“Oh, I just happened along. I always happen.”
“You don’t. You only seem to happen occasionally. You aren’t one of Tod’s regular lot, are you?”
“Not at present.”
“Do you want to be? Because, don’t. I’ll get the stuff for you if you want it. But Tod’s a beast. You’d better keep clear of him.”
“Are you warning me for my good?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What devotion!”
“No, I mean it. Life’s hell, anyway, but it’s worse if you get mixed up with Tod.”
“Then why don’t you cut loose from Tod?”
“I can’t.”
“Afraid of him?”
“Not so much of him. It’s the people behind him. Tod’s afraid too. He’d never let me go. He’d kill me first.”
“How fascinating! I think I must know Tod better.”
“You’d end by being afraid, too.”
“Should I? Well, there’s a kick in being afraid.”
“Come down here, Harlequin, and I’ll show you how to get a kick out of life.”
“Could you?”
“Try and see.”
There was a rustle among the leaves, and he slid down to stand beside her.
“Well?”
“Lift me up. I’m all cramped.”
He lifted her, and she felt his hands hard as iron under her breast. She was tall, and as she turned to look at him she could see the glint of his eyeballs, level with her own.
“Well, will I do?”
“For what?”
“For you?”
“For me? What are you good for, to me?”
“I’m beautiful.”
“Not so beautiful as you were. In five years’ time you will be ugly.”
“Five years? I wouldn’t want you for five years.”
“I wouldn’t want you for five minutes.”
The cold daybreak was beginning to filter through the leaves; it showed her only a long, implacable chin and the thin curl of a smiling mouth. She made a snatch at his mask, but he was too quick for her. Very deliberately he turned her towards him, putting both her arms behind her back and holding them there.
“What next?” she demanded, mockingly.
“Nothing. I shall take you home.”
“You will? Ah, you will, then?”
“Yes, as I did once before.”
“Exactly as you did before?”
“Not exactly, because you were drunk then. You are sober now. With that trifling difference, the programme will be carried out according to precedent.”
“You might kiss me, Harlequin.”
“Do you deserve kissing? Once, for your information. Twice, for your disinterested effort to save me from the egregious Mr. Milligan. And the third time, because the fancy takes me that way.”
He bestowed the kisses like deliberate insults. Then he picked her up bodily, still holding her arms imprisoned, and dumped her into the back of the open car.
“Here’s a rug for you. You’ll need it.”
She said nothing. He started up the engine, turned the car and drove it slowly along the path. As they came abreast of the saloon, he leaned out and tossed the ignition key on to the knees of Spot Lancaster, happily snoring in his seat. In a few minutes, they had turned out from the wood into the main road. The sky was faintly streaked with the ghostly glimmer of the false dawn.
Dian de Momerie slid from under the rug and leaned forward. He was driving easily, slumped down in his seat, his black poll leaning carelessly back, his hand slack on the wheel. With a twist, she could send him and herself into the ditch, and he would deserve it.
“Don’t do it,” he said, without turning his head.
“You devil!”
He stopped the car.
“If you don’t behave, I shall leave you by the roadside, sitting on a milestone, like the bailiff’s daughter of Islington. Or, if you prefer it, I can tie you up. Which is it to be?”
“Be kind to me.”
“I am being kind. I have preserved you from boredom for two solid hours. I beg you not to plunge us both into the horrors of an anti-climax. What are you crying for?”
“I’m tired-and you won’t love me.”
“My poor child, pull yourself together. Who would believe that Dian de Momerie could fall for a fancy-dress and a penny whistle?”
“It isn’t that. It’s you. There’s something queer about you. I’m afraid of you. You aren’t thinking about me at all. You’re thinking of something horrible. What is it? What is it? Wait!”
She put out a cold hand and clutched his arm.
“I’m seeing something that I can’t make out. I’ve got it now. Straps. They are strapping his elbows and dropping a white bag over his head. The hanged man. There’s a hanged man in your thoughts. Why are you thinking of hanging?”
She shrank away from him and huddled into the farthest corner of the car. Wimsey re-started the engine and let in the clutch.
“Upon my word,” he thought, “that’s the oddest after-effect of drink and drugs I’ve met yet. Very interesting. But not very safe. Quite a providential interposition in one way. We may get home without breaking our necks. I didn’t know I carried such a graveyard aura about with me.”
Dian was fast asleep when he lifted her out of the car. She half woke, and slipped her arms round his neck.
“Darling, it’s been lovely.” Then she came to with a little start. “Where have we got to? What’s happened?”
“We’re home. Where’s your latch-key?”
“Here. Kiss me. Take that mask off.”
“Run along in. There’s a policeman thinking we look rather disreputable.” He opened the door.
“Aren’t you coming in?”
She seemed to have forgotten all about the hanged man. He shook his head.
“Well, good-bye then.”
“Good-bye.”
He kissed her gently this time and pushed her into the house. The policeman, stumping inquisitively nearer, revealed a face that Wimsey knew. He smiled to himself as the official gaze swept over him.
“Good morning, officer.”
“Morning, sir,” said the policeman, stolidly.
“Moffatt, Moffatt,” said his lordship, reprovingly, “you will never get promotion. If you don’t know me, you should know the car.”
“Good lord, your lordship, I beg your pardon. Didn’t somehow expect to see you here.”
“Not so much of the lordship. Somebody might be listening. You on your beat?”
“Just going home, my-sir.”
“Jump in and I’ll drive you there. Ever see a fellow called Milligan round this way?”
“Major Tod Milligan? Yes, now and then. He’s a bad hat, he is, if ever there was one. Runs that place down by the river. Mixed up with that big drug-gang as Mr. Parker’s after. We could pull him in any day, but he’s not the real big noise.”
“Isn’t he, Moffatt?”
“No, my lord. This car’s a treat, ain’t she? Shouldn’t think there’s much catches you on the road. No. What Mr. Parker wants is to get him to lead us to the top man of all, but there don’t seem to be much chance of it. They’re as cunning as weasels, they are. Don’t suppose he knows himself who the other fellow is.”
“How’s it worked, Moffatt?”
“Well, my lord, as far as we’ve been told, the stuff is brought in from the coast once or twice a week and run up to London. We’ve had a try at catching it on the way more than once, that is to say, Mr. Parker’s special squad have, but they’ve always given us the slip. Then it’ll be taken somewhere, but where we don’t know, and distributed out again to the big distributors. From them it goes to all kinds of places. We could lay hands on it there-but lord! what’s the use? It’d only be in another place next week.”
“And whereabouts does Milligan come into it?”
“We think he’s one of the high-up distributors, my lord. He hands it out at that house of his, and in other places.”
“In the place where you found me, for instance?”
“That’s one of them.”
“But the point is, where does Milligan get his supplies?”
“That’s it, my lord.”