The Runaway Heart

by Barbara Cartland

  Karina did so, telling him how Felix had stolen the documents labelled ‘Holdings’, how she had followed him to his flat and how she had overheard the conversation on the telephone and had hidden in the bathroom, seen the pink elephant in the safe and fled with it.

  “Perhaps I was silly to take it,” she said. “If I had not, he would never have known that anyone had been there and we could have warned Mr. Holt about the other things.”

  “Of course,” Jim agreed, “but it’s a little late to think about that now. What we have to worry about is not Garland but you.”

  “Me?” Karina asked.

  “You know why,” Jim said simply.

  “I thought that myself,” Karina replied, remembering with a shudder Felix’s face as he had searched for her and glared up and down the street.

  Jim was silent for a moment and she knew that he was thinking.

  “We must warn Mr. Holt,” Karina said. “What harm can they do him?”

  “I imagine that they are going to use the knowledge of how many shares he possesses in each Company either to bid for control or play the markets in some way which might make things very difficult for him,” Jim said. “I am not a financial expert, but I bet that a great many of Garland’s competitors would give a good deal of money to see that particular list.”

  “Can we do anything about it?” Karina asked.

  Jim shrugged his shoulders.

  “Only Garland can do that.”

  “Then we must telephone him,” Karina said agitatedly. “Please, Jim, help me. How can we get through to him?”

  Jim did not answer and she went on,

  “I cannot bear to think that this has happened all through me. How could I have brought him such trouble and such bad luck? How can I ever explain to him how sorry I am?”

  Still Jim did not answer.

  She felt his hand suddenly relinquish hers and turned enquiringly to look straight into his eyes.

  “You love him, don’t you?” he said quietly.

  There was something in the way he said it which told her more forcibly than if he had put it into words that he loved her too.

  “Yes, Jim, I do,” she answered softly.

  “Does he love you?”

  “Of course not. It’s quite, quite hopeless. One of those things that just happen and one cannot help it. He will never know.”

  Jim gave a deep sigh.

  “Lucky Garland! He has always been the lucky one of the family. He always has everything, even though he tried to pretend that I once pipped him at the post where a girl was concerned. It was all nonsense really. He has hated me for many other reasons, but I have never hated him until now.”

  “I am sorry, Jim.”

  “You are different somehow from anyone else I have ever known,” Jim said. “I have not been able to think of anything else since I met you. I am going to say it, Karina, even though you don’t want me to. I love you and I mean it in a way that I have never meant it to any other woman.”

  “Oh, Jim, please don’t. Please don’t be unhappy about it,” Karina begged. “I want to be friends with you. I want you to help me. But I cannot help it that my heart feels something for Garland that I could never feel for you or anyone else.”

  “As I have said before,” Jim said bitterly, “lucky Garland!”

  Karina put her hand on his arm.

  “Help me! Please help me!”

  “All right,” he answered. “It goes against the grain, but I have already thought of what you must do.”

  “What?”

  “Go out to him. Tell him the story yourself. Actually it kills two birds with one stone. We have to take care of you, keep you out of harm’s way and somehow this complicated tale has to be told to Garland. If we could get through to him on the telephone, which I very much doubt, it is going to take hours to explain, while, if you saw him, you could do it in a few minutes. You can also take him back his luck.”

  “But how can I go to India?” Karina asked.

  “The more I think of it,” Jim said, ignoring her question, “the more I think it is the only sensible approach. If Garland knows the whole facts of the case, you can bet your bottom dollar he will be able to work things out one way or another. Also he will know better than we do who is involved in this. You did not hear the man’s name who Felix was talking to, by any chance?”

  “No, I am afraid not,” Karina replied.

  Then she gave a little exclamation.

  “I heard his Christian name though! Cousin Felix said, ‘one minute, Eric, I have a list of those in my safe’.”

  “Eric!” Jim said. “I wonder now. There is an Eric Cowley who has always been one of Garland’s rivals. He is one of the big financiers and a nasty bit of work, from all I have heard. My God! I have it! He is a collector of pictures, ivories and all sorts of things of that kind. I am always seeing that he has paid some fabulous price for a piece of furniture at Christie’s or a picture at Sotheby’s.

  “I don’t mind betting you that he is at the bottom of the whole thing. He is the sort of chap who would take the advice of someone like Felix Mainwaring and pay him to pull his chestnuts out of the fire for him.”

  “But would he really stoop to stealing?” Karina asked.

  Jim shrugged his shoulders.

  “You cannot understand chaps of that sort,” he said. “They would do anything if it gave them a feeling of power or triumph. He may have wanted to get even with Garland. He may just have wanted to add to his secret collection of objets d’art that are the only ones of their kind. Heaven knows what he thought! Garland will be able to tell you better than I can what the man is like.”

  “But I cannot go to India,” Karina said. “I don’t have a passport.”

  “That is another hurdle,” Jim replied. “You don’t make it easy, do you?”

  “I am sorry,” Karina said humbly.

  Jim got to his feet.

  “Well, come on. We had better get cracking. Passport first, then the bookings and lastly I expect that you will need a few clothes.”

  Karina opened her bag.

  “I have exactly two pounds, fourteen shillings and three pence!” she said despairingly.

  Jim laughed.

  “About the same amount as I have. But a wise man once said to me, ‘never let money stand in the way of opportunity!’ I never have.”

  He took her arm and they ran together down the steps. The fountains were playing and the pigeons were waddling about waiting to be fed. Karina suddenly felt light-hearted.

  It was impossible, she knew, quite impossible.

  And yet somehow her heart sang that she was going to India, she was going to see Garland.

  Jim did not take a taxi as she expected. Instead he led her into a small side street off the Strand. There was a photographer there advertising ‘Passport Photographs While You Wait’.

  He took her in, galvanised the man into working at double quick time and in what seemed to her a few minutes they had the photographs in their hands and Jim was signalling a taxi.

  “Where are we going now?” Karina asked him.

  “To see a friend of mine,” he answered. “And, incidentally, I am going to ask you to be blind, deaf and dumb about all that occurs from now on. As I have said, the gentleman in question is a friend of mine and I don’t want him sent to Dartmoor for a holiday.”

  “You mean you are going to get me a false passport?” Karina asked.

  “Unless you prefer to wait a week or so for your trip to India, it is the only possible way,” Jim answered. “Fortunately I have friends in strange places. This man was a Commando and was with me in the war. He was damned brave and deserved the Victoria Cross, but the Police would love to get their hands on him.”

  The taxi stopped in a long, narrow, rather dirty street down by the Embankment.

  Jim, with Karina following, climbed down some crumbling steps into a basement. Jim rang the bell and, after some minutes, the door was opened by a man over six f
eet tall wearing a cloth cap at the back of his head.

  “Bless me! If it ain’t the Major,” he said when he saw Jim. “I wondered what ’ad ’appened to you as I’d not ’eard from you for so long, ’ow’re you keepin’?”

  “Well enough,” Jim answered. “And I need not ask how you are doing. I saw the Rolls Royce outside the door.”

  The man shook with laughter as if Jim had said the wittiest thing in the world.

  “Come in,” he said. “Don’t stand about ’ere. We might ’ave the coppers nosin’ around to see who me callers are. They’re friendly enough, as it ’appens, at the moment. But I don’t like to draw attention to meself.”

  “I bet you don’t,” Jim answered, leading Karina into a passage that smelt of damp and saying as he did so, “this is Miss Burke, Bill. She is all right. I am hoping to marry her one day, if she will have me.”

  “Well, now isn’t that nice to ’ear?” Bill exclaimed. “Congratulations, Major, you always were a good picker. And best wishes to you, m’dear,” he added, shaking Karina by the hand. “The Major’s gold right through, I’ll say that for ’im.”

  “Except where my pocket’s concerned,” Jim countered quickly.

  Karina felt embarrassed, but she said nothing. She understood only too well that Jim had to vouch for her in some way or other and this was the easiest way.

  “Come into me boudoir,” Bill suggested with a grin.

  He led the way down the passage and opened the door at the end.

  Karina was surprised that the room really was comfortable. It must once have been an artist’s studio and it looked out onto a narrow courtyard surrounded by high warehouses. But it was light and airy and comfortably furnished.

  There was a big fire burning in the grate and a carpenter’s bench covered with all sorts of tools down one side of the room.

  “What are you working on now?” Jim asked. “Locks?”

  “Anythin’ that requires a delicate touch, Major. That’s what they always says to me, ‘nobody ’as fingers like you, Bill!’”

  “You are an old blackguard,” Jim said affectionately. “I want some help, Bill. A passport for this lady. She has to go to India at once and we have no time to fulfil all Her Majesty’s regulations.”

  “Well, now, isn’t that a bit of luck?” Bill exclaimed. “I might almost ’ave known that you were comin’. I bought a passport only last week. A girl who dived off the side of the river, nice-lookin’ bit of goods she was too. On the usual job, of course!”

  He winked at Jim and then coughed politely as if he had said too much in front of Karina.

  “Now let’s see,” he said quickly. “Where did I put it?”

  He rummaged in the drawers of a rather nice tallboy. Karina could not help seeing that the drawers had a number of passports in them.

  She glanced enquiringly at Jim.

  “Quite a good line of business,” Jim muttered almost beneath his breath with a smile.

  Soft though the words were, Bill heard them.

  “Not ’alf as good as it used to be. Too many countries slackenin’ up their precautions because of the tourists. The price of fixin’ these things ’as dropped off badly.”

  “I should think that is because of too much competition,” Jim said.

  “Competition!” Bill answered scornfully. “It isn’t everyone who can fix ’em as I do and well you know it, Major.”

  “And well I know it,” Jim agreed. “Well, come on, we don’t have all day to waste. Here are the photographs.”

  He took the photographs of Karina out of his pocket and held them out.

  “Trust you to forget nothin’, Major,” Bill said admiringly.

  He took the passport and sat down at the bench and started lifting the photograph that was already on it.

  Karina watched him, fascinated.

  “By the way,’” Jim said casually. “We shall also want a vaccination certificate and one of those cholera and typhoid things.”

  “You’ll find ’em in the other drawer,” Bill said. “Fill ’em in, Major, while I do this. Harris is the name I usually sign for the quack – H. A. Harris. There are a hundred and six of ’em in the Medical Directory.”

  Jim took the papers and, drawing a pen from his pocket, started to fill them in. Karina was fascinated.

  When Jim had finished writing, he looked up at Bill.

  “Stamps?” he said. “The official ones!”

  “They’re on the table somewhere,”‘ Bill answered. “I can’t tell you what a job I ’ad, Major, cuttin’ that rubber stamp. Took me nearly a week it did to get it right. But now no one could tell the difference between mine and some desk-wallahs in Whitehall.!”

  Jim found the rubber stamps, pressed them onto the papers and handed them to Karina. She looked at them and her eyes widened.

  “But these are not in my name,” she said.

  Jim smiled at her.

  “No, Karina, but Bill’s passport is a real one. You will have to be Miss June Robinson.”

  “That was the girl who died,” Karina said in a low voice.

  “I don’t think she would begrudge you using her passport for something as important as this,” Jim replied in an understanding tone.

  Bill looked up.

  “That she wouldn’t. She was a good sort, was June. Give away the shirt off ’er back, she would, if it’d ’elp anybody. Far too generous in some ways she was. I could tell you how – ”

  “That’s all right, Bill,” Jim said quickly. “Miss Burke understands.”

  “Well, don’t let ’er forget what ’er name is,” Bill said with a laugh. “And make the labels on your luggage the same. Not like one chap whose passport I fixed for ’im. Goes blithely off to the Continent with all ’is labels in ’is own name and ’ad a deuce of a job explainin’ ’e was takin’ it over to oblige a friend.”

  Bill laughed so much that the table seemed to shake in front of him.

  But he had finished what he was doing and handed Karina the passport with a little bow. He had certainly made a good job of it. Her photograph was where June Robinson’s had been and the official stamp on it was quite perfect as far as the eye could see.

  “Now, Major, that will be fifty quid, please,” Bill said. “Double to anyone else, but you know I always charge special prices for you.”

  “You will have it next week,” Jim replied quietly.

  Karina saw Bill stiffen.

  “Not on your nelly,” he said. “You know my terms. Cash and no ’ard feelings.”

  Jim smiled disarmingly.

  “I am sorry, Bill, but this is an emergency. I brought Miss Burke here without going home. In fact, when I came out this morning, I had no idea what was going to happen.”

  Bill put his hands into his trouser pockets.

  “Listen, Major. You and me ’ave been pals for a long time and I don’t want to fall out with you. My terms is cash and I wouldn’t give credit to the Prime Minister ’imself.”

  “You know me, don’t you?” Jim said. “You know I am always broke. But this is different. Karina, show him what you have under your arm.”

  Reluctantly, because by now she was rather afraid of Bill, Karina drew out the pink elephant.

  Bill put out his hand and took it from her.

  “Blimey! I seem to know this or rather, I’ve ’eard of it.”

  He put it down on the table and thumbed through a pile of papers.

  “You needn’t bother,” Jim told him. “It’s part of the lot stolen from Mr. Holt’s house a week ago.”

  “I thought so,” Bill muttered.

  “As it happens, Miss Burke is taking it to India to Mr. Holt,” Jim explained. “But I don’t expect you to believe that. What I am suggesting is that you take one of the stones out of it. They are all of them worth more than fifty pounds and well you know it. Hold it and, when I bring you the money, you can give it back.”

  “Now you’re talkin’ business, Major,” Bill smiled.

 
He picked up the elephant again and turned it over in his hand.

  “If I wasn’t an honest man,” he said, “I’d take the emeralds. They’re worth a pretty packet. But, as it is and seein’ as it’s you, Major, one of the diamonds round the base will do me.”

  “I bet it will,” Jim answered. “Any of the diamonds is well worth two or three hundred pounds. Never mind, take your choice and mind you give me the same one back when I redeem it.”

  “Major, you ’urt me with your suspicions,” Bill answered.

  He gouged the diamond out with a thin delicate tool.

  Then Jim said quietly,

  “I have to raise the money for Miss Burke’s ticket. What about lending me a hundred and fifty pounds on ten per cent interest?”

  “Fifteen,” Bill said.

  “All right, fifteen,” Jim agreed. “You’d better take another couple of stones while you’re about it. It’ll save time.”

  Bill took them out and then, drawing a key from his pocket, unlocked another drawer in the same tallboy from which he had taken the passport. He drew out a big wad of notes secured with a rubber band.

  “A hundred and fifty enough, Major?” he enquired.

  “It will do,” Jim said. “I cannot afford anything more at your disgraceful rates of interest.”

  “Business is business,” Bill retorted laconically.

  He gave Jim the money and Karina picked up the pink elephant. She felt somehow that it had been hurt by having some of its precious stones taken from it. And yet she was thankful that she had not had to leave the elephant itself in bond so as to be able to pay her way to India.

  “Goodbye, Bill. I’ll be seeing you,” Jim said. “Keep those diamonds safely.”

  “They’ll be ’ere if I am,” Bill replied.

  Jim turned towards the door that they had entered the room through, but Bill stopped him.

  “Better go out the other way, Major,” he said. “You never know who’s watchin’. Too many rich clients might make the cops think I was in the money.”