The others fell silent and Richard looked across at her. ‘Well, dearest, which is it to be?
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she moaned. ‘Both sides seem right and yet the risk is so appalling either way.’
He laid his hand gently on her hair. ‘It’s beastly having to make such a decision, and if we were alone in this I wouldn’t dream of asking you. I’d do what I thought best myself unless you were dead against it, but as the others disagree with me so strongly what can I do but ask you to decide?’
Wringing her hands together in agonised distress at this horrible problem with which she was faced, Marie Lou looked desperately from side to side, then her glance fell on Rex. He was sitting hunched up in a dejected attitude on the far side of Tanith’s body, his eyes fixed in hopeless misery on the dead girl’s face.
‘Rex,’ she said hoarsely, ‘you haven’t said what you think yet. Both these alternatives seem equally ghastly to me. What do you advise?’
‘Eh?’ He looked up quickly. ‘It’s mighty difficult and I was just trying to figure it out. I hate the thought of doing nothing, waiting about when you’ve got a packet of trouble is just real hell to me, and I’d like to get after this bird with a gun. But Simon’s so certain that if we did it would be fatal to Fleur, and I guess the Duke thinks that way too. They both know him, you must remember, and Richard doesn’t, which is a point to them, but I’ve got a hunch that we are barking up the wrong tree, and that this is a case for what Greyeyes calls his masterly policy of inactivity. The old game of giving the enemy enough rope so he’ll hang himself in the end.
‘Any sort of compromise is all against my nature, but I reckon it’s the only policy that offers now. If we stay put here and carry out Mocata’s instructions to the letter, we’ll at least be satisfied in our minds that we are not bringing any fresh danger on Fleur. But let’s go that far and no farther. We all know Simon is willing enough to cash in his checks, but I don’t think we ought to let him. Instead, we’ll keep him here. That is going to force Mocata to scratch his head a whole heap. He’ll not do Fleur in before he’s had another cut at getting hold of Simon, so it will be up to him to make the next move in the game, and that may give us a fresh opening. The situation can’t be worse than it is at present, and when he shows his hand again, given a spot of luck, we might be able to ring the changes on him yet.’
De Richleau smiled, for the first time in days, it seemed. ‘My friend, I salute you,’ he said, with real feeling in his voice. ‘I am growing old, I think, or I should have thought of that myself. It is by far and away the most sensible thing that any of us has suggested yet.’
With a sigh of relief, Marie Lou moved over and, stooping down, kissed Rex on the cheek. ‘Rex, darling, bless you. In our trouble we’ve been forgetting about yours, and it is very wonderful that you should have thought of a real way out for us in the midst of your sorrow. I dreaded having to make that decision just now more than anything that I have had to do in my whole life.’
He smiled rather wanly. ‘That’s all right, darling. There’s nothing so mighty clever about it, but it gives us time, and you must try and comfort yourself with the thought that time and the angels are on our side.’
Even Richard’s frantic anxiety to set out immediately in search of his Fleur d’amour was overcome for the time being by Rex’s so obviously sensible suggestion. In his agitation he had eaten nothing yet, but now he sat down to cut some sandwiches, and set about persuading Marie Lou that she must eat the first of them in order to keep up her strength. Then he looked over at the Duke,
‘I left that note for Malin where he’s bound to see itslipped it under his bedroom door, so we shan’t be disturbed here. Is there anything at all that we can do?’
‘Nothing, I fear, only possess ourselves with such patience as we can, but we’re all at about the end of our tether, so we ought to try and get some sleep. If Mocata makes some fresh move this evening it’s on the cards that we shall be up again all night.’
‘I’ll get some cushions,’ Simon volunteered. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in bringing used articles into this room now?’
‘None. You had better collect all the stuff you can and we’ll make up some temporary beds on the floor.’
Simon, Richard and Rex left the room and returned a few moments later with piles of cushions and all the rugs that they could find. They placed some fresh logs on the smouldering ashes of the fire and then set about laying out five makeshift resting-places.
When they had finished, Marie Lou allowed Richard to lead her over to one of them and tuck her up, although she protested that, exhausted though she as, she would never be able to sleep. The rest lay down, and then Richard switched out the light.
Full day had come at last, but it was of little use, for the range of vision was limited to about fifteen yards. The mist outside the windows seemed, if anything, denser than before, and it swirled and eddied in curling wreaths above the damp stones of the terrace, muffling the noises of the countryside and shutting out the light.
None of them felt that they would be able to sleep. Rex’s gnawing sorrow for Tanith preyed upon his mind. The others, racked with anxiety for Fleur, turned restlessly upon their cushions. Every now and then they heard Marie Lou give way to fits of sobbing as though her heart would break. But the stress of those terrible night hours and the emotions they had passed through since had exhausted them completely. Marie Lou’s bursts of sobbing became quieter and then ceased. Richard fell into an uneasy doze. De Richleau and Rex breathed evenly, sunk at last in a heavy sleep.
Hours later Marie Lou was dreaming that she was seated in an ancient library reading a big, old-fashioned book, the cover of which was soft and hairy like a wolf’s skin, and that as she read it a circle of iron was bound about her head. Then the scene changed. She was in the pentacle again, and that loathsome sack-like Thing was attacking Fleur. She awokeand started up with a sudden scream of fear.
Her waking was little better than the nightmare when memory flooded back into her mind. Yet that too and the present only seemed other phases of the frightful dream; the comfortable library denuded of its furniture; Tanith’s dead body lying in the centre of the floor and the dimness of the room from those horrible fog banks shutting out the sunshine. They could not possibly be anything but figments of the imagination.
The men had roused at once, and crowded round her, shadowy figures in the uncertain light. De Richleau pressed the electric switch. They blinked a little, and looked at each other sleepily, then their eyes turned to the place where Simon had lain.
With one thought their glances shifted to the window and they knew that while they slept their friend had gone out, into that ghostly unnatural night, to keep his grim appointment.
CHAPTER XXX
OUT INTO THE FOG
It was Rex who noticed the chalk marks on the floor. He stepped over and saw that Simon, lacking pencil and paper, had used these means to leave them a short message. Slowly he deciphered the scribbled words and read them out:
‘Please don’t fuss or try to come after me. This is my muddle, so am keeping appointment. Do as Mocata has ordered. Am certain that is only chance of saving Fleur. Love to all. Simon.’
‘Aw, Hell!’ exclaimed Rex as he finished. ‘The dear heroic little sap has gone and put paid to my big idea. Mocata has got him and Fleur now on top of having killed Tanith. If you ask me we’re properly sunk.’
De Richleau groaned. ‘It is just like him. We ought to have guessed that he would do this.’
‘You’re right there,’ Richard agreed sadly. ‘I’ve known him longer than any of you, and I did my damnedest to prevent him sacrificing himself for nothing, but it seems to me he’s only done the very thing you said he should.’
‘That’s not quite fair,’ the Duke protested mildly. ‘I only said I thought it right that he should with certain modifications. I had it in my mind that we might follow him at a distance. We should have arrived at the rendezvous before Mocat
a could have known that we had left this place, and we might have pulled something off. As it was, I thought Rex’s idea so much better that I abandoned mine.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Richard apologised huskily. ‘But Simon’s my oldest friend you know, and this on top of all the rest––’
‘Do youdo you think the poor sweet is right, and that his having given himself up will be of any use?’ whispered Marie Lou.
Richard shrugged despondently. ‘Not the least, dearest. I hate to seem ungracious, and you all know how devoted I am to Simon, but in his anxiety to do the right thing he’s handed Mocata our only decent card. We can sit here till Doomsday, but there’s no chance now of his making any fresh move which might give us a new opening. We’ve wasted the Lord knows how many precious hours, and we’re in a worse hole than we were before. I’m going to carry out my original intention and get on to the police.’
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ Rex caught him by the arm. ‘It’ll only mean our wasting further time in spilling long dispositions to a bunch of cops, and you’re all wrong about our not having made anything on the new deal. We’ve had a sleep which we needed mighty badly, and we’ve lulled Mocata into a false sense of security. Just because we’ve remained put here all morning like he said and Simon’s come over with the goods, he’ll think he’s sitting pretty now and maybe let up on his supervision stunt. Let’s cut out bothering with the police and get after him ourselves this minute.’
Marie Lou shivered slightly and then nodded. ‘Rex is right, you know. Mocata has got what he wants now, so it is very unlikely that he is troubling to keep us under observation any more, but how do you propose to try and find him?’
‘We will go straight to Paris,’ De Richleau announced, with a display of his old form. ‘You remember Tanith told us that by tonight he would be there holding a conversation with a man who had lost the upper portion of his left ear. That is Castelnau, the banker, I am certain, so the thing for us to do is to make for Paris and hunt him out.’
‘How do you figure on getting there?’ asked the practical Rex.
‘By plane, of course. Mocata is obviously travelling that way or he could never get there by tonight. Richard must take us in his four-seater, and if Mocata has to motor all the way to Croydon before he can make a start, we’ll be there before him. Is your plane in commission, Richard?’
‘Yes, the plane’s all right. It’s in the hangar at the bottom of the meadow, and when I took her out three days ago she was running perfectly. I don’t much like the look of this fog, though, although, of course, it’s probably only a ground mist.’
They all glanced out of the window again. The grey murk still hung over the terrace, shutting out the view of the Botticelli garden where, on this early May morning, the polyanthus and forget-me-nots and daffodils, shedding their green cocoons, were bursting into colourful life.
‘Let’s go,’ said Rex, impatiently. ‘De Richleau’s right. You’d best get some clothes on, then we’ll beat it for Paris the second you’re fit.’
The rest followed him out into the hall and upstairs to the rooms above. The house was silent and seemingly deserted. The servants were obviously taking Richard’s orders in the most literal sense and, released for once from their daily tasks, enjoying an unexpected holiday in their own quarters.
Marie Lou looked into the nursery and almost broke down again for a moment as she once more saw the empty cot, but she hurried past it to the nurse’s bedroom and found the woman still sleeping soundly.
In Richard’s dressing-room the men made hasty preparations. Rex was clad in the easy lounge suit which he had put on in De Richleau’s flat, but Richard and the Duke were still in pyjamas. When they were dressed Richard fitted the others out as well as he could with top clothes for their journey. The Duke was easy, being only a little taller than himself, and a big double overcoat was found for Rex, into which he managed to scramble despite the breadth of his enormous shoulders. Marie Lou joined them a few moments later, clad in her breeches and leather flying coat, which she always used whenever she went up with Richard..
Downstairs again, they paused in the library to make another hurried meal. Then the door was locked, and after casting a last unhappy glance at Tanith’s body, which remained unaltered in appearance, Rex led the way out on the terrace.
They walked quickly down the gravel path beside the Botticelli border, the sound of their footsteps muffled by the all pervading mistthrough Marie Lou’s own garden, with its long herbaceous borders, and past the old sundialround the quadrangles of tessellated pavement which fell in a succession of little terraces to the pond garden, with its water lilies, and so to the meadow beyond.
When they reached the hangar Richard and Rex ran out the plane and got it in order for the flight. De Richleau stood watching their operations with Marie Lou beside him, both of them fretting a little at the necessary delay, since now that the vital decision had been taken every member of the party was impatient to set out.
They settled themselves in the comfortable four-seater. Rex swung the propeller, well accustomed to the ways of aeroplanes, and the engine purred upon a low steady note. He watched it for a second, and then, as he scrambled aboard, there came the long conventional cry : ‘All set.’
The plane moved slowly forward into the dank mist. The hedges and trees on either side were shut out by banks of fog, but Richard knew the ground so well that he felt confident of judging his distance and direction. He taxied over the even grass of the long field, and turned to rise. The plane lifted, touched ground again gently twice, and they were off.
As they left the earth a new feeling came over Richard. He was passionately fond of flying, and it always filled him with exhilaration, but this was different. It was as though he had suddenly come out into the daylight after having been walking down a long, dark, smoky tunnel for many hours. At long intervals there had been brightly lit recesses in the sides of it where figures stood like tableaux at a wax-works show. The slug-like Thing and Fleur; Rex standing at the window with Tanith in his arms; Simon whispering something to the Duke; Marie Lou’s face as she stood with her hand resting on the rail of Fleur’s empty cot, and a dozen others. The rest of that strange journey he seemed to have made, consisted of long periods of blankness only punctuated by little cries of fear and scraps of reiterated argument, the purpose of which he could no longer remember. Nowhis brain was clear again, and he settled himself with new purpose to handle the plane with all his skill.
In those few moments they had risen clear of the ground mist and were soaring upwards into the blue above. As De Richleau looked down he saw a very curious thing. Not only was the fog that had hemmed them in local, but it seemed to be concentrated entirely upon Cardinals Folly. He could just make out the chimneys of the house rising in its centre, as from a grey sea, and from the buildings it spread out in a circular formation for half a mile or so on every side, hiding the gardens from his view and obscuring the meadows between the house and the village, but beyond, all was clear in the brilliant sunshine of the early summer afternoon.
Rex was beside Richard in the cockpit. Automatically he had taken on the job of navigator, and, like Richard, his brain numbed before with misery, had started to function properly again directly he set to busying himself with the maps and scales.
The Duke, sitting in the body of the machine with Marie Lou, felt that there was nothing he could say to comfort her, but he took her hand in his and held it between his own. From his quick gesture she felt again his intense distress that he should ever have been the means of bringing her this terrible unhappiness, so, to distract his thoughts, she put her mouth right up against his ear and told him of the odd dream she had had; about reading the old book. He gave her a curious glance and began to shout back at her.
She could not catch all he said owing to the noise of the engine, but enough to tell that he was intensely interested. He seemed to think that she had been dreaming of the famous Red Book of Appin, a wonderful t
reatise on Magic owned by the Stewards of Invernahyle, who were now extinct. The book had been lost and not heard of for more than a hundred years, but her description of it, and the legend that it might only be read with understanding by those who wore a circlet of iron above their brow made him insistent that it must be this which she had seen in her dream. He pressed her to try and remember if she had understood any portion of it.
After some trouble she managed to convey to him that she had read one sentence on a faded vellum page, and that although the lettering was quite different from anything which she had ever seen before, she understood it at the time, but could not recall the meaning now. Then as talking was so difficult, they fell silent.
At a hundred miles an hour the plane soared above the English counties, but they took little heed of the fields and hedges, woods and hills, which fled so swiftly beneath them. Somehow they seemed to have stepped out of their old life altogether. Time no longer existed for them, only the will to arrive at their destination in order to be active once again. All their thoughts were concentrated now upon Paris and the man who had lost half his ear. Would he be there? Could they find him if he was? And would they arrive before Mocata?
They passed over the Northern end of the English Channel almost without noticing it; Marie Lou felt a little shock when the plane banked steeply and Richard brought it circling down.
The sun was sinking behind great banks of cloud and, as the plane tilted, she saw that a thick mist lay below them in which glowed dull patches of half-obscured light. Richard and Rex knew them, however, to be the fog flares of the Le Bourget landing ground.
A few seconds more and they had seen the last of the sunset. A thin greyness closed about them. One of the flares showed bright, and the plane bounded along the earth until Richard brought it to a standstill.
Almost in a daze they answered the. questions of the officers at the airport and passed the Customs, secured a fast-looking taxi and, packed inside it, were heading for the centre of Paris.
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