Their prospects of doing so seemed exceedingly slender, as it was a foregone conclusion that either he was already, or would very soon be, on his way to France. The fact that Upson had arrived at The Priory the previous night made it certain he had come by air. C.B. thought it probable that during the war Upson had served in Coastal Command and had been stationed in that area. In any case, as it had been intended that he should fly Christina home, it was evident that he was familiar with the Essex coast and had already reconnoitred some of the many lonely creeks to select a good illicit landing-place. It was, therefore, long odds that when de Grasse had decided that his latest news was of too compromising a nature to convey by telephone, and sent it instead by personal messenger, Upson had travelled in his own seaplane and made a secret landing by last light somewhere along the coast, not far from Little Bentford.
If so, the Canon had a pilot and aircraft at his disposal, and could leave at any hour he chose. Obviously his only chance of getting hold of Christina now lay in flying south himself, so that he could exercise his occult powers on her jailers. However, there was one factor which might cause him to delay his departure for a few hours—namely that the Satanic writ did not run, as far as Christina’s mind was concerned, except during the hours of darkness. Only during them could he influence her voluntarily to leave prison, should the way have been opened for her to do so. Having considered this, C.B. said: ‘I had pretty well made up my mind that our best plan would be to make for Northolt right away, so as to catch the 10.30 plane for Nice, then bank on our being able to head him off from getting at Christina tonight. But an afternoon plane to Paris would still enable us to get down there by Air France or K.L.M. in time for that; so I think it would be worthwhile making a bid against Copely-Syle’s planning to leave before midday, and the sporting chance that we may then be able to prevent his leaving at all.’
‘I’m game to use force,’ John said quickly. ‘And if we manage to catch him, you have only to tell me what to do. But a charge of assault and battery would blot your official copybook really badly, so –’
‘Thanks, partner,’ C.B. cut him short with a smile, ‘but I don’t think either of us need risk being hauled up before the beak on that count. I am proposing to lay an information against him for practising cruelty to animals, and request the police to apply for a search-warrant. They have only to see those poor brutes I saw in the crypt last night to issue a summons. It is illegal to leave the country with a summons pending against one, and I have enough pull with the police to get them to keep a watch on him. If he attempts to clear out after the summons has been served he will be prevented from doing so by the coppers.’
‘By Jove! That’s a grand idea.’
‘I hope it may prove so; but it won’t do us any good if he has gone before the police get out there. And they won’t be able to secure a warrant until ten o’clock at the earliest, because the magistrates’ court does not open until that hour.’
‘Well, if he has gone, I have another idea.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
John’s dark eyes narrowed slightly. ‘The Canon can’t do his final job on the homunculus without Christina; and Christina is no good to him without the homunculus. That’s so, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Unless he can bring her back here by tomorrow night he is sunk.’
‘Even if he does, it won’t do him any good if his prize homunculus is no longer in a state to lap up Christina’s blood. If we find that he has already left for France, I mean to go down into that crypt and destroy it.’
‘Good for you, John.’ C.B. laughed for the first time in many hours. ‘I really am beginning to feel a bit more hopeful now. One way or the other I think we’ll manage to spike his guns. As soon as we are dressed we’ll go round and do our stuff with the police.’
At the station, after the usual formalities, they were shown into the office of an elderly inspector named Fuller. To him C.B. produced his card and a small trinket that he carried, after which the inspector listened to all he had to say with considerable respect. Although C.B. refrained from giving more than a general indication of what lay behind the excuse on which he desired a search-warrant to be obtained, that was quite enough to have caused most people to show incredulity; but police officers of long experience have usually come up against so many extraordinary happenings that they are prepared to consider with an open mind every conceivable aberration possible to a diseased or criminal brain. In consequence Inspector Fuller took down C.B.’s formal deposition about the maimed animals without comment, and quietly agreed to put the matter in hand at once.
However, at the magistrates’ court some delay was unavoidable, as no special priority attached to an application regarding cruelty to animals, and the lists had already been made out. So it was half-past ten before the application was granted, and after a quarter to eleven by the time the formalities of drawing the search-warrant were completed.
There was no hurrying the law, and John fumed with impatience in vain; but at last Inspector Fuller and a constable came out to join C.B. and himself in the car, and they set off.
Anxious as C.B. was to learn the results of his move, he felt that any attempt on his part to accompany the police into the house might be met by the Canon, if he was still there, with legal objections, or possibly even a false accusation of having broken in the previous night, which might have seriously complicated matters. So it was decided that he and John should wait in the car just down the lane until the inspector had carried out his search of the premises.
It was twenty-past eleven when they pulled up under the trees that fringed the road some fifty yards east of The Priory, and the two police officers got out. Both C.B. and John thought it almost certain that by this time the Canon would be on his way to France; so they had lost much of the optimism that had buoyed them up earlier that morning, and they found the wait before they would know the best or worst extremely trying. In anxious silence for the most part, they sat side by side smoking cigarette after cigarette while they watched the clock on the dashboard of the car tick away the minutes.
It was close on twelve before the inspector and the constable reappeared. Without a word C.B. and John got out of the car and walked with anxious faces to meet them.
The inspector smiled rather ruefully as he addressed C.B. ‘Canon Copely-Syle is there all right, sir, and he couldn’t have been more helpful. But there is no one in the house answering your description of the airman. There are no animals either, or human-looking fish in big glass jars like you described. We visited the crypt and it has the appearance of being used as an ordinary laboratory; no curtains embroidered with pictures of the Devil, or anything of that sort. We went over the whole house from basement to attic, and there is nothing whatever in it on which we could ask for a summons.’
John looked at C.B. in amazement and dismay. The Canon had completely outwitted them. He was still there, but free to leave at any time he chose; for he had anticipated the raid, and there was now no legal pretext on which he could be detained. Moreover, he had removed his homunculi; so it was no longer possible to go in and destroy them.
Chapter 20
The Secret Base
The police constable’s face remained wooden, but C.B. felt sure that he was deriving a secret satisfaction from being in on a case where a plain-clothes high-hat from London had made a fool of himself. The inspector, on the other hand, knew that men like Colonel Verney did not apply for search warrants without good reason, and he said: ‘I’m sorry, sir. It looks as if they were tipped off that you were after them.’
C.B. rubbed the side of his big nose. ‘That’s about it, Inspector. We won’t go into the source of my information, but you can take it from me that it was red-hot last night. They have destroyed most of the goods and unloaded the prize exhibit that I was after.’
‘Is there any other way in which we can help, sir?’
‘Only by telephoning for a car to take you back to Colchester. I shan’t be going b
ack yet. Let’s go along to the pub and have one while you are waiting for transport.’
Getting into the car, they drove along to the Weavers Arms and went into the private bar. When C.B. had ordered a round of drinks and the constable had gone to telephone, he drew the inspector aside and said, ‘There is one thing you can do for me. Some time this morning a big crate or package, about four feet six high and three feet square, must have been removed from The Priory, either in a lorry or on a trailer. In such a quiet place as this it is a good bet that someone will have seen it being loaded up or passing along the road. Have a word with the landlord. The public bar is sure to be pretty full at this hour. Ask him to enquire of everyone there, and tell him there’s a quid for himself and a quid for anyone who can give us any useful information.’
The enquiry being made by a police inspector naturally secured the immediate cooperation of the landlord with no questions asked. A few minutes later a lean, elderly man with a weather-beaten face was brought into the private bar. His name was Sims and he proved to be the gardener at The Vicarage. He had seen a crate of the size described and a number of smaller packages loaded on to a lorry outside The Priory about ten o’clock. The loading had been done by the servant and a tall man with a fair, fluffy moustache, under the Canon’s supervision. The lorry was owned by one Joe Cotton, a local character who was no better than he should be, and he had driven off in the direction of Weeley.
Having obtained as detailed a description of Cotton and his lorry as Sims could give, C.B. paid for the information and the drinks, took leave of Inspector Fuller and, accompanied by John, left the pub.
As John turned the car in the direction of Weeley he said, ‘Well done, C.B. If we can catch the fellow with the lorry we’ll do in that filthy homunculus yet.’
‘Yes—if!’ C.B. replied dubiously. ‘But he’s got two and a half hours’ start of us, and remember Copely-Syle runs a coven in these parts. The odds are that it has been stowed away in the cellars of a house belonging to one of his brother warlocks an hour or more ago.’
At the village of Weeley they got out and made enquiries; but no one they asked had seen such a lorry, so they decided to go back to the last crossroads. On reaching them they took the road east to Thorpe-le-Soken, and there they had what they thought might turn out to be better luck. Soon after midday a woman had seen a lorry pass through and take the road north towards Great Oakley. It sounded like the one they were after, but as she was certain that there had been two men in its cabin there was a possibility that it was another. No one else they asked had noticed a lorry at all; so they drove on, now heading north.
They were still about five miles from the open sea, but approaching a great area of lakes, creeks and islands known as Hansford Water. To their left there were still occasional farms and coppices, but to their right was only an almost trackless waste of marshes. The road was straight, flat and empty; so they could see a considerable way along it, and about two miles out of Thorpe-le-Soken they sighted a lorry coming towards them. As it came nearer C.B. exclaimed: ‘By Jove! I believe this is it. Pull into the centre of the road, John, and signal it to stop.’
As the two vehicles pulled up within a few yards of one another, C.B. got out. A glance showed him that the lorry was empty, but it answered the description he had been given, as did also the small ferret-faced man who was the sole occupant of its cabin. Walking up to him, C.B. said: ‘Good afternoon. You are Joe Cotton, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, guv’nor.’
‘I thought so.’ C.B.’s smile was a triumph of candid innocence. ‘You have done the job quicker than we expected. Canon Copely-Syle will be pleased about that, providing you’ve done it all right. But he is nervous as a cat on hot bricks about the safe delivery of his stuff, so he sent us after you to make certain the big crate had come to no harm.’
Cotton gave C.B. a rather doubtful stare. ‘Why would ’e do that, when ’e sent the other gent wiv me so as ’e could help wiv the unloading ’isself?’
‘Because that crate is very valuable. The Canon wanted confirmation that everything was OK as soon as possible.’
‘Well, I’m giving it you, ain’t I?’
‘All the same, I think you’d better turn round and come with us, so that we can vouch for it to him that we have seen that everything is all right for ourselves.’
‘What d’you want me to come wiv you for?’ Cotton’s close-set eyes showed sudden suspicion.
‘He told us the road to take; but we are strangers in these parts, and we’ll lose a lot of time if we miss our way across the marshes.’
‘So that’s the lay, is it? You don’t know where I bin an’ want me ter take yer there. No thin’ doin’, guv’nor.’ As Cotton spoke his ferrety face had become taut with something between fear and anger.
C.B. saw that his bluff had failed; but he showed no resentment. As he had nothing on the man he decided that bullying would get him nowhere; so he shrugged and said with a smile: ‘You’re a fly one, Cotton. It didn’t take you long to see through me, did it? Still, there’s no harm done, and I’ve private reasons for wanting to know where you delivered that crate. How about a tenner to take us near enough to point out the house; and we won’t let on afterwards that it was you who put us wise?’
‘Not for ten quid, nor for twenty,’ came the prompt reply. ‘I ain’t done nothin’ wrong; but, all the same, I ain’t tellin’ no tales.’
Starting up his engine, Cotton swung one wheel of his lorry on to the grass verge, scraped past the car and drove off down the road.
‘Blast the fellow!’ exclaimed John angrily. ‘That’s the second trick we’ve lost today.’
‘We didn’t lose it altogether,’ C.B. murmured more philosophically. ‘When a man like that says “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong”, you can be quite certain that he has. He wouldn’t have refused a tenner without a good reason, either, and a suspicion that we might be connected with the police.’
‘Even if he knew what the crate contained, there is nothing illegal in delivering it to a house.’
‘No. You noticed, though, that the woman who put us on his trail was right about there having been two men in the cabin of the lorry when it passed her. Any guess who the other was?’
‘Upson?’ said John, after a second.
C.B. nodded. ‘Any guess where the crate has got to?’ ‘Hell’s bells!’ John exclaimed.
‘They’ve put it aboard that blasted seaplane.’
‘Well done, Watson! You see now why friend Cotton was too scared to take a bribe to say where he had off-loaded it. Seeing Upson’s aircraft moored in some quiet creek miles from anywhere would have told him that it had come down there to evade the authorities, and he would know darn well that to help load anything into it that had not been passed by the Customs was a serious offence.’
‘Of course! But let’s get on. We may be able to find the seaplane and stop it before it takes off.’
‘Not much hope of that, I’m afraid. This group of creeks covers an area more than twice the size of Birmingham, and Cotton was over two hours ahead of us; so he may have taken the crate to a stretch of water miles from here.’
‘What filthy luck!’ Exasperation made John almost spit with rage. ‘Then that swinish Canon has got the best of us again! He’s put it out of our power to get hold of his homunculus and destroy it, anyhow for the next twenty-four hours. What a cunning move to have Upson fly it out to the Riviera, then bring it back in time for the ceremony, with Christina if they get her. But let’s pray to God they won’t. The only bright spot so far today has been finding that he is still here, instead of having gone to France to work his filthy spells on her jailers.’
‘That is one thing that has been puzzling me,’ C.B. said as he got back into the car. ‘The creation of fully-functioning homunculi is Copely-Syle’s life-work; so you can be certain that up to the very last moment he will strive to seize this chance of pulling it off. When I told him that Christina was in prison he immediatel
y decided that he must go out there, and he changed his mind only when I persuaded him that I could do the necessary for him. His discovery that I was an impostor ruled that out; so why hasn’t he gone himself? I can’t believe for one second that he’s chucked his hand in.’
‘No; but think of the work involved in getting that private hell of his cleared up in anticipation of a possible visit. It must have taken him all night and probably well into the morning to burn or bury all his animals and those awful deformed creatures he created. Obviously his first concern would be with that and getting his prize homunculus out of danger.’
‘That’s true; and it gives me a nasty thought. As he was so fully occupied himself he may have decided to get somebody else to do what I offered to do for him. Since he is head of a coven he might have got in touch with one of his pals during the night. If so, they could have gone up to London first thing this morning and caught an aircraft from Northolt to Nice.’
John groaned. ‘I never thought of that. If you’re right, and they caught the earliest one, they will be in Nice by now.’
‘It’s a possibility; so we can’t ignore it, although I think it would take a pretty high-grade Black Magician to use effectively what amounts to hypnotism at a distance on several people he has never seen, with only their soiled garments as a medium. Anyway, we still have a choice of strong cards left. Earlier on you were arguing that we could save Christina by depriving the Canon of his homunculus. That is true, of course, but not the best way of expressing the core of the matter. To put it in a nutshell, we win out on the big issue if we can prevent any one of those three factors from joining up with the other two for the next thirty-six hours. Our object in trying to get a summons against the Canon was to keep him from going to Nice. We failed to get the summons; but as it turns out he has remained here of his own accord. The homunculus will be brought back here, and possibly Christina. By keeping a watch on the Canon we should be able to cut in at the last moment and prevent their reaching him. Alternatively, by making full speed for London, we can still get on a Paris plane and be in Nice late this evening. We could then get Malouet to try to find out where Upson has brought his seaplane down, with the object of destroying the homunculus; and, should we fail in that, we might anyhow lend a hand in preventing Christina from being whisked out of prison. My own feeling is that our chances are pretty good either way; but this is really your party, John; so I’m going to leave the choice to you.’
To the Devil, a Daughter Page 32