Chapter XVII: Nick Makes an Ally

Stephen Nicholson went down the steps of No. 60 Quebec Street slowly and thoughtfully. He was worried. In the hall he met Milly, who gave him a friendly, impertinent smile and nod.

'Do you know if Miss Mitchell has gone out, Milly?'

'Just two minutes ago, sir. Saw 'er into the taxi meself.'

'Oh. Know where she was going?'

'No idea. Out ter dinner, she told me, an' dancin' afterwards. Said she wouldn't be in till late. She did a quick change all right. I 'elped 'er. Ever ser nice she looked.'

'I'm sure she did. Good-night, Milly.'

'G'night, sir.'

Nick crossed the road and entered the Park. He wanted to think and, as usual, he made for open country. In his ears rang Michael's curt voice: 'It wasn't an accident.'

So the Chief had found out. The Chief had traced that infernal document, and the result had been the death of 'Twinkling William.' Then Nick thought of Jerry, and cold terror gripped him. For the first time in his life he realised what it meant to be afraid for someone else, and he set his teeth. He checked his stride, with a sudden desire to go back to Quebec Street, but realised that it was useless. He couldn't sit outside the house until the small hours of the morning and then spring this wild story on her.

Nick dropped onto a bench and lit a cigarette. There wasn't anything he could do, at the moment. It was hopeless to try to find out where she was. The only person who would be likely to know was Michael Doone, and it was highly improbable that he would tell. With a flicker of exasperated amusement, Nick wondered what had been the matter with Michael. Did he really think that he--Stephen Nicholson--had been Mitchell's murderer? Or was he merely jealous of his acquaintance with Jerry? Perhaps Michael was in love with her. Only too probable, in fact. It was bad luck on Michael, but couldn't be helped. Nick was conscious of a sudden certainty. Jerry was his, and he hadn't known how much she meant to him until he had realised her danger. Then another stab of thought drove him to his feet again. It was all damned fine to know that he loved her and that she was in danger, but what was he going to do about it? He'd got to make certain of her safety, and he had no shadow of right to interfere. Good God! she might be walking straight into a trap at this very moment.

He threw away his cigarette and tried to consider the position sanely. The whole affair turned on the problem he had set himself to unravel long before he knew of Jerry's existence. He had got to discover the Chief, before either he or Jerry could consider themselves safe. To-morrow he would go and see Jerry and tell her the whole story. That at least would put her on her guard. It wouldn't be a very pleasant job telling her. Jerry would take it bravely, that was one comfort. A plucky child; he'd had ample proof of that.

In the meantime, what could he do? It was no good sitting still and contemplating the fact that if it had not been for him, Jerry and her father would still have been living happily together. That way lay madness. All things considered, the best thing would be to go down to the docks and see if any of his old friends, the enemy, were still looking for him. At best, he might get some information. At worst, there might be a scrap, and that would comfort him a good deal. He turned on his heel and tramped off to his rooms to change.

* * * * *

At ten o'clock next morning he stood outside No. 60 Quebec Street, waiting impatiently for an answer to his ring. It was an early hour to pay a call, but he dared not risk missing Jerry. For an hour he had tramped up and down the Park, keeping one eye on his watch, and wondering how soon he could see her, and what he was going to say when he did. And now--was the household dead? He rang again.

There was a sound of shuffling footsteps, and the door was opened by a thin, wispy-looking woman with a sackcloth apron, who stared at him blankly.

'Is Miss Mitchell in?' he asked.

'Miss Mitchell?' she echoed dully.

'Yes.'

'Is that the top flat?'

'Er ... yes.'

'I ain't seen 'er go out,' she admitted cautiously, and stood back, holding the door open.

Nicholson entered, rather doubtfully. 'I suppose she's ... er ... had her breakfast?' he asked.

'I couldn't say, sir,' said the woman, 'I'm the char.'

'All right. I'll go up and see,' said Nicholson.

'That'd be best, I expec',' said the woman, with obvious relief.

Nicholson made his way up the narrow, badly lit staircase. No one was about. Below, in the basement, he could hear a shrill voice raised in song; some popular sentimental ballad of unrequited love, of the type that every Londoner must always associate with a Cockney twang. But abovestairs everything was as quiet as the grave. At the door of Jerry's sitting-room he knocked. There was no answer. He hesitated a moment and then opened the door and looked in. The room was empty. The open windows let in a flood of sunshine, and a bowl of roses on the table glowed in the golden light. The whole room cried aloud of Jerry, so that he could almost see her before him, slim and erect, dancing eyes and friendly smile.

From the street below a voice cried: 'Cu' fla!' in a musical jodel. He walked to the window and looked down, to see a hawker with a barrow full of bunches of cut flowers, bright splashes of colour in the grey street. Slowly Nicholson turned back to the room. Where was Jerry? Still in bed, perhaps. Lazy little brute!

On the desk by the window stood a photograph, a snapshot of a man and a girl. Jerry herself. He picked it up. A good snap: very like her. Just the impertinent cock of the head, and those level, laughing eyes. And the man? Nicholson bit his lip. His friend in need, to whom he had brought this ghastly finish. Such a decent fellow, too. And ... Jerry's father. He dropped into a chair, and rubbed his forehead wearily.

Suddenly a voice behind him spoke:

''Ullo. Wot's _yore_ trouble?'

Nick started and looked round. In the doorway stood Milly, leaning negligently against the jamb, and surveying him with serenely impertinent blue eyes.

'I--er--called to see Miss Mitchell,' said Nick, feeling slightly disconcerted.

'Yer luck's out. She's gone,' said Milly.

'What?' He started to his feet.

Milly waved a restraining hand.

'Keep yer seat, sir. Don't let's 'ave no panic. She's comin' back.'

'Where's she gone, and how?'

'She's gone for a motor drive with Mr. Doone.'

'Where?'

Milly raised her eyebrows, and flicked at the sideboard with her duster. 'Can't say as I arst 'er,' she said distantly.

Nick bit his lip, and tried to check the flood of imaginary horrors that swept through his brain.

'Excuse me, sir,' Milly's tone was extravagantly polite, 'but are you wot y' might call engaged to Miss Mitchell?'

'Not yet,' said Nick.

Milly smiled, disarmed.

'She's ever ser nice,' she said.

'She is.'

'You don't need ter worry about 'er an' Mr. Doone,' volunteered Milly encouragingly. 'She ain't keen on 'im, not wot you'd call _keen_, y' know. Likes 'im like a brother, she does. I c'n tell be the way she talks to 'im.'

'I'm not worried about that,' said Nick, 'but I want to see her, badly. Where have they gone?'

'You ain't goin' after 'em, are yer? I wouldn't, if I was you,' advised Milly. 'I tell yer straight, Miss Mitchell ain't the one ter be got by that there cave-man stuff. She ain't that sort. If she likes yer, she does, but she won't stand fer no interference. Take it from me.'

'Look here, Milly,' said Nick desperately, 'this is serious. I've got to know where she is.'

Milly laughed indulgently.

'You ain't arf got it bad,' she commented. 'Won't it keep till this evenin'? She'll be back ter dinner, I expect.'

'No, it won't,' said Nick. 'Milly, can you hold your tongue?'

'Yuss. No one believes it, but it's true.'

'Then listen to me, and keep this to yourself. Miss Mitchell's in very considerable danger. I can't tell you the whole story, but she's got something which one or two people want very badly, and they mean to get it. They tried to get it from her father, but they didn't succeed. She doesn't know anything about it, and neither does Mr. Doone. I only found out myself last night.'

He paused. Milly's cheerful face had become oddly grave, and her eyes never left Nick's.

'Didn't you ought ter put 'er wise?'

'That's what I came here for, this morning.'

'I 'eard someone say as 'er father 'ad been murdered. Is that true?'

'It is. Now will you tell me where she's gone?'

'Down t' the country, Ipswich way, she told me at breakfast. Mr. Doone's drivin' 'er down to 'ave lunch with a Sir Somebody Suthink.'

'O Lord! Can't you remember any more than that?'

'Lemme think. She did say the name of the 'ouse. She said it ter Mr. Doone when they was gettin' inter the car. I saw 'em orf. She ses: "'Ow long will it take ter git ter ..." now, wot was it? Funny name. Put me in mind o' food, some'ow.'

Milly stirred up her hair reflectively. Nick waited, with as much patience as he could muster. Suddenly her face cleared.

''Igh Ash! That was it!' she announced triumphantly.

''Igh...? Oh, yes, High Ash. Sir Toby Ward's house.'

'That's 'im! That's where they've gone. Mr. Doone's takin' 'er there t' lunch, an' they're pickin' up Mr. Manvers an' takin' 'im too, so you 'aven't got no call to worry.' She chuckled.

Nick whistled. 'Are they, begad! Well, it's a strange world. What time did they start, Milly?'

'About nine.'

'That was early.'

'That's wot I said, but Mr. Doone said suthink about startin' early so's they could get the pow-wow over before lunch.'

Nick looked up sharply. 'What did Miss Mitchell say?'

'Oh, she says: "All right, but if I don't like 'im I ain't goin' ter tell 'im anythink, an' you an' Bobby can go t' blazes." She knows 'er own mind, Miss Mitchell does.'

In spite of his worry, Nick grinned.

'Well, thanks most awfully, Milly. You've been a great help. Now listen. Don't say anything about Miss Mitchell to anyone. It's more than likely that people will come here and ask you questions about her. Put them off. Make them think that you don't know anything about her. Don't tell them anything, even if they say they're friends of hers.'

'Not even if they say they're sweet on 'er?'

''Specially not then.'

'Well, it's a good job fer you that no one's bin round ter tell me that afore you come, ain't it?' said Milly.

Nick looked at her. 'This is serious, you know, Milly.'

'I know, Mr. Nicholson. I believe yer ... Lord knows why.' She thought for a moment, frowning, and then added: 'I reckon it's because I seen yer lookin' at that there photygraft.'

Nick said nothing.

'I likes Miss Mitchell,' said Milly, raising her eyes to his.

'So do I,' said Nick.

Milly smiled suddenly.

'Well, she might do worse than 'ave you,' she conceded.

Nick laughed. 'Thank you, Milly. Now I must go. Good-bye.'

'Good-bye, Mr. Nicholson. Can y' find yer own way out? I gotta sweep this room.'

'Rather.' Nick picked up his hat and stick and departed.

As he reached the turn of the stairs, Milly hailed him, and he looked up to see her hanging over the banisters, the old impertinent twinkle in her eyes.

'Arsk us t' the weddin', won't yer?'

'Bet your life!' laughed Nick, and ran downstairs.

It seemed an age before he got back to his garage, and another before his car was ready to start, but at last he got under way, and struggled through the traffic to the Great North Road. Long experience had taught him that the shortest route from London to the eastern counties took longest, and he made for the north and the clear roads. A clock stood at eleven-thirty as he drove through Golders Green. Over a hundred and twenty miles to go. He could do it in three hours, with luck and a certain amount of law-breaking. Nick settled down to drive.

After Hatfield the road was clear of traffic, and he let his car out. She was running well, and the drone of the engine made a level background for his thoughts. Jerry, principally. Half a hundred pictures of her. Jerry as he had seen her on that opal-coloured morning, standing beside him in the grey Hampstead street. Her pluck, her childlike trustfulness, her everlasting honesty. He felt as if he knew her better than he had ever known anyone. Life with Jerry wouldn't be all smooth sailing. Hers was a temper that would flare quickly, and if he made blunders where she was concerned she would let him know it. Independent, self-willed, even truculent at times. He smiled at the memory of her. A self-sufficient little person. Nothing clinging about Jerry. If she married him, he would know it was because she really cared for him, not because she couldn't get along without someone to hold her hand.

Through Stevenage, and on to Baldock, the car running at a steady sixty. Then he slowed, to pass a company of infantry on the march. Territorials, he supposed. How young they looked! Boys, all of them, slim, pink-cheeked, round-eyed. Very different from his tanned, hard-bitten Tynesiders of the War. It seemed a long time ago.

He thought of his brother officers. Good fellows, all of them. Those few that had come back had drifted away from his ken. Married, most of them, and now torn between their wives and their regiments. Most women seemed to get in the way of a man's work. Not Jerry, though. She would always understand that a man's job was the biggest thing about him. Take away that, and he didn't amount to much. With a jolt Nick came back to his own future. What was he going to do about it? Not that Jerry would interfere, even there. He chuckled at the thought. If she decided to marry a burglar, she would aid and abet his schemes whole-heartedly. But that, of course, was out of the question. Not that he regretted his career of crime. He had been an eminently successful burglar, and he considered that every robbery he had committed had been justified. Not a man had he robbed but was a thief himself, albeit he had remained within the law. These years had been satisfactory and, on the whole, very amusing, but now his criminal career was over. What was he going to do now? It was queer, this worry about the future. It was a new state of mind, for him. He had never looked farther ahead than his next leave, or his next robbery, before. Jerry was responsible for this, because his future would be hers, too. At least, it wouldn't be his fault if it wasn't.

The tall clock in Newmarket told him the time as he crawled through the town, under the basilisk eye of the policeman by the crossroads. Ten past one. They would be lunching now, Jerry and Michael and Sir Toby. And Bobby Manvers. Unconsciously Nick pushed the car on faster. He had got to get hold of Jerry somehow; to get her away before it was too late. Once he had got her, he could put her in safe hands. The Stricklands would help him there. The difficulty was going to be at the outset. It was only too likely that Jerry would laugh at any attempted interference with her plans. Nick let the car out on the rolling Bury Road, and there was a dancing light of battle in his eyes.

Soon after Bury he took to the country lanes. The going was necessarily slower now, for Suffolk by-roads remain much as they were in the Middle Ages. It was close on half-past two when he arrived at the village of St. Anthony's Ash, and knew that his objective was all but reached. Just outside the village he stopped and practically emptied his petrol tank, and then drove on to High Ash and, leaving the car at the gate, walked up to the house, with a pleasant feeling of impending strife in his heart.

The old Tudor manor house, with its great oak beams and coppery tiled roof, seemed to greet him with the smiling serenity of its five hundred years. On his inquiry for Sir Toby, a manservant led him into the garden, where he saw the four of them sitting under a copper beech. Sir Toby had his foot tied up with bandages and propped on a stool. The dappled sunlight fell cross his sparse silvery hair as he listened, smiling, to the younger generation. Michael was lying on the grass, arms and legs flung out carelessly, like a puppy, the sun full on his face, and one lank, black lock of hair falling across his eyes. Bobby's chubby face was pink and worried, and Jerry was looking wickedly amused.

Nick bit back a smile. Bless her! Loving Jerry would probably be a duel to the death. Well, it was a bond between them. She could no more endure a human doormat than he could. Then the servant, moving soft-footed over the grass, coughed gently, and Sir Toby looked up.

'Stephen Nicholson, as I live! My dear boy, what a pleasant surprise! I'm delighted to see you. What fortunate wind blows you this way?'

'To be honest, sir, I've run out of petrol. I'm on my way to London, and I felt rather hopeless till I remembered you, and then I decided to cast myself on your mercy.'

'But of course! I've plenty of petrol you can have. Where is your car? Did you have to leave her?'

'Luckily, no. She ran out just at your gate. Then I discovered that I was carrying an empty tin.'

'I'm more than glad that you remembered me. This is an excellent moment to arrive. Miss Mitchell, may I introduce Stephen Nicholson?'

'We've met before,' said Jerry, with a smile.

'I should have guessed it. Nicholson knows everyone worth knowing. By the way, have you had lunch?'

'I have, thanks very much,' said Nick, unblushing.

'Then may I suggest a drink? What will you have--whiskey? Beer?... Beer; good. Ruff, bring some beer.'

Michael, lying on the grass, crooked his forearm over his eyes. He remembered that night at Barton, and that scribbled note stuck in the wheel of a two-seater--'Mine's beer, too'--and he felt vaguely uncomfortable. Luckily, no one expected him to talk. Bobby was doing most of it, with Sir Toby putting in a word now and then. Bobby was telling how he had broken down in Suffolk once and had to walk ten miles before he found help.

'It was freezing like the devil that day,' he was saying, 'and not a soul could tell me the way to anywhere I wanted. I struggled with the car till my fingers were frost-bitten, and one small boy stood and watched me. Whenever I spoke to him he stared blankly and said: "Fares rough, that do. Wholly cold that be. Reckon our mutt's frorne." It sounded like a foreign language, and I never construed the last sentence at all.'

'Don't betray your ignorance,' chuckled Sir Toby. 'It's simply mediæval English. Read the Paston Letters.'

'I suppose by "mutt" he meant me,' grinned Bobby.

'The term would have been justified, but, as a matter of fact, he meant "moat." Half these farmhouses have moats round them. And "frorne" is old English for "frozen." You'll find it in the "Canterbury Tales." Chaucer was an East Anglian.'

'I dare say, sir. East Anglia was a go-ahead place in Chaucer's time, but I maintain that it hasn't moved since then, and one notices a few deficiencies nowadays. You must admit that Suffolk's the back of beyond. Look at your village. No water supply; only a communal pump, round which the young men and maidens gather and giggle in the twilight. No gas or electric light. And as for drainage...!' Bobby shuddered, and Sir Toby laughed.

'They survive, though, these villagers. In fact, I think they're the healthiest lot I know.'

'I like them,' struck in Jerry. 'I liked the look of the people in the villages as we came down. They're so broad and fair, and look at you so straightly.'

'They're Saxon and Danish, and have all the traits of their race: silent, and stubborn, and land-loving. Loyal to the death, if they like you; blank as a clod of Suffolk clay if they don't. And they really love England. They're the true patriot. They love the soil itself, and it's they and their like that make it a country worth having.'

Jerry's eyes lit with sympathy. Bobby scoffed. But Nick watched Sir Toby with a growing respect. The man knew what he was talking about. Nick had spent a good deal of time in learning to understand people. His life had depended on it, both in the war and since. He had known his company, every man of them, and in later years had come to know the dockyard population of his Quay Street lodgings, as he had known the criminals of his own calling. But this old man with the game foot knew the English countryman, a far harder proposition. Nick admired him, and liked him for his interest in them. Then he glanced at Jerry. His absorbed interest in Sir Toby had removed her from his mind for the moment, but as he looked at her, he realised that she had been absorbed too, he guessed, in much the same way.

The talk wandered on pleasantly. The garden was sunny and serene. Tea was brought out to them, and Jerry dealt with it, quietly competent, not interrupting the conversation. She didn't say much, but seemed content to listen, interested in the talk more than the speakers. Sir Toby even roused Michael to the point of joining in. He seemed to have the gift for making men interesting and interested. Nick enjoyed himself, and it was with a sigh that he looked at his watch.

'What is the time?' asked Jerry.

'Five o'clock.'

'We must be going, Michael,' said Jerry. 'I've got to get up early to-morrow.'

'Lots of time,' mumbled Michael, half asleep in the sunshine.

'It seems a shame to rouse him,' laughed Bobby.

'It does,' said Nick. 'Look here, do let me drive you up to London? I simply hate motoring by myself, and you're three in your car. Please.'

Michael sat up and, behind Nick's back, frowned at Jerry, shaking his head. Jerry gave him a wide-eyed stare, and then smiled graciously at Nick.

'Will you really take me? I'd love to,' she said.

'Splendid!' said Nick. 'That's most awfully nice of you. Good-bye, Sir Toby. Many thanks for rescuing me. This has been the best break-down in my experience.'

Sir Toby had a twinkle in his eye as he shook hands.

'Good-bye, Nicholson. Look me up again some time. I shall always be charmed to see you, though I can't guarantee such good company as we've had to-day.'

Smiling and unruffled, Jerry made her farewells. Michael's face had become completely expressionless, and Nick thought with amusement that Bobby Manvers would have a depressing drive home.

They made their way to the gate, where they found Sir Toby's chauffeur filling the petrol tank of Nick's two-seater. Nick thanked him adequately, started the car up, and climbed in. Then, as they slipped out onto the road, he heaved a sigh of relief. The first fence was taken.