Sixty Days to Live (20 page)

He had contemplated personal visits to Scotland Yard and some of his friends in various Government Services; but felt that, with the evacuation of London in full swing, they would all be far too busy to give him any help in a private inquiry where there was so little to go on except the bare fact that three people in a motor-car had failed to return to their home the night before. In addition, he feared that if he once left the house they might turn up in his absence which, if he was not there to set off with them, would further delay their departure to the country.

In consequence, he had decided that the only thing to do was
to wait in the house in the hope that they would either come back to it or manage to send him some message to let him know what had happened to them.

He had made several more attempts to use the telephone but by midday the exchange no longer answered him and he could not even get the ringing tone, so now, having attended to Derek, he wasted no time in trying to get through to anybody.

Instead, he went to his private sitting-room, took a large automatic from a drawer, loaded it and put a handful of spare ammunition into his pockets. From another drawer he took a torch and fitted it with a new battery. He then unlocked the safe and, taking out all the money he could find, proceeded to distribute it about his person; some in his pockets for immediate use, but the larger amounts he placed in his shoes where he could not easily be robbed of it.

Downstairs he hunted round till he found a motoring map of London and the Home Counties and filled a flask up with brandy which went into his other hip pocket to balance the gun. He then descended to the basement.

In the scullery he found just what he wanted: a length of stout clothes-line and a bundle of firewood. Picking out the biggest pieces from the bundle, he knotted the rope securely round them so that when he had done he had a line about twelve feet long with the pieces of wood projecting at right-angles to it roughly twelve inches apart. Having removed his coat, he wound the whole contraption round his body and, proceeding to the odd man’s room, he took a steel case-opener from the tool chest, stuffed it inside the rope and put on his coat again.

Returning upstairs, he selected a crop from a rack of sticks and sporting impedimenta that belonged to Sam. It was one that Sam had used in the War, made of bamboo covered with leather. The end of it was a fat Turk’s-head filled with lead, and with the thong round one’s wrist it made a most formidable weapon.

While he was making these preparations Hemmingway was half inclined to laugh at himself; but he had not the faintest idea where he would have to go or what he might have to do during the next twenty-four hours, and although the authorities were still maintaining an outward semblance of control, Derek’s experiences showed that London was no longer a law-abiding city. Hemmingway simply wished to ensure his being able to
bribe, fight, break in, or face any other emergency with which he might be faced, under the best possible conditions.

Leaving the house and the semi-darkened square, he proceeded east across Lower Regent Street and the Haymarket. The restaurants were all closed now and each had a police guard outside it to prevent looting of its stocks of drink. There were few people about and no traffic, except for patrolling police cars; and it was not until he got down to Trafalgar Square that he saw any considerable number of people.

Religious meetings were still in progress there although, owing to the evacuation, the lateness of the hour and the fact that all public transport services had now been cancelled until further notice, the crowd was nowhere near as large as that which had packed the square the night before. The audiences consisted mainly of those pig-headed citizens who had refused to leave their homes and a certain number of local A.R.P. wardens, fire-fighters, etc., who had come out for an airing while remaining near their posts.

There was no drunkenness or fatalistic jollification among the crowds now. Every public-house in London had been closed by order and the police, who had been issued with revolvers, had received instructions to shoot looters if they made any attempt to resist arrest.

Whitehall was open again but troops were mounting guard over all Government buildings and the entrance to Downing Street was closed by a wooden barricade; yet the lights were burning in nearly all the windows showing that the harassed authorities were still hard at work controlling the evacuation.

Hemmingway turned left towards Scotland Yard and its annexe, Cannon Row police station, but here he found the pavements blocked by a solid jam of people. Only the roadway was being kept open for traffic by the police.

He saw at once that he was not the only person who had come to inquire for friends and relatives. There were several hundred in the two queues before him, all of whom, anxiously silent or quietly sobbing, were in search of missing dear ones.

If he took his place in the rear of one of the queues it was clear that he would have to wait hours before he got anywhere near the police station; so, abandoning that idea, he walked round to the Embankment entrance of Scotland Yard. There was a
small queue there, too, but in a few moments he had reached the police sergeant who was dealing with inquiries.

Knowing that Sam’s name would carry more weight than his own and gambling on the fact that Sam was not known to the sergeant, he announced boldly:

‘I’m Sir Samuel Curry. Would you be good enough to ask Colonel Hodgson if he could possibly spare me a moment?’

The sergeant looked dubious. ‘The Assistant Commissioner’s frantically busy, sir. I doubt if he can spare time to see anyone.’

‘I know. He must be having a gruelling time just now. But, as I’m a personal friend, I think he’ll see me if you send my name up.’

‘Well, I’ll do that, sir, although we don’t like to bother him more than we have to. Just wait here a moment.’ The sergeant spoke to a telephonist in a small lodge nearby, who put the call through.

An answer came back almost at once and the sergeant reported: ‘The Assistant Commissioner says he’ll see you, sir, but he may have to keep you waiting a little time. The constable, here, will take you through.’

Suppressing a sigh of relief, Hemmingway passed inside and was led by the constable down a succession of long stone corridors to a bare-looking waiting room. He sat there for some twenty minutes and was then summoned to the Assistant Commissioner’s office.

Colonel Hodgson was a shrewd-eyed, wiry-haired man nearing fifty. He looked very tired as he had been working almost continuously for the last week, snatching only an hour or two’s sleep in the building when nature absolutely demanded it, but his manner was still calm and cheerful.

‘Hullo! You’re not Sam Curry,’ he said at once, as Hemmingway entered the room.

‘No, sir,’ Hemmingway apologised, ‘but I’m his confidential secretary and I’m acting for him. I know you’re a friend of his so I used his name to get in.’

The Colonel nodded. ‘All right. Since you’re in, let’s hear what’s brought you. But for God’s sake don’t waste my time on trifles.’

As briefly as he possibly could Hemmingway gave particulars of Lavina’s disappearance.

‘I’m sorry Sam’s young wife’s got herself into trouble,’ the Colonel said, when Hemmingway had finished. ‘She deserves a
lesson, though, for going out at a time like this. Respectable people ought to set an example and aid us rather than hinder us in this hellish mess we’ve got to handle.’

‘I know that, sir. But what’s done is done, and it’s up to me to find her.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you much there. Thousands of women have been brought in; far too many for us to keep any sort of register.’

‘I see. But surely you can tell me where your people would have taken her?’

‘She’ll be in one of the encampments for women. As she was arrested at the Dorchester, the one in the grounds of Buckingham Palace is the most likely.’

‘Then I’ll try that first, and the others afterwards if necessary. Perhaps your secretary could give me a list of them?’

‘Yes. There are seven altogether, but it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack and, even if you do find out where she is, you won’t be able to do anything about it.’

‘I want to take her to the country and I imagine, sir, that you’d have no objection to giving me an order for her release?’

A telephone buzzer sounded on the Colonel’s desk. He picked up the instrument and was talking down it for the next few moments. When he had done, he turned back to Hemmingway.

‘I’m sorry, but that’s impossible. Of course, the great majority of the people who have been rounded-up are only drunks; but hundreds of lives have been lost in these riots, property’s been destroyed and goods stolen. If the comet doesn’t hit us, every one of the prisoners will have to go before a tribunal; some will be charged with manslaughter, others with looting, and so on. But as we have no particulars of what any individual will be charged with yet, it’s quite out of the question for us to release anyone.’

‘But Lady Curry’s not a thief or a murderer.’

‘Of course not, my dear fellow, but she must have been arrested for something; even if it was only participating in a riotous assembly. And, until she’s been charged and either proved innocent or guilty, we’ve got to hold her. You must see for yourself that we can’t make exceptions.’

‘But, Colonel, her cousin was killed before her eyes last night. She’s probably half off her head with worry.’

‘I’m sorry. But, if she’s a hospital case, she’ll receive medical attention. Anyway, she’ll fare no worse than thousands of others and they’re all being fed and looked after. They’ll be as safe in the open parks as anywhere. That’s why we put them there. They’d be no better off in the open country. Now, I really can’t give you any more time.’

Hemmingway saw that it was useless to argue further so he thanked the Colonel for seeing him, obtained from his secretary a list of the women’s encampments in the London area, and left the building.

The encampments were scattered far and wide. One was on Wimbledon Common, another in Greenwich Park, a third on Hampstead Heath. The garden of Buckingham Palace was the only one anywhere near West Central London and, as Derek had been taken straight to Hyde Park, it seemed almost certain that Lavina would have been taken to the Palace grounds rather than to one of the more distant camps.

It was getting on for one in the morning as Hemmingway set out at a good pace across Parliament Square and along Birdcage Walk. Outside the Palace, where great multitudes had congregated on the previous nights, there was now only a small crowd of about fifty people. They stood in a ragged line, staring through the railings at the scene that was proceeding in the court yard.

There, long rows of closed vans were drawn up, numbering, Hemmingway estimated at a rough guess, well over a couple of hundred. Khaki-clad troops were moving about among them and the driver on the box of each was a soldier.

As Hemmingway halted outside one of the main gates it was thrown open and six of the vans drove out. Almost immediately afterwards another fleet came round the corner, from Constitution Hill, and drove in at the other entrance.

‘What’s going on?’ Hemmingway asked one of the onlookers.

‘They’re evacuating the women,’ replied the man, laconically.

‘Hell!’ Hemmingway exclaimed. ‘D’you know where they’re taking them?’

‘Not for certain. They do say, though, that they’re loading them on to ships down at the Docks because they reckon they’ll be safer out at sea. Why? Have you lost your wife or something?’

‘Yes,’ Hemmingway agreed, to avoid entering into long explanations.

‘Thanks very much,’ he added, and made off quickly.

This new move on the part of the authorities further complicated his problem. Evidently, the decision to evacuate the women prisoners had been made during the last hour or two and Colonel Hodgson, having been busy upon other matters, either knew nothing about it or had forgotten to mention it. The odds were all in favour of Lavina’s having been taken to the Palace garden after her arrest; but was she still there or was she in one of the vans on her way to an unknown destination?

If the latter was the case, Hemmingway knew that his chance of finding her would be rendered almost impossibly slender. His one hope now lay in the fact that the Colonel had said there were several thousand women in the garden. It would take some hours to evacuate them all and, if he could get into the garden at once, there was just a possibility that he might discover her before she was carted off in one of the vans.

The next thing was to get into the gardens. He knew that he stood no chance at all of penetrating to them by the front way, through the Palace Courtyards. The sentries would never let him pass without credentials. He had got to make his way in, therefore, by some illegal method.

The grounds of the Palace formed a rough triangle, with the Palace itself making a blunt apex at the eastern end. The southeastern side of the great walled enclosure was occupied by the Royal Stables, which were certain to be policed, so there was little prospect of getting in there. The north-eastern side ran parallel with Constitution Hill, up to Hyde Park Corner. A narrow belt of railed-off park, only a few feet deep, lay between the roadway and the wall of the Palace garden. As the belt had trees in it, that would certainly provide the best cover for any attempt to scale the wall but, for that very reason, it was almost certain that a chain of police would be keeping every foot of it under observation.

The third side of the triangle ran north and south the whole length of Grosvenor Place, and here the garden wall abutted on the pavement. There was no cover of any kind for anyone who tried to climb it, but the fact that the whole length of the wall was exposed to view rendered it much less likely to be heavily
guarded; so Hemmingway decided to make his attempt from that direction.

Turning right, he set off up Constitution Hill and he saw at once that his surmise, that this side of the Palace grounds would be well watched, had good foundations. He encountered six policemen between the Palace and Hyde Park Corner and he doubted if a cat could have got over the railing—let alone the wall—without having been spotted by one of them.