At the front door Hemmingway hoped he would be able to rid himself of them; but it wasn't going to be quite as easy as all that. With their long, unhurried strides they accompanied him back to the garage and, as he put his hand on the door to open it, a sudden, appalling thought struck him. What was going to happen if there was no car inside after all?
Taking a deep breath, he pulled the door open. To his immense relief a big Rolls and a Ford were inside; but both of them were chocked up and all their metal work was protected by sacking.
The senior constable gave Hemmingway a suspicious glance. 'You don't seem to have used either of your cars much lately, do you, sir?'
'No.' Hemmingway plunged in boldly again. 'We keep half a dozen, and the ones in regular use have already gone to the country. They've landed me with the job of getting one of these going. I only hope to God they've left me some petrol.'
The suspicions of the police were apparently allayed once more and, to Hemmingway's inward amusement, the two constables set to with a will helping him to prepare the car he was about to steal for his journey.
On the old principle that one might just as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, he had selected Mr. Guggenbaum's Rolls rather than the Ford. In twenty minutes they had the big car out in the mews, unwrapped from its sacking and with its tyres pumped up. To Hemmingway's relief, he had discovered some spare tins of petrol and oil at the back of the garage, They filled the tanks, he got into the driver's seat and prepared to depart. Just as he was about to do so a last bright idea occurred to him.
'Can either of you chaps drive?' he asked.
'I can,' volunteered the younger constable. 'Why, sir?'
'Well, I can't lock the garage up again and it's a pity to leave the Ford there at a time like this when it might come in useful to somebody. It would probably be stolen if I did, anyhow; so I suggest that you drive it round to the nearest A.R.P. authorities and hand it over to them with Sir Samuel Curry's compliments.'
'That's a very good idea,' agreed the senior policeman, and, with a wave of his hand, Hemmingway drove away in the luxurious Guggenbaum Rolls.
His journey to the East End was uneventful. After he had passed through the City he found that there were more people about than in the West End. Most of the women and children had been evacuated, but quite a number of the male population, having no place in the country to go to, had had perforce to remain in London. A few food shops were open, but no other business was in progress, and here and there groups of men were standing talking on the street-corners.
According to plan, he drove all-out down the Commercial Road, with his hooter screaming, to prevent a possible holdup. Angry looks were cast at him here and there from the groups on the pavements as he whizzed by; and he was loudly booed by a crowd outside the Catholic Church. At the crossing by Limehouse Town Hall a policeman waved to him to halt, but he ignored the signal, swerved violently and raced on. As there was little traffic, and no children were playing in the gutters, he reached the 'Main Brace' without accident.
Pulling up, he saw half a dozen tough-looking men in caps and scarves standing outside on the pavement. They immediately began to eye the car with an interest that Hemmingway found disturbing. With the memory of the hold-up he had seen earlier that morning fresh in his mind, it seemed to him quite on the cards that, if he left the car to go into the pub and rouse Lavina, and if any of them were capable of driving, they might quite well steal it.
Looking up at the window of the room on the first floor in which Lavina was presumably still sleeping, he plied his klaxon for all he was worth in the hope of rousing her, but, as it was only 8.30 and she had been in bed under three hours, he felt certain that she must still be sunk in exhausted slumber.
Next door to the 'Main Brace' there was a small greengrocer's which still had a little stock for sale, and, propped up on the pavement, were some baskets of potatoes. Taking a half-crown out of his pocket, Hemmingway slipped out of the driver's seat, ran across the pavement, threw the half-crown towards an astonished-looking young Jewess who was seated inside the shop, and grabbed up two handfuls of the potatoes.
The men on the pavement had now stopped talking and were watching his unusual procedure with amazement. Before any of them had moved he was back beside the car. Raising his arm, he hurled one of the potatoes straight through Lavina's window.
The crash of glass roused the men into sudden activity. As the pieces fell tinkling on the pavement one little runt of a man stepped forward, crying: 'Oi! Wot's the gime?'
Hemmingway smiled disarmingly. 'The woman, the dog and the walnut tree, the more you beat 'em, the better they be,' he quoted cryptically.
'He's loopy!' said a brawny-looking fellow in a checked cap.
'No, I'm not,' Hemmingway grinned, 'but my girl's asleep up in that bedroom and I wanted to wake her. Nice little surprise for her. Treat 'em rough, and they think more of you.'
' 'E is loopy!' declared the man in the checked cap.
'Bin seein' too many films, that's wot it is,' remarked another. ' 'E thinks 'e's Errol Flynn or somethink.'
At that moment Lavina, blear-eyed and dishevelled, thrust her golden head out of the window. 'Oh, it's you!' she murmured, still half asleeep. 'What a shock you gave me!'
Hemmingway looked up. 'Never mind that. Get your clothes on and come down at once.'
The little man who had first spoken turned to leer at Hemmingway. 'Nice bit o' skirt you've got there, mister.'
'Oh, she's all right,' Hemmingway consented casually.
'Nice car, too,' the little man went on, with a wink at his friends.
'Yes. I wish it were mine.'
'Ain't it, then?'
'No, I've borrowed it.'
'Fancy now!' The tough looked round with a smirk. 'Queer, ain't it? Wot would you say if I told you me and my pals had been thinkin' of borrering it ourselves?'
'I should think it was your unlucky day,' said Hemmingway genially.
'Oh, you would, would yer?' The little man ducked suddenly and came charging at Hemmingway to butt him in the stomach.
But Hemmingway was ready for the attack. During the whole of the conversation he had been leaning against the car with his right hand behind him gripping the end of his loaded crop which lay on the driver's seat. He side-stepped neatly and, bringing the crop round, landed the little man a swift crack over his bullet head with it.
As the leader of the roughs went sprawling in the gutter his friends charged in. Hemmingway dodged round the back of the car. With loud shots three of his antagonists followed. The other two came round the front of the bonnet, so that he was caught between two fires.
The big man in the check cap was one of the two who had come round by the front. As he appeared to be the most formidable of the troop Hemmingway leapt straight at him, bashing the leaded head of the crop into his ugly face.
The man staggered, screamed and fell, but his companion caught Hemmingway off his balance with a blow on the side of the ear, which sent him reeling. Next second the three in his rear rushed at him and he had fallen fighting to the roadway with the whole pack on top of him.
He kneed one in the belly and struck another in the eye, causing him to shriek with pain. Then, with a desperate wriggle, he freed himself, staggered to his feet and dashed back to the pavement. But they were on him again before he had time to get his back to the wall. One of them kicked him in the stomach, another hit him in the mouth and he fell once more.
Meanwhile, the little man had picked himself up, climbed into the driver's seat of the Rolls and got the engine going.
'Come 011, boys!' he yelled. 'Finish 'im off an' jump in before the cops turn up!'