“About five feet ten, square, broad head and cheek-bones, strong jaw, darkish hair, steel-blue eyes, a blue suit and overcoat.”
“Right!” said Hilary: “I’ll get on to them as soon as May is through.”
Left to himself before the fire, Adrian brooded. A reader of detective novels, he knew that he was following the French, inductive method of a psychological shot in the blue, Hilary and May following the English model of narrowing the issue by elimination—excellent, but was there time for excellence? One vanished in London as a needle vanishes in hay; and they were so handicapped by the need for avoiding publicity. He waited in anxiety for Hilary’s report. Curiously ironical that he—HE—should dread to hear of poor Ferse being found drowned or run over, and Diana free!
From Hilary’s table he took up an A.B.C. There had been a train to Petworth at 8.50, another went at 9.56. A near thing! And he waited again, his eyes on the door. Useless to hurry Hilary, a past-master in saving time.
“Well?” he said when the door was opened.
Hilary shook his head.
“No go! Neither hospitals nor Police. No one received or heard of anywhere.”
“Then,” said Adrian, “let’s try Victoria—there’s a train in twenty minutes. Can you come rightaway?”
Hilary glanced at his table. “I oughtn’t to, but I will. There’s something unholy in the way a search gets hold of you. Hold on, old man, I’ll tell May and nick my hat. You might look for a taxi. Go St. Pancras way and wait for me.”
Adrian strode along looking for a taxi. He found one issuing from the Euston Road, turned it round, and stood waiting. Soon Hilary’s thin dark figure came hurrying into view.
“Not in the training I was,” he said, and got in.
Adrian leaned through the window.
“Victoria, quick as you can!”
Hilary’s hand slipped through his arm.
“I haven’t had a jaunt with you, old man, since we went up the Carmarthen Van in that fog the year after the war. Remember?”
Adrain had taken out his watch.
“We just shan’t do it, I’m afraid. The traffic’s awful.” And they sat, silent, jerked back and forth by the spasmodic efforts of the taxi.
“I’ll never forget,” said Adrian, suddenly, “in France once, passing a ‘maison d’aliйnйs,’ as they call it—a great place back from the railway with a long iron grille in front. There was a poor devil standing upright with his arms raised and his legs apart, clutching at the grille, like an orang-outang. What’s death compared with that? Good clean earth, and the sky over you. I wish now they’d found him in the river.”
“They may still; this is a bit of a wild-goose chase.”
“Three minutes more,” muttered Adrian; “we shan’t do it.”
But as if animated by its national character the taxi gathered unnatural speed, and the traffic seemed to melt before it. They pulled up at the station with a jerk.
“You ask at the first class, I’ll go for the third,” said Hilary as they ran. “A parson gets more show.”
“No,” said Adrian; “if he’s gone, he’ll have gone first class; YOU ask there. If there’s any doubt—HIS EYES.”
He watched Hilary’s lean face thrust into the opening and quickly drawn back.
“He HAS!” he said; “this train. Petworth! Rush!”
The brothers ran, but as they reached the barrier the train began to move. Adrian would have run on, but Hilary grabbed his arm.
“Steady, old man, we shall never get in; he’ll only see us, and that’ll spill it.”
They walked back to the entrance with their heads down.
“That was an amazing shot of yours, old boy,” said Hilary: “What time does that train get down?”
“Twelve twenty-three.”
“Then we can do it in a car. Have you any money?”
Adrian felt in his pockets. “Only eight and six,” he said ruefully.
“I’ve got just eleven bob. Awkward! I know! We’ll take a cab to young Fleur’s: if her car’s not out, she’d let us have it, and she or Michael would drive us. We must both be free of the car at the other end.”
Adrian nodded, rather dazed at the success of his induction.
At South Square Michael was out, but Fleur in. Adrian, who did not know her so well as Hilary, was surprised by the quickness with which she grasped the situation and produced the car. Within ten minutes, indeed, they were on the road with Fleur at the wheel.
“I shall go through Dorking and Pulborough,” she said, leaning back. “I can speed all the way after Dorking on that road. But, Uncle Hilary, what are you going to do if you get him?”
At that simple but necessary question the brothers looked at each other. Fleur seemed to feel their indecision through the back of her head, for she stopped with a jerk in front of an imperilled dog, and, turning, said:
“Would you like to think it over before we start?”
Gazing from her short clear-cut face, the very spit of hard, calm, confident youth, to his brother’s long, shrewd face, wrinkled, and worn by the experiences of others and yet not hard, Adrian left it to Hilary to answer.
“Let’s get on,” said Hilary; “it’s a case of making the best of what turns up.”
“When we pass a post-office,” added Adrian, “please stop. I want to send a wire to Dinny.”
Fleur nodded. “There’s one in the King’s Road, I must fill up, too, somewhere.”
And the car slid on among the traffic.
“What shall I say in the wire?” asked Adrian. “Anything about Petworth?”
Hilary shook his head.
“Just that we think we’re on the right track.”
When they had sent the wire there were only two hours left before the train arrived.
“It’s fifty miles to Pulborough,” said Fleur, “and I suppose about five on. I wonder if I can risk my petrol. I’ll see at Dorking.” From that moment on she was lost to them, though the car was a closed saloon, giving all her attention to her driving.
The two brothers sat silent with their eyes on the clock and speedometer.
“I don’t often go joy-riding,” said Hilary, softly: “What are you thinking of, old man?”
“Of what on earth we’re going to do.”
“If I were to think of that beforehand, in my job, I should be dead in a month. In a slum parish one lives, as in a jungle, surrounded by wild cats; one grows a sort of instinct and has to trust to it.”
“Oh!” said Adrian, “I live among the dead, and get no practice.”
“Our niece drives well,” said Hilary in a low voice. “Look at her neck. Isn’t that capability personified?”
The neck, white, round and shingled, was held beautifully erect and gave a remarkable impression of quick close control of the body by the brain.
For several miles after that they drove in silence.
“Box Hill,” said Hilary: “a thing once happened to me hereabouts I’ve never told you and never forgotten, it shows how awfully near the edge of mania we live.” He sunk his voice and went on: “Remember that jolly parson Durcott we used to know? When I was at Beaker’s before I went to Harrow, he was a master there; he took me a walk one Sunday over Box Hill. Coming back in the train we were alone. We were ragging a little, when all of a sudden he seemed to go into a sort of frenzy, his eyes all greedy and wild. I hadn’t the least notion what he was after and was awfully scared. Then, suddenly, he seemed to get hold of himself again. Right out of the blue! Repressed sex, of course—regular mania for the moment—pretty horrible. A very nice fellow, too. There are forces, Adrian.”
“Daemonic. And when they break the shell for good… Poor Ferse!”
Fleur’s voice came back to them.
“She’s beginning to go a bit wonky; I must fill up, Uncle Hilary. There’s a station close here.”
“Right-o!”
The car drew up before the filling station.
“It’s always slow work to Dorking,” said Fleur, stretching: “we can get along now. Only thirty-two miles, and a good hour still. Have you thought?”
“No,” said Hilary, “we’ve avoided it like poison.”