'I wonder why they didn't lock you up too,' Gregory said suddenly.
She shook her head. 'I don't think they even know I live here. Aunty got Lord Gavin's consent to my boarding with her when she took the place but he's so queer about her never having visitors we were afraid he might change his mind afterwards. That's why I've always kept out of his sight. They've been here very little until the last few days and I've never met any of them face to face.'
Gregory's sharp questions and Milly's stuttering replies had occupied no more than a couple of minutes, but time had slipped by while Gregory and Rudd were running from the plane, and later creeping round the back of the house. In spite of their well organised getaway from Hook Quay over half an hour had elapsed since they left Wells staring after them as they raced off into the darkness.
It was now twenty minutes to one and, from Milly's report of what Lord Gavin had said when the Limper's message came through just about midnight, the planes had been due to arrive at a quarter past twelve. They must have been there then for over twenty minutes and would be leaving any moment now.
From Gregory's glimpse of the lawn through the trees, before he had entered the house, he knew that fifty or sixty men at least were gathered there. He might find Gavin's plane and get Sabine out of it but someone was almost certain to spot him and the odds were hopelessly against his being able to get her away safely.
He almost wished that he had surrendered to the certainty of Sabine's arrest, given the police the information which he had beaten out of the Limper, and enabled Wells to concentrate the forces of the law here; but it was too late to think of that now. Standing there, grimfaced and silent, he racked his brain for some refuge to which he might take Sabine if only he could deal with the pilot of Gavin's plane; but every second was precious and he dared not wait to formulate any complicated plan. Suddenly he turned to Milly.
'Do you know if there's a spare key to the Bell tower?'
She nodded towards the sideboard. 'I think there's one in the drawer on the left. Aunty keeps all the keys in there.'
Rudd wrenched the drawer open. Gregory shone his torch down into it and Milly snatched up a heavy old-fashioned key from among the rest.
'This is it.'
'Right,' said Gregory. 'Rudd must come with me; I need him. We don't want you mixed up in the fighting but are you prepared to act like a little heroine?'
'I I'll try,' she stammered.
'Bless you! That's the spirit! Now this is what I want you to do. As they've been signalling from the Bell tower the door of it is probably open already. You know the Park and the path round the back from here, across the drive, up to the tower through the wood. That's well away from the lawn so it's unlikely you'll run into anyone. If you hear any of these people you can hide in the woods till they've gone past. I want you to get to the tower, see the door's open, and put this key into the lock on the inside on the inside remember. That's what's so important. Think you can do it? Gerry'11 be mighty proud of you if you will.'
That reference to Gerry Wells was just the psychological touch needed to give Milly renewed courage.
'All right,' she said, throwing up her head.
'Well done!' Gregory squeezed her arm. 'Directly you've got that key in the door go in among the trees and hide there until the trouble's over; get as far from the lawn as you can. Blessings on you my dear.'
The three of them left the house together. Milly to skirt its back and make her way through the dark shrubberies; Gregory and Rudd together, past the museum buildings and the conservatories, into the coppice which lay to its right front; at the far end of which, they knew, lay the hangar that housed Lord Gavin's plane.
For tense moments they stumbled through the undergrowth, not daring to show a light, then they emerged cautiously from
behind the hangar into the open. Two hundred yards away, on the far side of the lawn, they could see the dark bulk of the other coppice with the Bell tower rising from it. No lights showed at its steel mast now. Its purpose of guiding the planes in had already been served.
Gregory peered out beyond the angle of the hangar. Bright flares still lit the lawn. The planes reposed before them in an irregular row. One or two men, the pilots probably, stood near each but the majority were gathered in a solid crowd on the gravel sweep before the house. At the open front door Lord Gavin's small hunched figure, supported by two sticks, was silhouetted against the bright light of the hall. He was evidently giving the foreign agitators, whom he had imported, his last instructions before they dispersed to spread anarchy in the great industrial areas.
His plane was already outside the hangar; its nearest wingtip no more than a dozen yards from the spot where Gregory crouched. For a second the wild thought entered his head of attempting to make off in it; but the men by the other planes were within such easy range it seemed certain he would be shot down before he could scramble on board and get the machine into the air. Besides, he was not sure yet that Sabine was in the plane. If she were not he would have bungled things for good and all.
He turned to Rudd. 'Got your pocket knife handy?' he asked in a quick whisper.
'Yes sir.'
'Good. We'll need it to cut her free if she's there. Don't wait to be shot at but shoot first if they try to stop us. Ready now? Come on!'
Going down upon his hands and knees he came out into the open and crept swiftly towards the waiting plane. Now, he blessed the friendly darkness and the clouds that hung, low and threatening, obscuring the stars. The nearest men visible in the flickering light from the flares were a good fifty yards away.
With a last crouching sprint Gregory reached the body of the plane and wrenched open the door. The light on the far side of it came through the windows sufficiently for him to see the interior of the cabin. A long bundle lay in the after part of it behind the two rear seats. It was Sabine, a cloth wound round her face, her arms and ankles lashed with rough cords and a couple of weighty iron bars fastened to her feet; trussed ready for Gavin's men to heave into the sea once they were well away over the Channel.
Swiftly but cautiously Gregory and Rudd drew her limp body out and laid it on the grass. Rudd's knife bit into the cords. Gregory unmuffled her face, pressing his hand lightly over her mouth to prevent her screaming before she realised that it was he who was manhandling her.
Another moment and they had her on her feet, limp and half dazed, supported between them.
'Think you can run, my sweet?' Gregory said softly.
She flung one arm round his neck. 'Mon dieu! those cords, they almost stop my circulation,' she whispered, 'wait, I will be better in a minute.'
'Hang on to her,' Gregory breathed, removing her arm from his neck and gently passing her to Rudd. Then he went down on his knees again and, creeping forward a little, peered under the nose of the plane. Its pilot, who had been hidden by the bulk of the machine before, was standing within seven yards, his back turned, looking towards the house. A murmur came from the gravel drive and then the sound of crunching feet. Lord Gavin had finished his address to the red servants of evil and the crowd in front of the doorway was breaking up.