Sixty Days to Live (7 page)

‘Thank God for that! But what do we do now? When he comes round there’ll be hell to pay. And I don’t see that having put him out for a bit is going to prevent him carrying through his Government-wrecking programme.’

‘He won’t come round for twenty-four hours at least, and by that time he will find himself a prisoner in the old nursery of this house. It’s on the third floor, looks down on the empty stables where no one ever goes these days and has barred windows.’

‘By Jove! You
are
a stout fellow.’ Sam grinned at his father-in law with sudden admiration. ‘I take it you mean to keep him a prisoner here until the trouble is over?’

‘Until then, or, if my brother is right, until the world comes to an end on June 24th.’

‘That’s all very well,’ remarked Hemmingway. ‘It’s a grand scheme as far as it goes; but there’ll be a terrific hue and cry after he’s been missing for a day or two. Ex-Cabinet Ministers aren’t given to disappearing without leaving any trace of their whereabouts.’

‘I can’t help that,’ Gervaise declared firmly. ‘This man is a danger to the State. It is our duty to protect our fellow-citizens from such people at whatever risk to ourselves. I am prepared to take the whole matter upon my own shoulders if you wish but, if you’re willing to co-operate, I shall be grateful for any help you can give me to cover his tracks.’

‘Of course,’ Sam agreed at once. ‘Somehow or other we must think up a plausible reason to account for his sudden disappearance.’

‘Could we use his wife in any way?’ Hemmingway suggested. ‘She sailed yesterday for the States. How about his going off in a private plane to overtake the ship and join her?’

‘That’s a grand idea,’ Sam nodded. ‘Then the plane disappears. His wife will radio that she knew nothing of his intentions, but
we’ll spread a story that he left for urgent private reasons. It will be assumed that something went wrong with the plane and that he was drowned at sea.’

‘We can’t keep him a prisoner for ever, though.’

‘No, and he’ll sue the lot of us for conspiracy directly we let him out. Just think what a scandal there’ll be; and the case will cost us thousands. We may even be sent to prison ourselves for kidnapping.’

‘We need not worry about that till the end of June,’ Gervaise reminded them grimly. ‘And, if the world is still in existence then, I’m prepared to face any prosecution that may result from this business.’

Hemmingway’s shrewd eyes were veiled for a moment by the lowering of his lazy eyelids. ‘There won’t be any prosecution. Fink-Drummond would never dare to bring one. We’d tell the whole story in court and show that none of us had benefited personally in any way by his disappearance. We might be fined a farthing damages but he’d be hounded out of the country. Let’s get on with the job and think of a man we can trust who’s got a plane. We ought to fake his departure this evening.’

‘Rupert Brand will do that for us, said Sam. ‘I’m sure we can rely on him and he’s got a big private plane at his place down at Cobham. He’ll have to disappear, too, for the time being and you, Hemmingway, must arrange to get the story of their sudden departure in to-morrow’s papers.’

‘That’s easy. I can fix it through the usual channels we tap for special business, without anyone being the wiser.’

Gervaise pushed a cushion under Fink-Drummond’s head, and said: ‘We’d better get back to the others now. They must be wondering what on earth has happened to us. I’ll lock this door and attend to our prisoner myself when all the guests and hired staff have gone. I can leave the rest to you two, I take it?’

Sam nodded. ‘I’ll take Rupert and he and Hemmingway can make all the other arrangements between them. If there were anything I could do that they can’t, I’d put off my honeymoon; but, as it is …’

‘My dear fellow, you mustn’t dream of such a thing.’ Gervaise patted him kindly on the shoulder and the three men left the room together.

In the hall Sam paused. ‘You’d better find Rupert, Hemmingway,
and bring him out here. If I go back into the drawing-room, I shall be surrounded by the crowd.’

As Hemmingway hurried off, Lavina appeared, with Margery beside her. ‘Why, there you are!’ she exclaimed, as she saw Sam and her father. ‘Everybody’s been wondering wherever you two had got to.’

Gervaise smiled. ‘We’ve been having a little private celebration. I’m sorry to have robbed you of Sam but you see it’s a new and very pleasant experience for me to have a son.’

She kissed him quickly. ‘It makes me very happy that you like each other, darling. I’m just going up to change.’

‘You’d better go up and change, too,’ Margery admonished Sam. ‘You mustn’t keep the bride waiting.’

Sam gave her an amiable grin. ‘It won’t take me as long as it will Lavina, but I’ll be up in a minute.’

The two girls had just disappeared round the bend of the stairs when Hemmingway returned with Rupert Brand.

‘Listen, Rupert,’ Sam plunged in right away, ‘I’m going to ask you to do something pretty big for us. You may think us crazy but we want you to take that private plane of yours up to-night and disappear in it for six or seven weeks.’

‘The devil you do!’ exclaimed Rupert. ‘To put it mildly, that’s a most extraordinary request.’

‘We’re in an extraordinary situation and we’re counting on you to help us. It’s a matter which may affect the welfare of the whole nation. I really mean that.’

‘Well, if you put it that way. Is this M.I.5, or something?’

‘No. The three of us are acting absolutely unofficially. In fact, we’re even risking prosecution for conspiracy and, later on, it’s possible that you might be called on to answer some pretty tricky questions. But Hemmingway will give you the details and I think when you hear them you’ll agree that this job has simply got to be done. I must go up and change now, and all I can add is that I do beg you to give us your assistance.’

Rupert brushed up his small, fair Guardee moustache with the knuckle of his first finger. ‘Well, it’s going to be hellishly inconvenient—and there’s Conchita to be thought of; but I’m game to listen to anything Hemmingway’s got to say.’

‘Right,’ said Hemmingway. ‘Let’s go out into the garden where we can’t be overheard.’

Gervaise nodded. ‘That would be best. I’ll go back and look after our guests while you change, Sam.’

As they strolled up and down the newly mown lawn in the May sunshine, Hemmingway gave Rupert particulars of what had happened.

When Hemmingway had done, Rupert said slowly: ‘I see the necessity for covering the disappearance of that swine, Fink-Drummond, all right. But there are a lot of snags to doing it the way you suggest.’

‘Let’s hear them.’

‘Well, to start with, there’s Conchita. We’d arranged to be married on the first of June. And to ask me to postpone our wedding is pretty tough on both of us.’

‘That certainly is a nasty one,’ Hemmingway agreed, ‘but it’s a purely personal matter and we’re asking you to make this big sacrifice in the service of your country.’

Rupert grunted angrily. ‘Damn it, man, you don’t have to tell me that!’

‘What I’m really concerned about,’ Hemmingway went on smoothly, ‘is how you’re fixed officially. If you’re committed to the Service in any way, you couldn’t just flit off into the blue without obtaining leave. To do so would create immediate suspicion that the whole job was phony.’

‘Oh, you needn’t worry about that. I resigned from the Coldstream six months ago, so I’m my own boss these days. Of course, there’s my job with the Akers Wentworth people. I’m testing the new Akers “Eagle” fighter, but there’s nothing to prevent my taking on a private engagement to fly a man like Fink-Drummond out to catch a ship off the west coast of Ireland. If we left to-night, I should normally be back to-morrow morning and, if I failed to return, the assumption would be that the plane had crashed and we’d both been drowned at sea. That would be just too bad. But there’s nothing that anybody could do about it.’

‘Well, that’s exactly what I want. And it takes a whale of a load off my mind to know you’re free to do it.’

‘That’s all damned fine! But what about Conchita?’

Hemmingway considered for a moment. ‘The best thing we can do is to call her in on this, and see what she’s got to say herself. Let’s go and get her.’

They turned back and walked quickly up the slope to the french windows of the long drawing-room on the south side of the house. Conchita was talking to some people by the buffet, but Rupert succeeded in getting her away, and, once the three of them were out in the garden, Hemmingway told all over again the story of Fink-Drummond’s activities.

‘I refuse to be separated from Rupert for all that time,’ she said, when Hemmingway had finished. ‘You see, for the first time in my life I’m really in love, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being parted from him even for a week.’

Hemmingway shot her an anxious look. ‘I know we’re asking an incredibly hard thing of you, but there’s so much at stake, and none of us know an airman we could trust with such an important secret, except Rupert.’

Her generous mouth twitched with amusement. ‘I
do
understand how much is at stake, so therefore he shall go—but I intend to go with him.’

‘Would you?’ exclaimed Rupert, his face lighting up.

‘Why not, darling? Do you not think it would be rather fun for us to elope?’

‘By Jove! And to-night, as ever was.’

‘To-night, my sweet. We will pass out of this so stupid social world, and go into hiding together for just as long as you like.’

Hemmingway smiled at her. ‘Well, now, isn’t that just splendid!’

‘It’ll be the most glorious adventure of my life,’ Rupert cried ‘and I’ve had a few already. But we’re not out of the wood yet, by a long chalk. Where are we going to on this honeymoon of ours?’

‘Anywhere you like,’ Hemmingway said airily.

‘That’s not so easy. Surely you realise that planes are labelled and numbered, just like cars, these days; and my big beauty is a special model which plenty of air people would recognise on sight. We’ve got to land somewhere; and, whatever airport we chose, our landing would be reported. It would be known in England a few hours later, and that would upset the entire apple-cart.’

‘Let me solve this difficulty,’ Conchita suggested. ‘Why should we not fly to my old home in Spain? It is an estate of many
thousand acres, in La Mancha. My house-servants were loyal to me in the Revolution, and, even if they wished to talk, who could they talk to when the nearest city is Ciudad Real, fifty miles away? The house is in what you call here the back of beyond. We have no neighbours, only little peasant villages scattered over the Great Plain.’

‘That’s a grand idea,’ Rupert agreed, ‘as long as no officious person sees us landing.’

She laughed. ‘My dear one, the peasantry are so ignorant that they’re only just learning to read. How could they possibly know one aeroplane from another, even if they saw it? But few of them will do so, if we land at dawn. And then we will lock the plane away out of sight in one of the great barns.’

‘It sounds good to me,’ Hemmingway admitted. ‘But, wait a minute! If it’s a land-plane it couldn’t come down on the sea; so you’d never have used it for taking Fink-Drummond to catch a liner. The air reporters will spot that as soon as the story breaks.’

‘Fortunately, we’re all right there. She’s an amphibian, so we could come down equally well on land or water.’

‘How about the distance, though? It’s clear from what you said just now that to land at any place
en route
would give the whole game away. Can you make it in one hop?’

‘It’s under a thousand miles, and, fuelled to capacity, my new bus could cover three times that distance.’

‘How long will it take you to get there?’

‘About five hours.’

‘Fine. I reckon that’s a little longer than you’d need to overtake the
Falconia
, but not enough to matter. If you leave at one, you’d be certain of having the morning light to land by.’

‘Yes, and I’d need that to spot the ship. It’s important, too, that I should pass the Spanish military aerodromes while it’s still dark; otherwise they might send up a plane to challenge me. I hope they haven’t built a drome anywhere near your place, Conchita?’

‘No. I am sure I should know of it if they had.’

‘That’s O.K., then, as I shall fly very high until we have to land.’

‘Right,’ Hemmingway nodded. ‘Now, this is the drill. You go straight home from here, Rupert, get your plane ready, and tell
your mechanics you’re flying Fink-Drummond out to catch the
Falconia
off the west coast of Ireland. You’re leaving at one o’clock, but you don’t want to keep them up once the plane is ready. Say you’re taking your fiancée with you, just for the trip, and that you expect to be back at—well, whatever you work out to be the normal hour to-morrow morning.

‘I’ll take Conchita back to London in my car. She must pack and tell her maids the same story. But, for goodness’ sake, Conchita, don’t take a lot of luggage, because you’re only supposed to be staying up all night. It’s hard to ask you to leave most of your things behind, but, strictly speaking, you shouldn’t set off with much more than your beauty-box.’

‘That I understand,’ she replied gravely. ‘But, as I am flying to my own home, I have no need to do so. For the simple life that we shall lead I have plenty of clothes out there.’

‘Good. Then I want you to order a car from Daimler Hire to pick you up at midnight. You must make a special point of insisting that they supply you one which has blinds. Directly you get in the car pull them down, and tell the man to drive to Bryanston Square. You’ll find me waiting by the garden railings opposite No. 102. That’s Fink-Drummond’s house. Luckily, I’m about his height, and dark. I shall be carrying a big suitcase as though for a journey, wearing an overcoat with a fur collar pulled up round my face, and a gangster hat right down over my eyes.

‘Directly you drive up in the car I shall jump into it, taking care that the chauffeur doesn’t see my face. You will then tell him to drive us down to Rupert’s place at Cobham. When we arrive I shall get out with my bag and walk round the side of the house. You’ll pay the man off, and tell him to drive back to London. Then ring the front door bell, and when Rupert’s man answers it say to him, “Would you tell Captain Brand that we’ve arrived, and that Mr. Fink-Drummond is so anxious to get off that he’s gone straight round to the plane.”