“Pop! Quiet!”
“Am I a guide,” H.M. asked loftily, “or ain’t I?”
“You are,” snapped Tom. “And if the balloon goes up, it goes up. Anyway, I can see Jenny. They can’t hurt her now. Let’s go.”
Out they marched, trying to tread softly, with Lamoreux on the inner side, Tom in the middle, and H.M. on the outer side.
It was quiet, so intense that they could hear the footsteps of these far ahead of them as well as their own. Peace lay in the hollow of a warm spring night, with the fragrance of grass and trees. You would never have guessed that death was walking with them along the broad white path — and moving closer at every pace.
Tom Lockwood did not know this, of course. But he sensed danger-fangs everywhere. He kept his eyes fixed on Jenny as though she might disappear, and his nerves were twitching like a landed fish.
So he quite literally jumped as a mighty voice smote through his thoughts.
“On our right,” it thundered, “we got the famous Hampton Court gardens, forty-four acres of elegant spinach, first laid out by King William the Third and completed in 1734.”
“For God’s sake be careful,” whispered Tom. “William the Third died in 1702.”
H.M. swung round, fists on hips.
“And d’ye think I don’t know that?” he bellowed. “I didn’t say the old sour-puss finished ’em, did I? I just said he laid ’em out — which is what I’m goin’ to do to you, young man, if you don’t shut up and stop interruptin’ my lecture.”
“Pop! The soft pedal! Give it the old soft pedal! Holy cats, they’ll hear you as far as Thames Ditton!”
But, whatever devilment H.M. had meditated — and Tom knew he had planned it in advance — the damage was done. Five persons, mere shapes in the twilight, turned round and looked back.
Out from the group, head high, marched Aunt Hester. She strode along the full distance that separated them, and looked straight at H.M.
“You, I fancy,” she said coolly, “must be the man Merrivale?”
“On our left,” bellowed H.M., “we see the celebrated tennis court. The game of tennis, originally played with a wooden ball, was designed with the laudable purpose of knockin’ somebody’s eye out — which it generally did. One famous match—”
“Answer me, please!” said Aunt Hester. “On whose authority, may I ask, are you in these grounds after official visiting hours.”
H.M. gave her a wicked look.
“On Sir Hugh Rossiter’s,” he said. “The same as yours. Want to ring him and find out?”
Since H.M. knew everybody, this might possibly be true. Aunt Hester did not dare risk the challenge. Besides, she was more interested in someone else.
“One of you, I believe,” she stated crisply, “I have already met. Indeed, Mr. Lockwood, I wish to have a word with you.”
“Fire away,” said Tom.
“Ever since you abducted my niece yesterday, and afterwards returned her in — I hope — a condition suitable to a bride, poor Jennifer has been talking nonsense which I propose to stamp out here and now.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Absurdly enough, the girl believes she is in love with you...”
“Is she, by God!” exclaimed Tom.
Whereupon he completely lost his head. Raising his voice, he shouted clearly and loudly through the twilight.
“Jenny!” he called. “Jenny! Do you love me?”
Jenny spun round in the broad white path.
“Yes!” she shouted back.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes!”
Dead silence.
“Well... now!” observed Sir Henry Merrivale, with much complacence. “Since that’s all settled and finished—”
“Oh, cripes!” breathed Steve Lamoreux, in a voice Tom had never heard him use. “If that’s how people propose to each other in England, maybe it’s true you’re kind of casual. Do you just get married on the telephone, or what?”
But Aunt Hester was not amused. The paint stood out against her pale face; she was alert, smiling — and dangerous.
“How interesting!” she laughed. “It surely will interest her dear guardian and,” Aunt Hester’s eyes slid sideways, “the fiancé to whom she is pledged. Tell me, Mr. Lockwood, what is your yearly income?”
Tom stared at the ground.
“Well! I didn’t want to...”
“Come, Mr. Lockwood!” said Aunt Hester, with honeyed sweetness. “You are a reporter on the Record, we know. Just what is your yearly income?”
“Tell her, son,” growled H. M.
“All right!” said Tom, raising his head. “When death duties are subtracted, it’ll be about twelve thousand pounds a year.”
“Twelve — thou—”
“I didn’t earn it,” snapped Tom. “My mother left it to me. I’ve published just one unsuccessful novel. When I walked up Ludgate Hill yesterday, I was thinking about chucking my job and trying full-time writing. That’s what I’ll do, when Jenny marries me. It’s why I told you, Steve, you might get a better boss; you can have my job, and they’ll hand it to you on a plate. But I’ve never given two hoots about Jenny’s money, and I’d rather prefer it if she didn’t have a penny to her name.”
“This is the most fantastic—” Aunt Hester was beginning, when she stopped dead.
H.M. slowly extended his neck, and gave her such a look as could not have been matched by Satan himself.
“Madam,” he said, “you’ve got no business with us. Sling your hook.”
“I absolutely refuse—”
H.M. extended his finger until it almost touched Aunt Hester’s nose.
“Madam,” he said, “are you goin’ to hop it? Or do you prefer to find yourself, sittin’ down, in the middle of King William’s spinach?”
Aunt Hester hopped it. Before that glare, which would have caused the Angels of Light themselves to retire to prepared positions, she could have done nothing else.
She ran hard towards the group ahead, and appeared to be talking rapidly. The whole group faced round and began hurrying, at a faster pace, in their original direction. Jenny seemed violently to object, but Margot gripped her arm and hastened her on.
Tom Lockwood, a powerfully built young man, was all for charging forward and starting a fight at once. His companions held him back.
“Easy, son!” said H.M. “Not just yet, I tell you! We’ve got ’em in sight. They can’t get away.”
“Pop,” declared Lamoreux, whose face was pale and pinched, “you’re a so-and-so. You’re a so-and-so and a this-and-that. You deliberately yelled all that guff about spinach and tennis balls, just so the old dame would come tearing back here. Why did you do it?”
“Well... now!” said H.M. with a modest look. “I rather wanted to know, d’ye see, if some person would meet some other person. Am I making myself clear?”
“No. You’re not.”
“Never mind, son,” soothed H.M. “I haven’t been so much worried about that gal as about another person. Besides, I repeat, they can’t get away. We’ve got ’em in sight.”
Lamoreux stopped in his tracks.
“Oh, no, we haven’t!” he said in a high voice. “Where are they now? They’ve disappeared!”
It was true.
Once past the gardens and the long line of the palace, the road was closed in by tall trees, dusky and spectral against a windless night, with an occasional bench on either side. Five persons had vanished from the road.
“H.M.,” said Tom, seizing his companion’s arm, “you seem to be the expert on Hampton Court. Where does this road lead?”
“Steady, son! It leads to one of the main entrances — the Lion Gate. But, if you turn to the left before you reach the gate, you’ll soon get to the open space where they’ve got the maze—”