“No, Charles. But Benita might.”
“Shall I tackle her, or will you?”
My aunt observed me with unnecessary exasperation.
“Benita should return to London,” she said. “Incompetence makes her very nervous.”
“She ought to be used to her father by now.”
“You can take it that I was referring to Nur Jehan’s peculiarities, Charles.”
I should have left it at that in former days, and said nothing. But I could no longer fence with Georgina now that I knew with what silent devotion she had endured me.
“I am forty-three,” I said, “and that’s twenty years older than she is.”
“A difference,” replied my aunt, “which ensures a long widowhood for Benita, but could make her marriage extremely happy. With my own husband I had only thirteen and a half months and one leave. I may be romantic, but I have always considered it was worth the forty years which followed.”
I kissed her and tried to explain that I only wanted similar happiness for Benita, and that a man of twice her age with an unfortunate past and an adopted country could hardly be expected to give it.
I found Benita in the orchard. The inhabitants of the vicarage all seemed to have gone their own way after so agitated an evening. She listened to my proposal and agreed that it would do Nur Jehan a world of good. She gave a very strong impression of resenting his existence. The stallion was certainly taking up too much of her father’s time and hers.
Together we visited Matthew Gillon in his study to obtain his consent. He agreed, but very gravely doubted whether his late parishioner’s pet could conscientiously be treated as a hack. I had to promise that I would cover no more than twenty miles a day till Nur Jehan was in condition.
I was fortunate in being able to settle all this on the top of a wave of general disgust with poor Nur Jehan. But when I said good night to Georgina, she had had time to think. It occurred to her that I might be off to play the private detective again. I didn’t deny it, but assured her that I only wanted to confirm a theory and that it was impossible for the patron of Bath and West to find out about my camping holiday in time to take advantage of it.
I slept on the plan. I believed it would succeed. In any case the risk was no worse than if I returned to town. I could not go on indefinitely with real or pretended holidays. I had to carry on my daily London life, pressed in crowds, moving by predictable routes, standing on underground platforms, taking extreme precautions with my food. This journey with Nur Jehan was safer — tempting to my assassin, yet so natural as to be above suspicion.
Admiral Cunobel, when I tackled him after breakfast, agreed. My story of the French squirrels led him to underrate my opponent. The lovely simplicity of the tiger’s plan, which frankly terrified me, did not impress him so much as the insignificant mistakes. It was the legal aspects of my counterattack which bothered him most.
“There’s my evidence,” he said, “and Colonel Par-row’s. Worth a lot, of course, but all hearsay! We have it from you, and you only. Look at it this way, boy! He’s a bloody murderer, but we know he is a person ordinarily above suspicion. Suppose you kill him. Suppose there is nothing at all to connect him with the Gestapo executions and not quite enough to convict him of blowing up the postman, where are you then?”
I promised Cunobel that I did not intend to kill him if I could possibly avoid it. All I wanted was identity and motive. I foresaw that I might have to get them at the point of a pistol. But the police could do the rest.
“That popgun of yours — I don’t like it. Won’t knock a man down,” he said. “I’ll let you into a secret. Very wrong. Against the law. But I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of my souvenirs. I keep ‘em well locked up, of course, and I’ve got a firearms certificate. But it doesn’t cover all the lot.”
He took me into his bedroom, and with the air of a small boy exhibiting his treasures, unlocked a cupboard at the back of his built-in wardrobe. There were a German dirk, a broken lancehead, a Japanese sword and a collection of firearms — some amateur and suggesting far-off encounters with Arab slave-traders and Malay pirates, some so modern and professional that he was certainly liable to that heavy fine of which Ian had warned me.
“That’s what you want,” he said, handing me a .45 revolver.
But it wasn’t. I saw the familiar wooden holster of a German Mauser. It was a weapon which I had carried in early days as a forester, for I could afford nothing better. When I was accustomed to it, I wanted nothing better. The holster formed a butt for the long-barreled automatic, and using the weapon as a rifle — as I always did — it was dead accurate at a hundred yards.
I took it down and inspected it. Like everything else which belonged to Cunobel, the Mauser was in bright naval condition.
“It can jam,” I said, caressing it, “and it drills instead of knocking down, but I have a feeling I am more confident over sights than he is.”
I sounded to myself unreal, as if I were diffidently recommending some favorite bar which I had known in youth.
“What? That one?” the admiral asked, surprised. “I got it off a submarine commander in the first war. Don’t suppose it’s ever been used!”
“But have you any ammo? Ill want at least twenty rounds before I can be sure how she throws.”
“Well, they can’t trace the number,” he grumbled with some satisfaction, “if —er —well, if it was found lying about. I think I might risk it. It would be useful on rabbits, eh? I can’t afford a good .22 rifle with my pension, eh? I’ll go up to London tomorrow and get you a couple of boxes from old friends at the Admiralty. When will you start?”
“Pamellor’s letter should be in Paris tomorrow. I don’t think our friend will be content with the usual speed of French official communications. He will know the answer—probably verbally —in three or four days more. His next move is to close in boldly. You may find him calling on you to propose a prize for the best French essay in the grammar school.”
“Damn his impudence!” the admiral exclaimed. “But he doesn’t need to. We know the fellow is well up in the horsy world. He can find out that Mr. Dennim is exercising the Arab stallion without coming nearer than a Bath hotel. He’ll be after you at once.”
I did not think so. It would take him time to choose and prepare a base, though he must have one or two possibles lined up already.
“I hope he chooses Gorble again,” I said, “because then I’ve got him. I reckon that if I start at the beginning of next week I should be in close contact by the end of it.”
The Long Night
The Arab stallion and his rider showed themselves again and again on the bare skyline above the plain of the Severn. The villages where I bought forage and supplies could give news of us, and the farmers from whom I asked permission to camp. Yet all was peace and sun and waving grass. Fear dwindled to a reasonable caution and could not nag me with an image of those dedicated feet pacing behind. No other horseman was glimpsed for an instant across the long ridges of the Cotswolds.
This was Benita’s England: the line of uplands which formed a pathway from the Atlantic beaches into the heart of the land. Its naked gentleness saddened me, for beauty which is foreign to the spirit and unattainable creates a loneliness. With the Saxons, creeping up their muddy estuaries into the forest, I had easy sympathy. My heredity was theirs; what they thought a site for a settlement would also be my choice. But here was a glory of my adopted land which did not belong to me. My roots searched over the surface of the rock, unable for the moment to penetrate more deeply.