Derek nodded feebly. 'Yes. I wish to God I could come with you, but I can hardly lift a finger. Best of luck!'
'Thanks. I'll need it.' Hemmingway smiled with a friendliness he was far from feeling as he switched out the light and closed the door behind him.
On coming downstairs that morning he had naturally assumed that Lavina, Derek and Roy had returned from their previous night's joy-ride after he had gone to bed and were somewhere in the house still sleeping.
Having made tea, put some eggs on to boil and banged loudly on the gong to let them know that breakfast was nearly ready, he had expected that they would come down in dressing-gowns. When none of them appeared, he had visited their rooms and, finding them empty, realised at once that something very serious must have happened to keep them out all night.
His first thought was to telephone Scotland Yard and the hospitals, but the exchange informed him they were now only working on skeleton staffs and that since six o'clock that morning they had had to refuse all private calls in order to devote the lines exclusively to Government business. They also refused to take any telegrams, which prevented him from communicating either with Sam—who was by that time presumably at the Edmonton factory—or with Stapleton Court to try and ascertain if Lavina's party had, for some reason unknown, decided to drive down there direct during the night after their trip round the West End of London.
He had contemplated personal visits to Scotland Yard and some of his friends in various Government Services; but felt that, with the evacuation of London in full swing, they would all be far too busy to give him any help in a private inquiry where there was so little to go on except the bare fact that three people in a motor-car had failed to return to their home the night before. In addition, he feared that if he once left the house they might turn up in his absence which, if he was not there to set off with them, would further delay their departure to the country.
In consequence, he had decided that the only thing to do was to wait in the house in the hope that they would either come back to it or manage to send him some message to let him know what had happened to them.
He had made several more attempts to use the telephone but by midday the exchange no longer answered him and he could not even get the ringing tone, so now, having attended to Derek, he wasted no time in trying to get through to anybody.
Instead, he went to his private sitting-room, took a large automatic from a drawer, loaded it and put a handful of spare ammunition into his pockets. From another drawer he took a torch and fitted it with a new battery. He then unlocked the safe and, taking out all the money he could find, proceeded to distribute it about his person; some in his pockets for immediate use, but the larger amounts he placed in his shoes where he could not easily be robbed of it.
Downstairs he hunted round till he found a motoring map of London and the Home Counties and filled a flask up with brandy which went into his other hip pocket to balance the gun. He then descended to the basement.
In the scullery he found just what he wanted: a length of stout clothes-line and a bundle of firewood. Picking out the biggest pieces from the bundle, he knotted the rope securely round them so that when he had done he had a line about twelve feet long with the pieces of wood projecting at right-angles to it roughly twelve inches apart. Having removed his coat, he wound the whole contraption round his body and, proceeding to the odd man's room, he took a steel case-opener from the tool chest, stuffed it inside the rope and put on his coat again.
Returning upstairs, he selected a crop from a rack of sticks and sporting impedimenta that belonged to Sam. It was one that Sam had used in the War, made of bamboo covered with leather. The end of it was a fat Turk's-head filled with lead, and with the thong round one's wrist it made a most formidable weapon.
While he was making these preparations Hemmingway was half inclined to laugh at himself; but he had not the faintest idea where he would have to go or what he might have to do during the next twenty-four hours, and although the authorities were still maintaining an outward semblance of control, Derek's experiences showed that London was no longer a law-abiding city. Hemmingway simply wished to ensure his being able to bribe, fight, break in, or face any other emergency with which he might be faced, under the best possible conditions.
Leaving the house and the semi-darkened square, he proceeded east across Lower Regent Street and the Haymarket. The restaurants were all closed now and each had a police guard outside it to prevent looting of its stocks of drink. There were few people about and no traffic, except for patrolling police cars; and it was not until he got down to Trafalgar Square that he saw any considerable number of people.
Religious meetings were still in progress there although, owing to the evacuation, the lateness of the hour and the fact that all public transport services had now been cancelled until further notice, the crowd was nowhere near as large as that which had packed the square the night before. The audiences consisted mainly of those pig-headed citizens who had refused to leave their homes and a certain number of local A.R.P. wardens, fire-fighters, etc., who had come out for an airing while remaining near their posts.
There was no drunkenness or fatalistic jollification among the crowds now. Every public-house in London had been closed by order and the police, who had been issued with revolvers, had received instructions to shoot looters if they made any attempt to resist arrest.
Whitehall was open again but troops were mounting guard over all Government buildings and the entrance to Downing Street was closed by a wooden barricade; yet the lights were burning in nearly all the windows showing that the harassed authorities were still hard at work controlling the evacuation.
Hemmingway turned left towards Scotland Yard and its annexe, Cannon Row police station, but here he found the pavements blocked by a solid jam of people. Only the roadway was being kept open for traffic by the police.
He saw at once that he was not the only person who had come to inquire'for friends and relatives. There were several hundred in the two queues before him, all of whom, anxiously
silent or quietly sobbing, were in search of missing dear ones.
If he took his place in the rear of one of the queues it was clear that he would have to wait hours before he got anywhere near the police station; so, abandoning that idea, he walked round to the Embankment entrance of Scotland Yard. There was a small queue there, too, but in a few moments he had reached the police sergeant who was dealing with inquiries.
Knowing that Sam's name would carry more weight than his own and gambling on the fact that Sam was not known to the sergeant, he announced boldly:
'I'm Sir Samuel Curry. Would you be good enough to ask Colonel Hodgson if he could possibly spare me a moment?'
The sergeant looked dubious. 'The Assistant Commissioner's frantically busy, sir. I doubt if he can spare time to see anyone.'
'I know. He must be having a gruelling time just now. But, as I'm a personal friend, I think he'll see me if you send my name up.'
'Well, I'll do that, sir, although we don't like to bother him more than we have to. Just wait here a moment.' The sergeant spoke to a telephonist in a small lodge nearby, who put the call through.
An answer came back almost at once and the sergeant reported: 'The Assistant Commissioner says he'll see you, sir, but he may have to keep you waiting a little time. The constable, here, will take you through.'
Suppressing a sigh of relief, Hemmingway passed inside and was led by the constable down a succession of long stone corridors to a bare-looking waiting room. He sat there for some twenty minutes and was then summoned to the Assistant Commissioner's office. Colonel Hodgson was a shrewd-eyed, wiry haired man nearing fifty. He looked very tired as he had been working almost continuously for the last week, snatching only an hour or two's sleep in the building when nature absolutely demanded it, but his manner was still calm and cheerful.