“Captain! I’m at the road! Can’t see nobody! Jay’s . . .” A figure lay in the middle of the lane up to his left, in that poured stillness that usually meant death. Another, that must be Jay, lay just as unmoving a few yards down to his right. “Mebbe dead,” O’Gilroy finished, more quietly.
“I’m coming!” Ranklin called back.
“Wait! They’re mebbe in these trees!” But then the sound of his voice attracted a couple of shots from the cottage across the lane. At that range you don’t hear a bullet go past: it’s lost in the sound of the shooting. But among trees you hear the patter of twigs – there were few leaves in April – it cuts down, and know that somebody is being personal about you. And in this case, doing it from the safety of the cottage.
Thinking it through, he reckoned that once their charge had been disrupted by his flank fire – and when they saw they weren’t going to capture the motor-car, since they must have been trying for that – the instinct for brick walls had taken over. They wouldn’t necessarily stay there, but when bullets are flying, walls are hard to give up.
He crept back into the bushes, calling to Mrs Langhorn to lie down and stay still, and then to Ranklin: “It’s all right, Captain. Take yer time and come careful.” Then he crawled off in a half-circle to reach the lane again beside Jay.
A couple of minutes later Ranklin snaked up to Mrs Langhorn, and found her lying as flat as her cottage-loaf figure allowed. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know. I’m all scratched and torn . . . What’s going on? Where am I?”
“A place called Trilbardou, up the Canal de l’Ourcq from Paris. How long have you been aboard that barge?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I don’t remember when . . .”
Unless she was lying, and she was certainly capable of that, it occurred to Ranklin that she could have been drugged. As complications piled up on Kaminsky, it would have been tempting to pigeon-hole one problem female with a hefty dose of laudanum.
He switched to reassurance. “Well, never mind about it.”
“Who are you, then? Who are you really?”
“Oh, private investigators. Rather superior ones.”
“Then you’re still working for Mr Quinton? – what’s happening to Grover?”
This sounded like the real Mrs Langhorn. “Unless I miss my guess, then – what’s today? It’s still Saturday, yes – then on Monday the French will drop the case against him and he’ll be free. However, right now he’s safe in a cell in Brixton while we’re lying in these bushes hiding from some armed men who want to get you back. Now, I can’t stop you going back, though I can tell you the Surete Nationale’s looking for them. And unless everyone around here’s stone deaf, they’ll be here soon. I’ve got a motor-car down in the village, so if we can get to that . . .” He left the idea open.
A few hours ago, I wanted to kill this woman, he remembered. A lot’s happened since then, but . . . it would still be a solution. For us.
There was a crackling from the bushes and O’Gilroy calling a soft warning. A few moments later he bellied his way out of the long grass. “He’s dead, all right. Jay.”
Ranklin said: “Yes,” just to show he’d heard.
“I got his gun.”
“Yes. Good.”
Mrs Langhorn asked: “Do you mean one of your men?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It happens.” He could have feelings about it later, when there was time. “Can we get out of this cover and down the lane without being seen?”
“Surely. Trees’n stuff go way down on this side. What then?”
“I want to get Mrs Langhorn to the motor. Then keep those bastards bottled up here until the Surete arrives.”
“Ye think they’ll wait that long?”
O’Gilroy had a point there. Whatever questions the Surete had had for Kaminsky before, there were now two dead men to ask about. The safety of the cottage could be palling.
There was suddenly a blast of shooting, but nothing came their way. The firing seemed to have been wasted on the corner of the undergrowth back by the canal. Now there was nothing – but then a clatter as something was knocked over in the dark cottage.
“Covering fire. Bringing in the feller that’s stayed back on the barge,” O’Gilroy whispered. “Now all of ’em’s in that cottage.”
So, not surprisingly, they had abandoned the walking-pace barge and concentrated in the cottage. They could either stay there, or-“They’re going to break out and look for a motorcar to capture.”
“That figgers.”
The motor Corinna was in was probably the nearest; if Ranklin knew her, she wouldn’t have gone far. But any hapless motorist would suit Kaminsky now.
“Hell. Can you hang on here until I get back? Stop them breaking out?”
“Ye’ll hear if it happens,” O’Gilroy said calmly.
“And they might get across into these trees to . . .”
“They’re welcome.” And given O’Gilroy’s mood and his infantry training, that was probably the simple truth. A bunch of men moving in a dark crackly wood was at a fatal disadvantage to one who lay quiet and knew every sound was an enemy. Come to think of it, even Kaminsky and his townees would probably work out that much.
“All right. I’ll be back.” And Ranklin began crawling, Mrs Langhorn gasping along behind him. After he had gone a few yards without attracting fire, he rose to all fours, and by the time he reached a solid stretch of fence was moving in a crouch.
The fence led them to the lane, and from there the cottage was just a pale blur. “Don’t run,” Ranklin warned. “Just walk quietly.”
At the corner where the lane met a proper street and became suddenly the heart of the village, lined with cracked stucco walls and shuttered windows, there was a small crowd gathered under one pale gas light. In front was the local gendarme. He had his pistol holster undone and laid a hand on it as Ranklin and Mrs Langhorn came out of the darkness.
Ranklin braced himself, made no attempt to hide the revolver in his hand, just brushed bits of copse out of his hair. It was the time to remember he was an officer. “Ah, M’sieu le gendarme. Have you called the Surete? Good. I’m Spencer of Scotland Yard -” well, within a few hundred yards, anyway “- and it’s an international anarchist gang up there. They kidnapped this lady and we’ve rescued her. Now listen, everybody -” he raised his voice “- their one hope is to escape this way and steal a motorcar. So if there’s any motors about, please make sure they’re hidden or their starting-handles are.” The village might well have no motor-cars, but the mention of “escape this way” had already reminded several citizens that they’d get just as good a view from their bedroom windows. But one of those remaining, towering over the rest, was Corinna. Thank God. “The lady’s employer will take care of her.” And to keep the gendarme from interfering, he added: “The commissaire will wish to question her personally.” Now Ranklin addressed him directly. “I won’t presume to give you orders, but may I suggest that you tell these people to find somewhere safer? It’s the bandit Kaminsky from the Cafe des Deux Chevaliers up there. Perhaps you’d tell the Surete that. Kaminsky, they’re already looking for him. And then possibly you’d guard this corner and show them the way when they arrive?”
“Very good, sir.” The gendarme even saluted him. He was a sizeable man, and probably a brave one. But in this situation, he was just out of his depth.
Ranklin nodded politely – he’d long since lost his hat somewhere – and led Mrs Langhorn over to Corinna. From there he could see the motor-car parked just along the street. “This is Grover Langhorn’s mother. Get her to . . . to the village cafe, wherever it is, then put the motor out of sight.”