Sixty Days to Live (25 page)

If he endeavoured to steal a car and got caught in the act, that would be the end of any hope of collecting Lavina and getting her down to Stapleton. Yet he saw that he must take the risk.

The next thing was, where was there any likelihood of there being a car which he might annex? He could go to one of the Government depots, try bluffing the people in charge into believing that he was an A.R.P. warden and, perhaps, get a car in that way; but the odds seemed pretty heavy against such a scheme succeeding, and, anyhow, he didn’t like it. The idea of stealing a Government vehicle which might later be needed for saving lives went too much against the grain.

Every motor showroom and public garage had already been cleared of its contents, so the only other line seemed to be a car which somebody might have left in a private lock-up. Such vehicles, he knew, were now very few and far between but there must be some which their owners still had under lock and key either because, like himself, their departure had been delayed or because they happened to have been out of England when the crisis had arisen.

He realised then that the most likely place to find such a laid-up car was right in the mews where he was standing. In ordinary times, at this hour of the morning, the chauffeurs would have been just getting up and starting to clean their cars for the day’s work, but there wasn’t a single person stirring in the mews at the moment nor any sound proceeding from the flats above the garages. In nearly all of them the blinds were drawn and there
was little doubt that most of the chauffeurs and their families had left London with their employers. Yet only the very rich can afford to live in the mansions of St. James’s Square and very rich people nearly always possess several cars. Sam, for example, had four. It was, therefore, quite on the cards that one of the neighbours might have left behind at least one of his cars.

Hemmingway promptly began to hunt round in his mind for the person in the block whose garage would offer the best prospects for raiding. On the right lived Lord Allenfield, the great newspaper magnate. His legion of secretaries and hangers-on would have seen to it that all his cars were utilised for some purpose or other. The next house was empty. On the left lived Charlotte, Countess of Duffeldown, an old lady of eighty. Her only vehicle, Hemmingway was almost certain, was an incredibly aged Rolls and he had seen her drive away in it, with mountains of luggage, two days before. But the next one on the left offered much better prospects. It belonged to Julius Guggenbaum, the South African millionaire. He had been in South Africa for the last three months and, as he was a bachelor, the house had been shut up on his departure; so there seemed a really good chance that he might have left one or more cars laid up in his garage.

Hemmingway looked anxiously up and down the mews and stood listening intently for a moment, but the silence of the early morning remained unbroken.

Pulling the steel case-opener from under his rope-ladder belt he inserted it under the hinge of the padlock on Mr. Julius Guggenbaum’s garage door. Forcing it down he threw all his weight upon it and wrenched out the screws.

He had hardly done so when a voice called: ‘Hi!’

Turning, he saw two policemen entering the north end of the mews. His impulse was to run, but the mews was not a long one and the policemen were only about a hundred yards away. Even if he could outdistance them they would blow their whistles as they gave chase. It was almost certain that before he could elude them in the deserted streets he would be headed off by police arriving from other directions. With an effort of will he controlled his impulse and, turning, walked towards the rapidly-advancing constables.

‘Well! What is it?’ he asked sharply.

‘That garage door,’ said one of the officers. ‘We observed you breaking the lock.’

‘Yes. What about it?’

They were a little taken aback by his self-assurance but the other man braced himself and said firmly:

‘You know the emergency regulations. It’s a serious matter breaking into places these days. We shall have to take you into custody and hand you over to the Military.’

Hemmingway laughed, although he did not feel at all like laughing. ‘You’ll look a pretty couple of fools if you do. There’s no law to stop a man breaking into his own premises, is there?’

‘Well, of course, that’s different,’ conceded the spokesman of the pair, ‘but you’ll have to satisfy us that this is your garage.’

‘Certainly,’ Hemmingway smiled. ‘Actually, it’s Sir Samuel Curry’s; but I’m his secretary. Sir Samuel left for the country yesterday but I had to stay behind to sort out his papers.’ He held up the fat satchel. ‘Unfortunately, he was so busy when he left that he forgot to hand over the key of the garage, so I’ve had to break it open to get out my own car.’

‘I see. That sounds all right. But you won’t mind our asking, sir, just in the way of duty, to give us some proof that you really do belong here.’

‘Not a bit. The best proof I can offer you is to suggest that you come round to the house with me and have a drink. I dare say you chaps could do with one, now you’re on duty day and night like this.’

‘That’s very kind of you, sir.’ The constable glanced at his companion. ‘We’re living in strenuous times these days so we don’t mind if we do.’

Hemmingway led them back to the house; praying as he did so that it would not occur to them to count the number of garages in the mews and tumble to it that the Curry mansion did not back on to the garage that he had been caught breaking into.

Having let them into the house he filled two glasses two-thirds full of whisky and added a splash of soda to each. Then, with his back to his guests, he mixed himself another in almost the opposite proportions. He had entertained police officers before on a few occasions, and had a fair idea of their capacity. He was not disappointed. Both of them swallowed their drinks without turning a hair.

When they had emptied their glasses he asked them if they would like another, but they both shook their heads, so he said cheerfully:

‘Well, if you’re satisfied about me now, I must be getting along.’

‘Yes. Everything’s O.K., sir, and many thanks for the drinks,’ replied the spokesman. Both now appeared in an excellent humour.

At the front door Hemmingway hoped he would be able to rid himself of them; but it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as all that. With their long, unhurried strides they accompanied him back to the garage and, as he put his hand on the door to open it, a sudden, appalling thought struck him. What was going to happen if there was no car inside after all?

Taking a deep breath, he pulled the door open. To his immense relief a big Rolls and a Ford were inside; but both of them were chocked up and all their metal work was protected by sacking.

The senior constable gave Hemmingway a suspicious glance. ‘You don’t seem to have used either of your cars much lately, do you, sir?’

‘No.’ Hemmingway plunged in boldly again. ‘We keep half a dozen, and the ones in regular use have already gone to the country. They’ve landed me with the job of getting one of these going. I only hope to God they’ve left me some petrol.’

The suspicions of the police were apparently allayed once more and, to Hemmingway’s inward amusement, the two constables set to with a will helping him to prepare the car he was about to steal for his journey.

On the old principle that one might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, he had selected Mr. Guggenbaum’s Rolls rather than the Ford. In twenty minutes they had the big car out in the mews, unwrapped from its sacking and with its tyres pumped up. To Hemmingway’s relief, he had discovered some spare tins of petrol and oil at the back of the garage. They filled the tanks, he got into the driver’s seat and prepared to depart. Just as he was about to do so a last bright idea occurred to him.

‘Can either of you chaps drive?’ he asked.

‘I can,’ volunteered the younger constable ‘Why, sir?’

‘Well, I can’t lock the garage up again and it’s a pity to leave the Ford there at a time like this when it might come in useful to somebody. It would probably be stolen if I did, anyhow; so I
suggest that you drive it round to the nearest A.R.P. authorities and hand it over to them with Sir Samuel Curry’s compliments.’

‘That’s a very good idea,’ agreed the senior policeman, and, with a wave of his hand, Hemmingway drove away in the luxurious Guggenbaum Rolls.

His journey to the East End was uneventful. After he had passed through the City he found that there were more people about than in the West End. Most of the women and children had been evacuated, but quite a number of the male population, having no place in the country to go to, had had perforce to remain in London. A few food shops were open, but no other business was in progress, and here and there groups of men were standing talking on the street-corners.

According to plan, he drove all-out down the Commercial Road, with his hooter screaming, to prevent a possible hold-up. Angry looks were cast at him here and there from the groups on the pavements as he whizzed by; and he was loudly booed by a crowd outside the Catholic Church. At the crossing by Lime-house Town Hall a policeman waved to him to halt, but he ignored the signal, swerved violently and raced on. As there was little traffic, and no children were playing in the gutters, he reached the ‘Main Brace’ without accident.

Pulling up, he saw half a dozen tough-looking men in caps and scarves standing outside on the pavement. They immediately began to eye the car with an interest that Hemmingway found disturbing. With the memory of the hold-up he had seen earlier that morning fresh in his mind, it seemed to him quite on the cards that, if he left the car to go into the pub and rouse Lavina, and if any of them were capable of driving, they might quite well steal it.

Looking up at the window of the room on the first floor in which Lavina was presumably still sleeping, he plied his klaxon for all he was worth in the hope of rousing her, but, as it was only 8.30 and she had been in bed under three hours, he felt certain that she must still be sunk in exhausted slumber.

Next door to the ‘Main Brace’ there was a small greengrocer’s which still had a little stock for sale, and, propped up on the pavement, were some baskets of potatoes. Taking a half-crown out of his pocket, Hemmingway slipped out of the driver’s seat, ran across the pavement, threw the half-crown towards an astonished
looking young Jewess who was seated inside the shop, and grabbed up two handfuls of the potatoes.

The men on the pavement had now stopped talking and were watching his unusual procedure with amazement. Before any of them had moved he was back beside the car. Raising his arm, he hurled one of the potatoes straight through Lavina’s window.

The crash of glass roused the men into sudden activity. As the pieces fell tinkling on the pavement one little runt of a man stepped forward, crying: ‘Oi! Wot’s the gime?’

Hemmingway smiled disarmingly. ‘The woman, the dog and the walnut tree, the more you beat ‘em, the better they be,’ he quoted cryptically.

‘He’s loopy!’ said a brawny-looking fellow in a checked cap.

‘No, I’m not,’ Hemmingway grinned, ‘but my girl’s asleep up in that bedroom and I wanted to wake her. Nice little surprise for her. Treat ‘em rough, and they think more of you.’

‘ ’E
is
loopy!’ declared the man in the checked cap.

‘Bin seein’ too many films, that’s wot it is,’ remarked another. ‘ ’E thinks ‘e’s Errol Flynn or somethink.’

At that moment Lavina, blear-eyed and dishevelled, thrust her golden head out of the window. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ she murmured, still half asleep. ‘What a shock you gave me!’

Hemmingway looked up. ‘Never mind that. Get your clothes on and come down at once.’

The little man who had first spoken turned to leer at Hemmingway. ‘Nice bit o’ skirt you’ve got there, mister.’

‘Oh, she’s all right,’ Hemmingway consented casually.

‘Nice car, too,’ the little man went on, with a wink at his friends.

‘Yes. I wish it were mine.’

‘Ain’t it, then?’

‘No, I’ve borrowed it.’

‘Fancy, now!’ The tough looked round with a smirk. ‘Queer, ain’t it? Wot would you say if I told you me and my pals had been thinkin’ of borrering it ourselves?’

‘I should think it was your unlucky day,’ said Hemmingway genially.

‘Oh, you would, would yer?’ The little man ducked suddenly and came charging at Hemmingway to butt him in the stomach.

But Hemmingway was ready for the attack. During the whole
of the conversation he had been leaning against the car with his right hand behind him gripping the end of his loaded crop which lay on the driver’s seat. He side-stepped neatly and, bringing the crop round, landed the little man a swift crack over his bullet head with it.

As the leader of the roughs went sprawling in the gutter his friends charged in. Hemmingway dodged round the back of the car. With loud shouts three of his antagonists followed. The other two came round the front of the bonnet, so that he was caught between two fires.

The big man in the check cap was one of the two who had come round by the front. As he appeared to be the most formidable of the troop Hemmingway leapt straight at him, bashing the leaded head of the crop into his ugly face.

The man staggered, screamed and fell, but his companion caught Hemmingway off his balance with a blow on the side of the ear, which sent him reeling. Next second the three in his rear rushed at him and he had fallen fighting to the roadway with the whole pack on top of him.

He kneed one in the belly and struck another in the eye, causing him to shriek with pain. Then, with a desperate wriggle, he freed himself, staggered to his feet and dashed back to the pavement. But they were on him again before he had time to get his back to the wall. One of them kicked him in the stomach, another hit him in the mouth and he fell once more.

Meanwhile, the little man had picked himself up, climbed into the driver’s seat of the Rolls and got the engine going.

‘Come on, boys!’ he yelled. ‘Finish ‘im off an’ jump in before the cops turn up!’