“He’s in the motorcar. The sister in charge was glad to be rid of him. It seems he’d wandered the ship all night, alarming the other patients and mumbling unintelligible drivel.”
After I’d thanked Captain Grayson and accepted his apology for the fright I’d had, I prepared to leave Merlin.
I’d asked earlier if he would signal Portsmouth as soon as possible to ask if my father could be summoned. He told me now that my father was in London and couldn’t be reached.
I was on my own, then.
Trelawney escorted me off the ship and to the waiting motorcar, and with my papers in hand, we left the harbor behind. Just outside gates, in the street where once my father and I had considered what to do about the charges against me, Trelawney and I conferred.
“I saw him leave Merlin just ahead of us,” Trelawney told me. “I marked where he was heading. Did you give him that bloody crease? Every time he wears his cap, that’s going to hurt.” There was no pity in his tone.
“We’ve got to find him,” I said, knowing how impossible that would be. “We can’t let him disappear into the countryside.”
“There’s the train,” Trelawney said doubtfully. “Crowded and slow. In his shoes I’d look for a motorcar.”
And where better to find one unattended than the ship officers’ billet.
Leaves were short, and a motorcar could make the difference between reaching London or one’s family in time to spend a few hours with them or wasting it in Portsmouth.
Trelawney, at my direction, quickly found the nearest billets.
As we got there, several motorcars were heading out of the nearby mews, and Trelawney counted rapidly, “Naval uniform. Naval uniform. Naval again. Army. That one. And I saw his bloody eyes.”
There was no way to conceal Hugh Morton’s bulk, but I had made myself as small as I could, taking off my cap so that I couldn’t be seen as easily. And so I trusted Trelawney’s assessment, and as our motorcar turned at the end of the mews to follow, I said, “I wish I’d had the chance to telephone someone.”
“Too late now, Sister,” Trelawney answered. “All right, you can sit up again. He can’t see you, he’s too far ahead.”
We kept a discreet distance, which was fairly easy as the sun rose and we wove in and out of convoys heading down to the port. The green hilly landscape of Hampshire rose beyond the town, and the road to London was just ahead.
But our quarry didn’t take it.
Instead he turned west, toward Dorset.
Here it was more difficult to stay within sight of the other vehicle. The roads now followed the curve of the land rather than a Roman rule, and there were villages stretched out along it like tiny jewels on a necklace. The problem was, we couldn’t always be sure our quarry hadn’t stopped at one of them or turned off. It wasn’t until we were on the far side of each that we could pick out the glint of the sun on his boot in the distance or actually glimpse his motorcar rounding a bend far ahead.
My head was thundering and we were all three tired and thirsty and on edge for fear of losing the Major.
And then, as we were coming down a long sloping hill, we saw in the distance that he’d turned into a lane lined with hawthorn trees, leafy now, their white blooms long since faded.
At the far end of the lane we could just pick out the chimneys of a house.
It made no sense. Was this where the Major was intending to go? Or had he spotted us and tried to throw us off?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TRELAWNEY PULLED TO the side of the road, the motor idling.
“I could use a company of Sepoys,” he murmured under his breath. Then aloud to me, “What now, Sister?”
“I must find a telephone,” I said. “My father needs to know where we are. There isn’t much he can do, if he’s in London. But someone must be told that man is in England now.”
“I can’t leave you here-”
“But you can,” I said quickly, taking the decision out of his hands. “Go to the next village-ask for a telephone. I’ll tell you how to reach three people. Leave a message with anyone who answers. Describe how to find us.”
I began to dig in my valise for pen and paper, fumbling in my haste.
“I don’t like leaving you, Miss,” he said, his failure to use Sister a measure of his anxiety. “He almost got to you on Merlin. What was I to tell the Colonel then?”
“I asked you to guard the motorcar.”
“It wouldn’t suffice, Sister, if you were at the bottom of Portsmouth Harbor and the motorcar safe as houses. The Colonel-never mind what he’d want to do. But you know him as well as I do, and how he’d take such news. ”
I said as I wrote down three names and three telephone numbers, “I’ve reloaded my pistol-”
“It wouldn’t stop a fly, Miss, begging your pardon. Nor someone as determined to see you dead as this bast-as this one is.”
“I’ll be all right. I’ll take Private Morton with me, if he can manage to walk that far.”
He swore he could, and while I didn’t believe him, his was a comforting bulk to have beside me.
I handed over the sheet of paper. We got out, Hugh Morton and I, while Trelawney, with a last reluctant glance over his shoulder, drove away, leaving us by the side of the road.
Private Morton foraged for a moment in the hedgerow to the far side and came away with a stick he could use. The two of us started toward the distant farmhouse in a roundabout way, trying to keep out of sight. The hawthorns and the lay of the land contrived to help us. I didn’t think that even from the upper floor of the farmhouse we could be seen unless someone was looking for us.
“What if it’s a trick, and he leaves before the Sergeant comes back?”
I shook my head. It was a risk we had to take. I wanted to find out who lived in the farmhouse.
Gripping the stick with a tight fist, Private Morton managed to keep up across the pasture, but began to fall behind as the ground beyond the stile changed to a field with humped rows of marrows. He called to me, keeping his voice low.
“I’ll wait for you,” I said, “closer by the house.”
On the far side of the field I came to small yard and a derelict shed, one that had been used for shearing sheep from the smell of it. I stepped into its shadow just as the sun went behind a cloud and looked back for Hugh Morton, but he had turned toward the trees along the drive, where it was easier to walk. I watched him, fearful that he would be in trouble if the man suddenly reappeared.
Just then, from the direction of the farmhouse, across the back garden from where I was standing, I heard two distinct shots.
I started to run, Private Morton forgotten. It was faster to go around the house than try to find my way through it. I had barely reached the first of the trees that lined the drive when I heard a door slam and then the motorcar was racing toward me at reckless speed. The driver’s face, bent forward over the wheel, was a twisted mask of hatred.
I didn’t hesitate. I spun around so that I was half protected by the nearest tree, letting him pass. But I don’t think he’d have noticed a line of cavalry if it had stood in his way.
I didn’t look to see where he was heading. I went straight toward the farmhouse door.
It was a lovely old house, three stories and built of local stone. There was a bow window to one side of the door, which stood ajar, and somewhere through the open panes I could hear a woman crying. I stopped on the threshold and called out.
“I’ve come to help,” I said. “Please don’t be frightened.”
There was no answer. I went inside.
The wide hall was empty.
There were stairs just to my right, and beyond the newel post was an open door to my left.
I moved to it and stepped into the room, stopping almost at once as I tried to take in the scene before me.