Scrambling up the bank again he got round the corner of the hedge and saw that it hid the kitchen garden of a solitary house, which loomed up before him, abutting on the road. A faint square of light filtering through a heavy curtain marked one of its downstairs windows.
He got down on his hands and knees and crawled forward under cover of the hedge which here fringed the roadside. The voices of the men grew louder as he advanced and then he saw the dark outline of a lorry. There were others behind it and on these the men were busily loading the boxes that had come off the train.
From this new position he could see some of the smugglers in the distance, silhouetted against the light of the flare, as with the boxes on their shoulders they trudged in Indian file across the grassland. Suddenly the last flare was put out and two minutes later the loading of the lorries was completed. The men climbed into them and the lightless convoy set off in the direction of New Romney.
One by one they crawled past Gregory, where he crouched in the shadows, and shortly after the last one had disappeared a sudden vibrant hum, which grew lower and then receded, told him that the Limper had departed unseen in his plane. The rumble of the lorries faded in the distance and an utter silence closed down upon the deserted stretch of country. Not a sign or sound remained to show the illegal activity which had been going on there so recently.
Gregory came out into the lane and tiptoed along it towards the front of the silent house. The light in the ground floor room had gone out but there was now one showing in a front window upstairs. The heavy curtains had been carelessly drawn and a bright ray filtered through between them. The window was too high for Gregory to see into the room, but a wooden sign above the doorway of the place showed that it was a wayside inn and, by the light which came from the crack between the curtains he was just able to make out the lettering upon it. Thankful that he would be able to find the place again in this desolate stretch of country he read the faded lettering on the weatherbeaten board. It was the Brown Owl Inn and he knew that it must lie within a few hundred yards of the railway line south of Romney.
Turning away, he walked up the road for a hundred yards and lit a cigarette. He was unutterably tired and now he had to trudge he didn’t know how many miles before he could get a lift into Ashford. That seemed the nearest place where there would be any chance of his picking up an early train. He could sleep there, of course, or knock up some pub which he might pass on his road, but that did not fit in with his way of doing things. Wells would be anxious about him and eager to hear the result of his night’s work. The extra hour or two in passing on the information he had secured might make all the difference so, tired as he was, he hardly thought of bed, but determined to get back to Quex Park at the earliest possible moment. Chin down, and in his long loping stride, he set off up the road inland.
15
Glorious Day
Inspector Gerry Wells was the lucky one this time. He very definitely had the soft side of the deal and, while the wretched Gregory was still hurtling through the air in fear of an imminent and horrible death, the Inspector turned his plane north-westward heading back towards Thanet. He was not risking any more night landings in the fields outside Quex Park without adequate reason so he came down on the well-lit landing ground of the Royal Air Force Depot at Mansion, about midway between Quex Park, Margate and Ramsgate. Having presented his official card to the officer on duty, the courtesy of accommodation for his plane was extended to him and he managed to get a lift in a car to Margate where, feeling that he had earned a comfortable night’s rest, he went straight to the Queen’s Highcliffe Hotel.
One of the hotel guests had had to return to London suddenly that evening because his son had been taken dangerously ill. It was only this fortuitous chance which enabled the night porter to give the detective a bed at the height of the August season with every room booked for a month ahead.
Early rising was a habit with Gerry Wells. He was as fit as a fiddle in wind and limb and a few hours of deep healthy sleep were all he needed to prepare him for another almost indefinite period of activity.
Splashing in his bath at half past six he only controlled the impulse to burst into song at the thought of the other guests who were still sleeping. He was not unduly worried about Gregory because he knew the care with which service parachutes are packed and inspected; it never even occurred to him that the great silk balloon might fail to open.
He thought that Gregory might perhaps have had a bit of a shaking when he landed, owing to the fact that he had never had any instruction in parachute jumping, but Mr. Sallust was a tough customer to the Inspector’s mind and, therefore, should come to little harm. Moreover, Wells had made certain that his unofficial colleague would drop well away from the smugglers’ base so there was no likelihood of his descending in the midst of their illegal activities and being bumped on the head for his pains.
As the Inspector rubbed himself vigorously with his towel his thoughts turned to Milly Chalfont at the Park. What a delightful little thing she was, so slight and graceful, so utterly unspoiled, and so friendly too in spite of her apparent shyness. Gerry was rather a shy fellow himself where women were concerned and although he could admire Sabine as a work of art he would have been terrified of having anything to do with her outside his official business.
While he dressed he reviewed the situation and found it good. His investigation had progressed by leaps and bounds in the last forty-eight hours, thanks of course largely to that lean, cynical devil, Gregory Sallust, but Wells had no stupid pride about the matter. It was his job to run Lord Gavin’s crew to earth and he was only too grateful for any help which might be given him. He assumed, quite reasonably, not knowing what a tiger Gregory could be when he had got his teeth into a thing, that his ally, stranded in Romney Marshes, would spend the night at some local inn, whether he had secured any information or not and, therefore, it was most unlikely that he would put in an appearance again much before midday. There was nothing Wells could do to further his inquiry until Gregory turned up and the golden August morning lay before him. His thoughts gravitated again towards Milly and Quex Park. Had Sabine spent the night there or gone off again after all? In any case it obviously seemed his business to go over and find out.
After an early breakfast he paid his bill and left the hotel. Crowds of holiday makers had risen early too. Family parties, the children with their spades and pails, the elders with their towels and bathing costumes slung across their shoulders, were already making their way from boarding houses and apartments down Petman’s Gap to play cricket on the sands, or bathe in the shallow waters of the low tide. Gerry Wells watched them with a smile. He liked to see people happy, but he wondered what they would think if they knew of his last night’s adventure. That he was a Scotland Yard man they might credit easily enough; that he was on a special inquiry and had been allotted an aeroplane to undertake it, would cause interest and a pleasant feeling that they were in the know about the police not being such a slow-witted lot as some people were inclined to think; but if he had told them that this international smuggling racket was something far more important than anyone could suppose; that it might lead to dangerous criminals and agitators being landed secretly by night, and so evading the immigration officers at the ports; that bombs and poison gas might be imported, which would lead to civil war, to the destruction of their homes, and perhaps the loss of their lives caught up into street fighting that was none of their seeking, they would certainly think that he was romancing or an unfortunate fellow who ought to be locked up in an asylum.
On the corner he managed to get a place in a Canterbury bus, already crowded with happy trippers off to see the old cathedral town and the blood-stained stone where Thomas Becket had been foully done to death by the three Knights so many hundreds of years ago.
He dropped off at Birchington churchyard in which Dante Gabriel Rossetti lies buried but he did not pause to visit the poet’s grave. Instead he turned up Park Lane; his thoughts
very much with the living. Outside the west gate of Quex Park he met his man who was keeping in touch with Mrs. Bird.
‘Anything fresh, Thompson?’ he asked.
‘No, sir, nothing. There’ve been no more visitors since you left last night and Mrs. Bird tells me the lady who came down by car slept in the place. She’s still there as far as I know.’
Wells nodded and walked on up the wooded driveway then, skirting the back of the museum, he reached the side entrance to the house.
Mrs. Bird appeared from the kitchen garden with a basket full of runner beans just as he reached the door, and she confirmed Thompson’s report.
‘When the foreign lady turned up she had her bit of supper,’ she said, ‘and told me she meant to stay the night. I always keep a couple of bedrooms ready because that’s his lordship’s orders. After her meal she went straight up without a word except that I wasn’t to call her until she rang for breakfast.’
Milly came out at that moment and smiled shyly at the Inspector. He nodded to her cheerfully.
‘We’re on the right track now, but it’s a matter of waiting until midday, or rather until Mr. Sallust turns up again and I doubt if he’ll be here much before then. I’ve got to kick my heels around for the next few hours and so I was wondering…’
‘Wondering what?’ Milly asked him.
‘Well, my plane’s at Manston aerodrome, only a couple of miles away and I was wondering if you meant what you said about liking to come up for a flip some time.’
Milly paled a little under her creamy skin. ‘I—I think it would be rather fun—with you.’
‘You don’t mind, Mrs. Bird?’ he asked the older woman.
‘As long as you bring her back safe I don’t, but aeroplane’s are tricky things, aren’t they?’
‘Not if they’re looked after properly. Night landings in unknown country aren’t much fun, but it’s no more risky than going for a ride in a car on a lovely day like this.’
‘All right, I’ll get my hat.’ Milly turned away, but he stopped her.
‘You don’t need that—only get it blown off as mine’s an open plane. I’ll borrow a leather jacket for you from one of the pilots.’
Milly looked at Mrs. Bird. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind, Aunty?’
‘Of course I don’t, my pet, as long as you take care. Run along now and enjoy yourself.’
Gerry and the girl left the back of the house and made their way by the side path through the shrubbery out on to the east drive. Both were silent for a few minutes, racking their brains for a subject of conversation. Then Gerry glanced towards the old tower which rose out of a coppice some hundred yards away to their right with the steel structure on its top, which looked like a miniature Eiffel Tower and could be seen above the tree-tops of the park for many miles in all directions.
‘What’s that place?’ he asked. ‘Apart, I mean, from the fact that they may use it now as a signal station to guide their planes in.’
‘It’s called the Waterloo tower, I think,’ she said, ‘built in the year of the battle you know, and it has a peal of bells, twelve of them, the finest in Kent up to a few years ago. Canterbury Cathedral had only ten, until they added another couple and came equal with this lot here. There’s another tower over there too,’ she glanced towards their left where a tall brick building crowned a low fenced-in mound that rose from the grass land. ‘The old gardener told me that Major Powell-Cotton’s father was awfully keen on ships and things; so he used to signal from it to his friends in the navy when they sailed across the bay. The sea is hidden from us here by the trees but it’s only a mile away.’
‘I see he made a collection of old cannons too,’ Wells remarked, looking at the six-deep semi-circle of ancient guns which occupied the mound.
‘That’s right. Some of them came from the Royal George, I’m told, and the little baby ones were taken from Kingsgate Castle. The mound itself is an old Saxon burial ground, raised in honour of some great chief, and it’s supposed to be the reason we have a ghost here. She’s called the White Lady and walks along a path through the woods behind the tower at night, until she reaches the mound, then she disappears. They say she’s the chief’s young wife and she haunts the place where he was buried.’
‘Ever seen her?’
‘No, and I don’t think anyone has for a long time now; all the same I wouldn’t walk along that path at night for anything.’
‘Not if I were with you?’ Gerry asked, smiling at her.
She blushed a little. ‘Well, I might then—that would be different.’
A few moments later they reached the park gates and took the by-roads through the open cornfields towards Manston. They were silent for a good portion of their two-mile walk but strangely happy in each other’s company.
At the aerodrome a friendly artificer lent Milly a flying coat and she was soon installed in the observer’s seat of Wells’s Tiger Moth, a little scared, but even more excited at starting on her first flight.
For nearly an hour they cruised over eastern Kent, first along the northern shore over Birchington, Herne Bay and Whitstable, then south-east to Canterbury, where the towers of the ancient cathedral, lifting high above the twisting streets of the town, were thrown up by the strong sunlight which patterned the stonework like delicate lace against the black shadows made by its embrasures. Ten minutes later they had reached the coast again and were circling over Hythe on the southern shore of the county. Turning east they visited Sand-gate, Folkestone and Dover, flying low round the tower of the old castle upon its cliff, while below them the cross-Channel steamers and the destroyers in the Admiralty basin looked like toy ships that one could pick up in the hand and push out with a stick upon a voyage across a pond. Away over the Channel the white cliffs of Calais showed faintly in the summer haze. From Dover they sailed on to Walmer, Deal and Sandwich, then across Pegwell Bay to Ramsgate, and completed the circle of the Thanet coast by passing low over the long beaches of Broadstairs, Margate and Westgate, where the holiday crowd swarmed like black ants in their thousands and countless white faces stared up towards the roaring plane, waving hands and handkerchiefs in salutation as it soared low overhead.
‘Well, how did you like it?’ Gerry Wells turned to glance over his shoulder as he brought the plane to a halt once more on the Manston landing ground.
‘It—it was fine,’ Milly said a little breathlessly. She had feared that she might be air-sick, but the thrill of watching the tiny human figures in the sunlit fields, and town after town as they circled above them, with some new interest constantly arising out of the far horizon had made her completely forget her fear after the first few moments. Her cheeks were glowing now with a gentle flush from the swift wind of their flight and her blue eyes were sparkling in her delicate little face with happy exhilaration.
As Wells helped her out of the plane he had not the least twinge of conscience at having neglected his duties for an hour or so to give her the experience. He had no regular hours and his work often kept him up all night so he felt perfectly justified in taking this little break which had given Milly and himself so much pleasure.
Having seen his plane into its borrowed hangar they set out again for Quex Park and arrived back at the east gate by half past eleven. Their friendship had now grown to such a state that talking no longer proved a difficulty and Milly was giving him an account of her childhood which, although utterly lacking in all interest for most people, he found quite absorbing.
When they reached the house they went into Mrs. Bird’s sitting-room and found a lanky, unshaven, bedraggled figure lounging in one of the worn arm-chairs. It was Gregory and he was in none too good a humour.
He smiled at them with a cynical twist of his thin lips, ‘Well, you had a good time I hope? Thinking of settling down in Thanet for a holiday?’
Gerry Wells raised his eyebrows. ‘So you’re back already? I hardly thought you’d be likely to get here before midday.’
‘It’s lucky I’m here at
all,’ snapped Gregory. ‘Having risked my neck with that blasted parachute of yours. Still, I’ve been kicking my heels here just on two hours, while you’ve been disporting yourself, I gather, with the intention of showing Miss Chalfont what a mighty fine pilot you are.’
Milly went crimson. ‘I—I think I’d better go and find Aunty, if you’ll excuse me,’ she murmured uncomfortably, all the gaiety gone out of her pretty little face.
‘Run along, my dear,’ Gregory said more amiably. ‘It’s not your fault if our heroic policeman decides to take time off to amuse himself—and I’m not his boss anyway.’
Wells drew his shoulders back a little as the girl fled from the room. ‘I take what time off I like, Mr. Sallust, but don’t let’s quarrel over that. Did you have any luck when you landed?’
Gregory shrugged. ‘As I survived the ordeal it was almost inevitable that I should. Their headquarters down there is a little place called the Brown Owl Inn. It’s miles from anywhere—in the middle of the marshes—but near the railway line running from Dungeness to Ashford. I had to stagger a mile through every sort of muck before I got near enough to see what was going on and by that time most of the planes had dumped their stuff and got off again. The interesting thing is, though, that while I was there a goods train came in from Dungeness and unloaded several hundred wooden cases, then the cases the planes had brought were loaded on to it instead, and it puffed off, presumably to London. Afterwards the stuff from the train was loaded on to a fleet of lorries which duly trundled away inland; all the gang who had handled both sets of goods going with them. The two different lots of cases, which were swapped over, had exactly the same appearance, by the way.’
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