‘I wouldn’t risk it,’ said Ivor. ‘The film people are all on location. Had early breakfast and went off by lorry and in cars, all the whole boiling of them. There’s nobody here but you and me and the fellow who let you in, and he won’t interfere. My dad has him where he wants him.’
‘You wretched little thug!’ said Laura. She would have said more, but at that moment the door opened and Sorensen put in his head.
‘I wouldn’t give him much chance to use the cosh,’ he said, almost kindly. ‘The police might as well find you all in one piece, don’t you think?’
‘Agreed,’ said Laura. She sauntered away from the window. Sorensen shut the door in her face and locked it from the outside, and she heard him walk away. Laura looked round the room for a weapon, and suddenly found herself face to face with her own portrait, which was hanging on the wall beside the fireplace. She studied it with great interest, for she realized, almost immediately, that this was not the portrait for which she had sat, but a very inferior copy.
Laura, although headstrong and rash, was highly intelligent. She could put two and two together as fast and as accurately as most people, and she put two and two together now. That David Battle was in some way associated with the men who had a morbid interest in the Nine Stones had been a tenable theory for some time past. That there was some connection between these men and the house with the four dead trees was an equally acceptable hypothesis. That the art of painting was inextricably bound up with the mysterious disappearances of three men could be argued with some success. That the man who had ordered the pulling out of the leaning stone was capable, if not of murder, at least of deeds in cold blood which Laura still shuddered to remember, had been proved by his strange and horrible removal of the head and hands of the man whom the vengeful stone had fallen upon and killed.
‘Ergo,’ said Laura, ‘there’s something dashed funny about the business of copying my portrait—apart, of course, from the fact that the subject-matter is quite funny, I suppose, in itself. Now how do those frames Mrs. Bradley spotted at David Battle’s fit in?’
She swung round at the sound of the door being opened again. This time, to her great surprise, Sorensen said (and still in his former friendly tones) :
‘You’d better run along now; we’re done with you for a bit.’
‘Thank you,’ Laura replied. She followed him out of the room, and was meditating whether it would be possible (and, if possible, whether it would also be useful) to leap on his neck from the back as they walked in Indian file down the passage, when he forestalled any experiments on her part by swinging round on her and blocking up the passage with his heavy frame, as he said:
‘Now then, no nonsense!’ To Laura, conversant as she was with Mrs. Bradley’s theories of unrehearsed behaviour, this remark was a sign of fear. She looked the man in the eye.
‘Now then, no hysterics,’ she said. ‘I’m going quietly, aren’t I?’ Sorensen did not reply. He merely turned quickly and led the way towards the side door.
‘Get out!’ he said. ‘And as quick as ever you can.’
‘Why?’ enquired Laura. ‘Surely you’re not afraid of the police?’
‘Get out!’ he repeated stubbornly. ‘We did not ask you to come.’ Laura did not wait to be told a third time, but, as the front door opened, she saw a shadow move upon the wall. Sorensen laughed as he slammed the door. Laura swung herself aside, and, as the cosh ascended, ready to be brought down across her skull, she turned and caught young Cassius a full-arm back-hander across the nose and mouth, and then flung herself upon him. There was the dull impact of body upon body, and the advantage lay with Laura.
She was heavier than her adversary and had the whip hand of the situation, which she had diagnosed with savage swiftness. Sisyphus went down, with her on top. Dazed and bruised, nevertheless she recovered first, and, picking up the cosh which he had dropped, she hurled it over the tops of the nearest trees.
‘Now, you little beast, I’m going to scrag you properly, once and for all,’ she said. She forgot Sorensen, still in the house. Her blood was up. She fell upon the hapless Sisyphus, punched him hard in the wind, and, as he sagged, she smacked her hand hard across his eyes. A boxing brother had taught her, and a natural gift for in-fighting helped out the teaching. It was not a pretty spectacle which she left blubbering on the unweeded gravel path.
‘You filthy little beast!’ she said.
As she sped through the gate she heard a curdled, ancient laughter, and realized that the old man with the barrow (in which he was now taking his ease) had been a delighted spectator of Ivor Cassius’ (or Concaverty’s) downfall.
‘So what?’ thought Laura, trotting happily back along the road. ‘Whose side are you on, Gunga Din?’
Chapter Twenty-One
—«♦»—
‘The wolf and the wild boar were first on the ground: and when they spied their enemies coming, and saw the cat’s long tail standing straight in the air, they thought she was carrying a sword.’
Ibid. (Old Sultan)
« ^ »
The packing-cases full of pictures presented a difficult problem. The young men discussed its solution and came to the conclusion that the best plan was to rush the packing-cases up the ramp to the garage and get them into the village street. There they could be guarded (at the point of the revolver if necessary) until transport could be arranged for them to Cuchester, where the whole matter must be left to the police.
‘And I only hope we haven’t committed a felony,’ said Denis, grinning. ‘Now, who’s doing the haulage work, and who’s covering our retreat?’
‘Gerry is probably the best shot,’ said O’Hara, ‘unless it’s you, Bradley?’
‘Lord, no. Come on, then, George,’ said Denis. ‘O’Hara, you fight a rearguard action, if necessary, with the other gun.’
‘Queer they hadn’t the guns in their hands when they came down after us,’ said Gascoigne. ‘I suppose they thought we’d run straight into the party from the motor boat, and they might hit one of their own side if they fired.’
It was dawn by the time they reached the pull-in yard with the packing-cases, and at sight of the empty lorry Denis suggested that they might as well load the packing-cases on to it and drive them into Cuchester straight away.
‘The lorry must have brought them here,’ he argued, ‘so I don’t see why it shouldn’t take them back.’ This simple solution pleased everybody, and was about to be put into effect when into the yard ran three men.
‘Hello! Re’enter the spivs!’ said O’Hara. Gascoigne also recognized the newcomers, and, taking the gun in his hand, he waved it in ironic greeting. The spivs betrayed no surprise and no resentment.
‘Hey! Going towards London?’ yelled the foremost. ‘Give us a lift, will you, boys?’
‘Cuchester!’ shouted Denis. George let in his clutch, and the lorry moved slowly forward towards the entrance.
‘That’ll do fine!’ yelled the second of the men, moving out of the way as the lorry came out at the opening. The three men then hung on and tried to climb on to the tailboard, but Denis delicately stamped on the fingers of one, a Rugger shove in the chest from the large-palmed O’Hara settled the fate of the second, and a smack across the eyes from Gascoigne foiled the venturous tactics of the third. The last the lorry pirates saw of the wasp-waisted visitors was one on his back in the dust, another dabbing his nose with a bright silk handkerchief and the stamped-on one shaking be-ringed fists with histrionic gestures of hate and fury at the tailboard from which he had been dislodged.