“And, by the way,” observed Mr. Ingleby, maliciously, “I pulled Barrow’s leg all right about that sketch.”
“You didn’t tell him what Mr. Armstrong said?”
“No. At least, I didn’t tell him Mr. Armstrong said it. But I gave him a hint to that effect off my own bat.”
“You are awful!”
“He’s out for the blood of this department-especially Copley’s.”
“Because Copley went to Hankie last week about a Jamboree display and complained that Barrow didn’t follow his directions, and so now he thinks this business is a plot of Copley’s to-”
“Shut up!”
Miss Rossiter leapt at her typewriter and began to pound the keys deafeningly.
Amid a pointed silence of tongues, Mr. Copley made his entrance.
“Is that Jelly copy of mine ready, Miss Rossiter? There doesn’t seem to be much work being done here this morning.”
“You’ve got to take your turn, Mr. Copley. I have a report of Mr. Armstrong’s to finish.”
“I shall speak to Mr. Armstrong about the way the work is done,” said Mr. Copley. “This room is a bear-garden. It’s disgraceful.”
“Why not give Mr. Hankin a turn?” snapped Miss Parton, unpleasantly.
“No, but really, Copley, old sport,” pleaded Mr. Bredon, earnestly. “You mustn’t let these little things get your goat. It’s not done, old thing. Positively not done. You watch me squeeze copy out of Miss Parton. She eats out of my hand. A little kindness and putting her hair in papers will work wonders with her. Ask her nicely and she’ll do anything for you.”
“A man of your age, Bredon, should know better,” said Mr. Copley, “than to hang round here all day. Am I the only person in this office with work to do?”
“If you only knew it,” replied Mr. Bredon, “I’m working away like anything. Look here,” he added, as the unhappy Mr. Copley withdrew, “do the poor old blighter’s muck for him. It’s a damned shame to tease him. He’s looking horribly green about the gills.”
“Right-ho!” said Miss Parton, amiably, “I don’t mind if I do. May as well get it over.”
The typewriters clacked again.
Chapter IX. Unsentimental Masquerade of a Harlequin
Dian de Momerie was holding her own. True, the big Chrysler and the Bentley ahead of her had more horsepower, but young Spenlow was too drunk to last out, and Harry Thorne was a notoriously rotten driver. She had only to tail them at a safe distance till they came to grief. She only wished “Spot” Lancaster would leave her alone. His clumsy grabs at her waist and shoulders interfered with her handling of the car. She eased the pressure of her slim sandal on the accelerator, and jabbed an angry elbow into his hot face.
“Shut up, you fool! you’ll have us into the ditch, and then they’d beat us.”
“I say!” protested Spot, “don’t do that. It hurts.”
She ignored him, keeping her eye on the road. Everything was perfect tonight. There had been a most stimulating and amusing row at Tod Milligan’s, and Tod had been very definitely told where he got off. All the better. She was getting tired of Tod’s hectoring. She was keyed up just enough and not too much. The hedges flashed and roared past them; the road, lit by the raking headlights, showed like a war-worn surface of holes and hillocks, which miraculously smoothed themselves out beneath the spinning wheels. The car rode the earth-waves like a ship. She wished it were an open car and not this vulgar, stuffy saloon of Spot’s.
The Chrysler ahead was lurching perilously, thrashing her great tail like a fighting salmon. Harry Thorne had no business with a car like that; he couldn’t hold it on the road. And there was a sharp S-bend coming. Dian knew that. Her senses seemed unnaturally sharpened-she could see the road unrolled before her like a map. Thorne was taking the first bend-far too wide-and young Spenlow was cutting in on the left. The race was hers now-nothing could prevent it. Spot was drinking again from a pocket-flask. Let him. It left her free. The Chrysler, wrenched brutally across the road, caught the Bentley on the inner edge of the bend, smashing it against the bank and slewing it round till it stood across the road. Was there room to pass? She pulled out, her off wheels bumping over the grass verge. The Chrysler staggered on, swaying from the impact-it charged the bank and broke through the hedge. She heard Thorne yell-saw the big car leap miraculously to earth without overturning, and gave an answering cry of triumph. And then the road was suddenly lit up as though by a searchlight, whose powerful beam swallowed her own headlights like a candle in sunlight.
She leant over to Spot.
“Who’s that behind us?”
“Dunno,” grunted Spot, twisting ineffectually to stare through the small pane at the rear of the car. “Some blighter or other.”
Dian set her teeth. Who the hell, who the hell had a car like that? The driving mirror showed only the glare of the enormous twin lights. She drove the accelerator down to its limit, and the car leaped forward. But the pursuer followed easily. She swung out on the crown of the road. Let him crash if he wanted to. He held on remorselessly. A narrow, humpbacked bridge sprang out of the darkness. She topped it and seemed to leap the edge of the world. A village, with a wide open square. This would be the man’s chance. He took it. A great dark shape loomed up beside her, long, low and open. Out of the tail of her eye she sought the driver. For five seconds he held beside her, neck and neck, and she saw the black mask and skull-cap and the flash of black and silver. Then, in the narrowing of the street, he swept ahead. She remembered what Pamela Dean had told her:
“You will see him when you least expect him.” Whatever happened, she must hold on to him. He was running ahead now, lightly as a panther, his red tail-lamp tantalizingly only a few yards away. She could have cried with exasperation. He was playing with her.
“Is this all your beastly Dutch-oven will do?” Spot had fallen asleep. His head rolled against her arm and she shook it off violently. Two miles, and the road plunged beneath over-arching trees, with a stretch of woodland on either side. The leading car turned suddenly down a side-road and thence through an open gate beneath the trees; it wound its way into the heart of the wood, and then abruptly stopped; all its lights were shut off.
She jammed on her brakes and was out upon the grass. Overhead the treetops swung together in the wind. She ran to the other car; it was empty.
She stared round. Except for the shaft of light thrown by her own headlamps, the darkness was Egyptian. She stumbled over her long skirts among briars and tufts of bracken. She called:
“Where are you? Where are you hiding? Don’t be so silly!” There was no answer. But presently, far off and mockingly, there came the sound of a very high, thin fluting. No jazz tune, but one which she remembered from nursery days:
Tom, Tom the piper’s son
Learned to play when he was young,
And the only tune that he could play
Was: “Over the hills and far away-”
“It’s too stupid,” said Dian.
Over the hills and a great way off
The wind is blowing my top-knot off.
The sound was so bodiless that it seemed to have no abiding-place. She ran forward, and it grew fainter; a thick bramble caught her, tearing her ankles and her sheer silk stockings. She wrenched herself pettishly away and started off in a new direction. The piping ceased. She suddenly became afraid of the trees and the darkness. The good, comforting drinks were taking back the support they gave and offering her instead a horrible apprehensiveness. She remembered Spot’s pocket-flask and began scrambling back towards the car. Then the beaconing lights went out, leaving her alone with the trees and the wind.
The high spirits induced by gin and cheerful company do not easily survive siege by darkness and solitude. She was running now, desperately, and screaming as she ran. A root, like a hand about her ankles, tripped her, and she dropped, cowering.