Contraband

      'Nor I you. I thought you'd be in bed by this time.'

      'It's not very late, only just ten, although often I go to bed earlier and listen to the wireless.'

      'I like the wireless too,' he smiled, 'but I don't often get the chance of listening to it in bed.'

      Gregory, growing impatient at this unimportant conversation, stepped forward out of the shadows and she started back, realising his presence for the first time. He had seen her the night before, but she had not seen him as she had been walking in her sleep. Wells introduced them.

      'Won't you both come in?' she said. 'Perhaps you'd like some supper. I ought to have thought of that.'

      'No; thanks all the same.' Wells shook his head. 'We fed less than an hour ago, and we'd better not come in, I think, in case somebody comes along to this wing of the house. Our presence might take a bit of explaining as your aunt's not supposed to have visitors.' There was marked regret in his voice as he added: 'We only knocked you up to let you know that some of the people we're after will be here again tonight. Nothing unusual's likely to happen, but I thought it would be a bit of a comfort to know we were close handy here, keeping an eye on things.'

      'That was nice of you.' She smiled up at him. 'We knew they were coming though. The foreign lady telephoned only a few minutes ago to say that Aunty was to get her some supper. I was just going out to tell your man about it when you turned up.'

      'D'you know where she telephoned from?'

      'Canterbury. She didn't speak herself. It was a man at some garage who rang up for her.'

      'She'll be here pretty soon then?'

      'I expect so, but there'll be time for you to have a quick cup of tea, if you'd care to come in for a moment.'

      'Better not.' Wells shook his head again. 'Although I'd like to. We'll get back to the bushes I think. Remember me kindly to your aunt.'

      'All right. Will I be seeing you again tonight? If so, 111 well I might stay up for a bit.'

      'I'm afraid it's rather unlikely so I'd hop off to bed if I were you. Happy dreams.'

      'Same to you. That is if you get any sleep as I hope you will. Good night.'

      When the two men turned away she stood at the half open door reluctantly watching Wells's retreating back as he disappeared beside Gregory round the corner of the house.

      Ten minutes later, from their cover among the bushes, they saw the glimmer of lights between the trees, and the big limousine that Gregory had seen set out for London the night before, roared up the drive with a single dark muffled figure seated inside it.

      'Gavin's not with her,' Gregory whispered, as he saw Sabine descend from the car. 'I wonder where he's got to.'

      'Lord only knows,' Wells muttered. 'He left the Carlton shortly after midday. I had a man tailing him, of course, but the fool mucked it when they were caught in a traffic block. When I last heard our people hadn't yet been able to pick him up again.'

      Lights appeared in the down stair windows of the main part of the house and they guessed that Sabine had settled down to her supper. Meanwhile, they remained behind the bushes; Gerry Wells with the trained patience of a man who spends many hours of his life waiting perforce for things to happen, but Gregory fidgeting a little after the first half hour, wanting to walk up and down to stretch his limbs and wondering if he dare light a cigarette, but deciding against it.

      An hour crawled by; then the lights in the down stair rooms went out and fresh lights appeared in one of the upper windows. Another twenty minutes and those went out as well.

      'We've come on a wild goose chase,' muttered Gregory, half glad, half angry. 'There's nothing doing here tonight after all. Evidently she only cleared out of the Carlton in order to get away from me; and decided to sleep here.'

      'Maybe you're right,' Wells replied noncommittally, 'but don't forget the telegram. From that it looked as though they were on the job tonight as well didn’t it?'

      'Perhaps, but they may have a dozen hideouts and rendezvous as almost all the numbers in the damn thing were different.'

      'Sssh, what's that?' Wells caught Gregory's arm and pressed it. The faint low note of a motor engine came clearly to them in the silence. They glanced upwards, half expecting the approach of a plane, but a moment later realised that a car had entered the west gate of the park a quarter of a mile away. Then they caught the gleam of its headlights flickering through the trees.

      It was a long powerful sports model with two men in its bucket seats and it did not stop at the front of the house but went straight round to the garage.

      Gregory and Wells slipped through the fringe of trees in order to get a view of the new arrivals but by the time they had reached a point from which they could see the garage the headlights of the car had been switched off.

      A torch glimmered in the darkness. By it they could see that the big doors of the garage had been closed upon the car; then the light moved towards them and there was the sound of approaching footsteps. They shrank back into the blacker shadows. The two men passed, the nearest dragging one of his feet a little, and crossed the lawn to the shed that housed Lord Gavin's plane.

      A bright light inside the hangar was switched on. In its  glare the two figures, in airman's kit, stood out clearly, one nearly a head taller than the other.

      'The Limper,' Gregory whispered. 'How I'd like to get my hands on the brute's throat. He might have blinded me with that bag of pepper he threw in my face at Dives,'

      The plane was run out on to the lawn, the lights in the shed switched off, and the two men boarded the machine. The engine roared and spat; then the plane glided forward.

      'Come on,' snapped Gregory. 'We've got to run for it or we'll lose them.'

      Almost before the plane was in the air Gregory and Wells were sprinting across the soft springy turf behind it. They dived into the belt of trees and stumbled forward tripping and jumping over vaguely seen patches of undergrowth. Then the darkness of the thick leafy branches above blacked out everything.

      Stumbling and cursing they blundered on from side to side between the tree trunks until they reached the meadow, then raced on again, heads down, towards the east gate of the park. Breathless and panting they tore across the field to the spot where Simmons was waiting beside Wells's plane. The roar of its powerful engine shattered the silent night and Gregory was only settling in his seat as it sailed into the air.

      They knew from the sound of the other machine, before Wells's engine had been turned on, that it was heading south-westward and took that direction. By the time they were up two hundred feet Gregory was scanning the starry sky with his night glasses.

      'Got 'em…'he shouted down the voice pipe a moment later, '… little more to the south. Towards that very bright star low on the horizon.'

      The plane in front was climbing and for a few moments Wells flew on at five hundred feet to make up the distance. Both planes were flying without lights and it was difficult to pick up their quarry, but soon, with the aid of Gregory's shouted directions, he caught sight of it.

      Five minutes after taking off they picked up the few scattered lights of late workers or pleasure parties in Canterbury, upon their right, but after that, flying southwest by south, they passed over a stretch of country containing only small villages, from which the glimmers of light were few and far between at this late hour.

      Another five minutes and on their left they sighted another little glimmering cluster far below them which both knew, from their course, to be Folkestone. After that the country seemed to become blank and lightless; for once they had passed over the Ashford Folkestone road they were above the low sparsely inhabited lands of the Romney Marshes.