Normally the walk from South Audley Street to St. James's Square would not have taken him more than fifteen minutes, but he was so exhausted that he had to go very slowly. The street lamps were only on at half-pressure and there was no traffic except for an occasional police car or military lorry. There were a few pedestrians hurrying along here or there and a certain number of police patrolling in couples, but wherever Derek saw these he avoided them by crossing to the other side of the road. He instinctively felt like a hunted criminal and, in any case, his state might have caused them to ask questions.
Crossing Piccadilly, he turned down St. James's Street, along King Street and at last entered St. James's Square. Staggering up the steps of Sam Curry's house, he rang the bell and banged violently with the knocker. Almost at once the door was thrown open and Hemmingway stood there framed against a dim light in the hall.
'Good God!' he exclaimed, as Derek clutched at him and fell forward on the mat; and, hauling him to his feet, he went on angrily: 'Where the devil have you been, man? I've been waiting here all day for you.'
'I—I got caught—arrested by the police,' Derek muttered. 'I've only just escaped.'
'Never mind that. You can tell me about it later. What have you done with Lavina?'
'I've lost her,' Derek moaned. 'She's imprisoned somewhere but I don't know where.'
A strange light suddenly leapt into Hemmingway's eyes. 'You fool!' he breathed, with menacing quietness. 'If I can't find her I'll break your neck for this.'
Hemmingway Goes into Action
Derek suddenly slumped forward and catching him as he fell, Hemmingway saw that he had fainted. Pulling one of the unconscious man's arms round his neck he heaved him up in a fireman's lift across his shoulders, carried him into the lounge and gently lowered him on to a sofa.
At first, in the dim light of the hall, Hemmingway had not fully grasped the shocking state Derek was in but it was now clear that he had been through a terrible gruelling.
His suit was so torn, bloodstained and dirty that it would have disgraced a tramp. His collar was gone, his tie a rag knotted round his neck; even his shoes were cut and filthy. Sweat, dust and congealed blood matted his light-brown, wavy hair. His left eye was closed and the swollen flesh all round it had a horrid purplish hue. Cuts and abrasions disfigured his regular features and his hands were as grimy as if he had been crawling across a ploughed field.
Crossing the hall to the downstairs cloakroom, Hemmingway picked up a jug to fill it with hot water but as he turned the tap he suddenly remembered that the boilers in the house were out. He himself had had to make do that morning with a quick splash in a cold bath—a thing he hated. Filling the jug with cold water and collecting a couple of towels, he carried them back to Derek and, kneeling down, began to sponge some of the grime off his injured face.
After a few moments Derek began to groan.
'It's all right, old chap. You're safe enough now,' Hemmingway comforted him.
'Lavina,' muttered Derek, coming round. 'Lavina . . .'
'Yes, I know.' Hemmingway's face darkened. 'But we'll go into that in a moment.'
Walking over to a side-table he mixed a stiff whisky-and-soda. 'Here, drink this,' he said, propping Derek's head up on one arm and holding the glass to his lips.
Derek swallowed some of the whisky, choked a little, and sat up. 'God knows where she is,' he murmured, 'but we've got to find her.'
'Sure.' Hemmingway continued his ministrations with a towel and water. 'But I want to get you cleaned up a bit first, otherwise the dirt will get into those cuts and inflame them. Here, take the towel yourself and do what you can, while I go and put on some hot water.'
Going down to the kitchen he filled the largest kettles he could find and put them on the stove. When he returned, Derek had finished his drink but was lying back on the sofa, evidently too weak to be able even to bathe his wounds.
'Now, d'you think you can tell me your story?' Hemmingway said, sitting down beside him. 'I'm afraid you're pretty done, but I must know what happened before I can go into action.'
Derek nodded weakly and gave a more or less coherent account of what had happened since he had left St. James's Square with Lavina and Roy the previous evening. Hemmingway listened without making a single comment. He was not particularly distressed when he heard of Roy's death, as he only knew him very slightly and had not been at all favourably impressed with what little he had seen of him. With Derek, on the other hand, he was furiously angry. Derek had been responsible for Lavina and it was not his fault that she had not had her brains bashed out by that bottle descending upon her head. As it was, they did not know if she was alive or dead and it was going to be the devil's own job to trace her. Hemmingway knew that, if he had been in Derek's shoes, he would have taken Lavina out of the Dorchester no matter what she said—even if he'd had to yank her out by the scruff of the neck —long before the trouble had started. But he did not allow the least sign of his inward feelings to show in his face as he listened to the injured man's story.
When Derek had done, Hemmingway left him again, carried the kettles of hot water up to his own bathroom, got out a clean suit of pyjamas and turned down his bed, which he had remade himself that morning.
On his return to the lounge Derek asked weakly: 'What had we better do now? Is it any good trying to telephone anywhere before we set out to try and find her?'
'You can leave all that to me,' Hemmingway replied briefly. 'You're going to bed, my boy. Come on, up you get!'
'But I can't. I've got to . . .' Derek began to protest.
'You're going to do as I tell you. You're about all-in, my friend; and in your present state instead of a help you'd be a hindrance. I doubt if you could walk another hundred yards and you couldn't run if your life depended on it.' Without further protest he hauled Derek to his feet, supported him up the stairs to the bathroom and began to undress him.
Derek knew that Hemmingway was right as, in a mist of pain, he allowed himself to be stripped and bathed like a child in the luke-warm water to which Hemmingway had added a good ration of disinfectant.
Actually, Hemmingway grudged every moment of the time he was giving to his self-imposed duties as Derek's nurse. The stupid fool deserved all he had got and was lucky to be alive at all, was what he was thinking. But Derek was much too weak to look after himself and Hemmingway had not the heart to leave him, perhaps for many hours, uncared for; so he put a cheerful face on the business and got through with it as quickly as he could.
At last when Derek was rebandaged, his cuts and bruises eased by a liberal application of healing ointment, and safely tucked up in bed, Hemmingway said to him:
'You've lost your own car, I suppose?'
'Yes, we left it outside the Dorchester.'
'Well, fortunately mine's still in the garage at the back of the house. Now get this clearly before you go ofF to sleep. I'm going out now to try and find Lavina. It's impossible to say how long I'll be, but we've still got the best part of forty-eight hours before the balloon goes up. If I run her to earth I shall bring her back here and we'll go down in the car to Stapleton together. But if I don't return, you'll know I've had no luck. In that case, after two nights and a day in bed you'll be fit enough to walk down to Stapleton, if need be. Don't wait for us any longer, as we may not get back at all, but start out on your own early in the morning on the day after tomorrow. You ought to make it in about eight hours, allowing for plenty of rests, or less if you can manage to get a lift part of the way. But in the meantime, if you feel fit enough to get up you're not to leave the house because, if I do find Lavina, I'll want to get her out of London without the least delay. Have you got that?'