?” said Randall helpfully.

Jessica glowered at him.

“Pursuers,” she said, articulating clearly.
“That I wasn't there. Then the bus driver brought me here. She said to find Harry and hire him to take me to London.”

She finished her sherry.

“Female bus drivers,” Randall muttered.

“He was not.”

“Never mind. Look here, my girl. I hope my sense of humor is as good as the next man's, and I do not take my profession at all seriously. But couldn't you have invented a better story?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” An involuntary hiccup escaped Jess. She looked disapprovingly at Randall. “I don't even know who you are,” she said sadly. “And you want me to go off to London with you.”

“I'm not sure I do,” Randall admitted. “But there's no help for it. You can't stay here Alf doesn't have any rooms; and there's not a hotel or inn for miles. The locals have gone off to the fair, tra-la, tra-la, and will not, as Alf said, come reeling home until morning.”

“Closing time in a quarter of an hour,” said Alf inexorably.

“Yes, there's that. You're sure I haven't met you somewhere? That you don't know who I am?”

“Who are you?”

Randall sighed.

“Never mind. The sooner we start, the sooner we'll arrive.”

“But I don't even know who—”

“I know, you said that. If you're afraid of being murdered in a ditch somewhere, let me remind you that Alf is a witness to your departure with me, and that there's nothing good old Alf would like better than to put someone in the dock. Especially me. I wouldn't risk it, however great the provocation, and I am beginning to suspect that the provocation will be extreme. Come along—here we go…”

Later, Jess had a vague memory of pouring quarts of cold water on her face before she joined her unwilling chauffeur at the front door. The cold water helped, and so did the night air pouring in the open car window. Randall drove at a speed which, as she sobered up, made her wish she was still drunk. But for the first part of the journey there was little traffic, and Randall was an excellent driver. Jess curled up in the bucket seat and began to enjoy the ride. It had been too dark to see much of the car, except that it was low-slung and expensive-looking, and it certainly rode like a dream. She felt as if she were sitting motionless with a dark landscape flowing smoothly past the window. Then they
turned onto a main road. The lights of oncoming cars began to appear, and Jess finally spoke.

“Where are we?”

“Near Reading, if that means anything to you. Feeling better?”

“Much. I owe you an apology.”

“But it was a lovely yarn,” he said easily. “Who put you up to it?”

“Yarn? Oh, I'm not apologizing for that, that was true. But I'm sorry I was so rude when you were kind enough to offer me a ride.”

“Oh, we're going to carry it out to the bitter end, are we? All right. Let it not be said that I couldn't take a joke. Where are you going, specifically? London is a good-sized village, you know. Quite a burg, as you Americans say.”

“Americans don't say that, and you know it. You've spent some time in the United States, haven't you? It didn't affect your accent, but you seem to have acquired a few colloquialisms. And I don't mean ‘burg'.”

“Accent be damned,” said Randall, stung. “I fancied I had a rather neat New York twang.”

“Pure Oxford.”

“Cambridge, as a matter of fact. Where you Americans get the mistaken impression that—”

“It's a beautiful accent. I love just listening to you talk.”

As she had expected, this kept Randall quiet for a few minutes.

“Not to be repetitive,” he said at last. “But where
are
you going?”

“Some hotel, I guess.”

“The Hilton?”

“Heavens, no. I haven't got that kind of money. I do have a hotel reservation, come to think of it. But I had my luggage sent on there from Southampton, and if they manage to trace it…”

“They? Oh, yes, the bad guys. Do forgive me; they had momentarily slipped my mind. Yes, well, that's quite right; it wouldn't be difficult for them to trace your luggage, and if you don't materialize at the hotel, they'll try others. The sort of places where an American would stay. I rather imagine you'd like me to recommend a nice, obscure hostelry?”

“Never mind,” Jess said wearily. “I don't blame you for thinking I'm kidding you. I guess I should be grateful you don't think I'm crazy. Yes, please, I would appreciate a recommendation.”

“Good. I know just the place.”

They proceeded in strained silence for another mile or so. Then Randall said,

“If you don't mind, I'd like to hear that saga
again. You rather overdid the incoherence the first time round.”

Jess was tempted to employ a rude American colloquialism, but she reminded herself that, after all, it was his car.

“Not bad at all,” he said, when she finished. “Better than I thought. Offhand I can't think of a plausible pattern. Is there one?”

“A what?”

Randall beeped his horn—it sounded like a small chamber orchestra—flicked his lights, and went roaring out and around the car ahead. Jessica flinched. She wasn't used to passing on the right.

“A pattern. That's how these things are written, of course. Like a what d'yecall'em—piece of woven cloth, warp and woof and all that. The writer knows the entire pattern, but the only part he displays to the reader is the warp, or perhaps it's the woof—half of the whole, in other words. Naturally it appears to be incoherent and unconnected; that's the mystification. In the last chapter he weaves in the missing threads, and then the innocent reader sees what it's all been about.”

“Oh, skip it. If you don't believe me, why do you keep harping on the subject?”

“As I said, it's not a bad plot. I particularly like the part about dropping the ring in the collection bag. Though antique family jewelry is a bit passé. Microfilm dots, or sealed containers of new mutated germs—that's more in vogue.”

“Nuts,” said Jess.

“But your main plot problem at this juncture,” Randall went on blithely, “is that you've lost the enemy. How the Hades do you expect them to find you in a hive like London? You'd better go to the Hilton, or to that hotel where you've booked a reservation.”