Hue and Cry (27 page)

Ethan said, “'M.”

He was reading number fourteen:

“London News Circulation Carefully Improved On A Liberal Hypothesis.”

He glided to number twenty:

“Corners Of An Oval Octagonal Oolite.”

Then he emitted a long whistle.

“It's either made up by a lunatic with a passion for O's, or it's a cipher. I think it's a cipher.”

“Yes—yes!” said Mally. “A cipher? How clever of you!”

Ethan felt a good deal uplifted.

“If it's a cipher——”

“I'm
sure
it's a cipher.”

“If it's a cipher, the O's ought to be E's, as there are such a lot of them. That's the way you start unravelling a cipher—with the E's. Now supposing these O's—No, where's a bit of paper? Never mind, I'll double this over.”

He doubled it over, and said, “Oh!” very sharply and in a different voice.

“What is it?”

He dragged his chair nearer, put the paper on Mally's lap, and leaned over, pointing.

“We shan't have to bother. It's decoded on this side. It's a cipher all right, and whoever got it had been decoding it——”

“It's Paul Craddock's writing. It is!”

“It's practically all decoded. How on earth did you miss it?”

“I don't know. I never looked on that side. It was frightfully cold, and I hadn't anything to eat for years and years and years. Oh, it does look funny! What does it mean?”

Right across the paper ran the words:

H.E.L.I.O.G.A.B.A.L.U.S.

a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j. k. 1.

C.O.N.S.T.A.N.T.I.N.O.P.L.E.

m.n. o. p.q. r. s. t.u. v. w.x. y.z.

“That's the key. Look!” said Ethan. He put a large thumb on the C of Constantinople. “Twenty-six letters in the two words—look! And the alphabet running along underneath. No wonder there are such a lot of O's. E is O all right. But so are N and W. And I and R are both A. I say, look here! It's rather like Hawaiian—isn't it?”

There was a line drawn under the alphabet, and below that came a string of letters:

LBASCOOTN/CHIO/HN/HAAHOAOI/HITBNAATAON/HSOAT/NINSOLT/SOIAN/AIAE/HINANO/ON/CNAO/LBASCOOTN/HT/SAONOOT/IN/ONT/LNCCIOALHTO/OATB/CO/AO/OOASHOI/NHAOOL/

“What is it? What does it mean?” asked Mally breathlessly.

Ethan turned back to the other side of the paper.

“‘Lady Bird,'” he read, “‘A Swift Curler Of Old Times.'” Then he turned back again: “‘L-B-A-S-C-O-O-T.' Yes, that's it; the cipher is in the capital letters of the clues, and Heliogabalus Constantinople is the key. I expect the square is just a blind.”

“What does it
mean?”
said Mally.

“This is the bit that he's decoded.” He slipped his finger down the page and read: “‘Shipments made as arranged. Authorities alert. Suspect Pedro Ruiz. Advise no more shipments at present. Do not communicate with me.…' Then there are two blanks and ‘Varney.'”

“What does it mean?”

Ethan whistled.

“Something pretty fishy, I should say.”

Mally was rather pale.

“Oh,” she said, “I don't like it.” She pushed the paper away and jumped down off the arm of the chair. “There's a perfectly horrible feeling about it.” She paused for a moment, and then said in a whisper, “Is that all?”

“'M.” Ethan had a pencil in his hand. He frowned at the paper, and his pencil dabbed to and fro between the cipher and its key.

“'M—hold on a minute—I'm filling in the blanks. ‘I—N—E—N—G—L—A—N—D.' Yes, that's it—‘Do not communicate with me in England. Varney.' Now I wonder who Varney is.”

“Is that all?” said Mally again.

She had backed against the piano, and she did not look at Ethan as she spoke. She looked instead out of the window and saw, without seeing, the flagged path with the frost-bitten standard roses on either side of it, and the high, stiff gate that her frozen hands had fumbled at in the dark.

“Is that all?” she repeated, and felt a loathing for the paper and all that it contained. She hated to feel that she had carried it in her pocket.

Ethan looked at her stern little profile with surprise.

“There's a drawing of a man's head under the word Varney,” he began; and the next instant everything changed, broke up.

Mally gave a sharp cry, jumped back a yard, and ran to him, catching at his arm with hard, shaking fingers.

“A policeman!” she gasped. “A f-fat policeman! He's just come in at the gate!”

CHAPTER XXXIII

When Mally said, “A f-fat policeman,” Ethan put his arm round her waist. With his other hand he shoved the cross-word puzzle into his pocket. Then he must have opened the door, because before Mally had finished saying “in at the gate,” she was being whisked down the passage that ran right through the house.

They passed the stairs and heard Miss Angela talking to Grace in one of the bedrooms. They checked for an instant by the row of pegs which lurked in the shadow beyond, whilst Ethan gathered an armful of coats. Then they had burst into the kitchen and shut the door behind them. The kitchen was empty.

Ethan dropped his bundle on the floor, picked out a thick fleece-lined coat, crammed it on Mally, pushed a tweed cap into her hand, and struggled into a Burberry. They heard the thud of the front door knocker, and in an instant, Ethan had Mally by the elbow and was running her through the scullery, out at the back door, and down the flagged path, where the frozen snow slipped beneath their running feet.

The path cut the garden in two and ended at a door in the boundary wall. They were through the door and had it slammed behind them just as Miss Angela felt obliged to interrupt Grace's voluble account of a niece's wedding with a reluctant, “Grace, surely—I think—yes, there
is
some one at the front door!”

The door in the boundary wall gave upon a little lane. The Vicar's stables opened into it. The door stood open, and they were both in the car before Grace was half-way down the stairs. Ethan had put in an hour in the garage that morning, and as he had run the engine, it was warm enough to start up easily. They came out into the lane, where they had to back to take the turn. They slid down the narrow alley which ran between the Vicarage and the high church wall. Ethan turned to the right, left the church and a half-dozen scattered cottages behind, and filled his lungs with a huge breath of relief.

“We're off!”

He began to sing loudly, untunefully, and in a variety of keys:

“From the desert I come to thee on my Arab shod with fire,

And the winds are left behind in the umty tumty tum——”

“I say that's a ripping song—isn't it? Sort of thing you can really let out on!”

He let out:

“At thy window I sta-a-and, and the something hears my cry.

I love thee, I love but thee, with a love that shall not die

Till the sun is co-o-old——”

“I say, that's beastly appropriate—isn't it? I don't know that I ever struck a day when the sun was colder.”

Mally went off into a fit of helpless, gurgling laughter.

“We're mad,” she said. “We're both quite mad. We must be, or this sort of thing wouldn't happen to us.”

Ethan slipped his left arm round her waist and gave her a hug.

“It's rather jolly being mad together. I say, that was a good get-away—wasn't it?”

He hugged her again. Mally caught sight of herself in the glass screen, formless in Ethan's bulging coat, with the peak of a tweed cap hanging over one eye. She fell weakly against Ethan's shoulder, and Ethan kissed the corner of her mouth where the deepest dimple came and went. They very nearly went into the ditch, because the kiss was a long one; and it ended because Mally gave a sudden choking sob and hid her face against the sleeve of the aged Burberry. Fortunately the road was empty.

Ethan continued to drive at thirty miles an hour with his arm round Mally's waist.

“You're not angry—Mally—darling?”

Mally burrowed her nose into the Burberry and sniffed.

“I couldn't help it. I shall never be able to help it when you look at me like that. Were you frightfully angry when I did it last night? Were you?”

Mally sniffed again.

They left the highroad and swung to the right. The tweed cap fell off. Mally sat suddenly bolt upright and crammed it on again. Her mouth was trembling and she was very pale.

“Where are we going?”

“To London, I think. You ought to see a solicitor. This warrant business is all nonsense. I'm not going to have you arrested. I'm going to take you to my cousin, Mansell Messenger. He's a good old sort. He's the senior partner in a fearfully respectable firm of solicitors with no end of a comic name—Worple, Worple, Worple and Wigginson. The last Worple died in the eighteenth century, and I don't believe there ever was a Wigginson. Mansell runs the show. He's a clever old bird, and well in with Scotland Yard. His wife is a sister of Sir Julian Le Mesurier, the chief of the C.I.D., so he'd be quite a useful man to get on to.”

“Suppose he w-won't,” said Mally.

“He will, like a shot. Besides, I shall tell him we're engaged. We are, aren't we?”

“N-no, we're n-not. You m-mustn't.”

Mally looked straight ahead of her and felt a tear run hot and salt into the corner of her mouth.

“You little darling idiot!”

“I'm n-not.”

Ethan burst into a great roar of laughter.

“Mally, you're so funny! You really are! I shall drive slap into a hedge if you make me laugh like this.”

“You oughtn't to laugh,” said Mally in a small, obstinate voice. “It's very serious. I shall be sent to prison for years and years and years. And you can't possibly be engaged to a girl in a p-p-prison—you know you can't.”

Ethan jammed on his brakes. The car skidded and stopped. Mally said, “Oh!” and felt Ethan's hands come down very hard on her shoulders. He pulled her round to face him and gave her a little shake.

“You're not to talk like that! Do you hear? I won't have it. I don't like it. You're not to do it. No, I'm quite serious. We are engaged, and we're going to stay engaged until we're married—and we're going to get married as soon as possible.”

Mally cocked her left eyebrow at him.

“'M,” she said.

“No!” said Ethan loudly. “No! Mally, you're an imp of darkness. But for the Lord's sake be good—at any rate until we've finished running away. I can't really drive the car with one hand and shake you with the other—and we've got to push along. I can't risk going through Weyford or Guildford, so we've got to go round and strike London road beyond Ripley. I think we've got a sporting chance; but we certainly haven't got any time to waste.”

He started the engine, and they began to do a rather perilous thirty-five miles an hour along very narrow winding lanes, where the snow had turned to ice. They came out on the London road half an hour later, and mended their pace.

Mally sat hunched up in the big coat. She had not spoken for a long time, when she suddenly giggled and said:

“If there's a police trap on this road, you'll be the one to be arrested. And then, perhaps,
I
won't marry
you
.”

“There isn't a trap,” said Ethan sternly.

Next moment, as a small car passed them, she clutched his arm.

“Ethan! That's Candida Long! It is! Oh, it is! Oh, I want to speak to her—she was such a brick to me! Catch them up! Catch them up quickly! I must speak to her!”

Ethan caught them up. Mally stuck her cap out of the flap of the side screen and waved it. Ethan hooted. Miss Long's companion shouted something unintelligible. Miss Long herself glared, exclaimed, and applied her brakes. Both cars came to a standstill, and in a moment Mally had whisked out into the road.

“It's me!” she said. She hitched up Ethan's coat and climbed on the step. “I got away—I wanted to tell you. You
were
a brick. Oh! It's Mr. Medhurst!”

Ambrose Medhurst opened the door on the other side and got out. He was a sensitive young man, and it seemed to him that he was
de trop.

“Oh!” said Mally. “Has he? Are you?”

Candida leaned over the side. She said, “S'sh! Not exactly.” Then she put her lips close to Mally's ear and whispered, “You were quite right. He
does
—but he
won't.”

They could hear Ethan and Ambrose talking.

“Why won't he?” said Mally, bobbing on the step.

“My beastly money. But I believe I've lost a lot of it. And if I have, he will.”

“Ouf! How good of him!”

Mally's eyes danced. So did Candida's.

“Yes—
isn't it
? What are you doing? Are you all right? Paul was
wild.
I say, are you sure you're all right? Because I should simply hate them to get you now. What
are
you doing?”

“I'm still escaping. I'm escaping with Ethan. Do you know Ethan? He says we're engaged. And I'm much too frightened of him to say we're not.”

Candida began to laugh; and as she did so, Ethan and Ambrose came round the car. Candida turned, with her hands out.

“Ambrose, I've had a brain-wave! Let's change cars.”

Mr. Medhurst's fine dark eyes took on a bewildered look. He said, “Change cars?” And Candida said, “
Change cars.”
And then Ethan pushed forward, very large and frowning.

“Miss Long—I say—do you really mean that?”

Candida jumped out.

“Of course I mean it. Are they after you? Are you being chased? Would it really be a help? Do you think they'll chase us instead? Oh,
what
a lark!”

Ethan seemed in doubt as to how many of Miss Long's questions really required an answer.