Читать книгу Among Those Absent - Cyril Henry Coles - Страница 6

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Tommy Hambledon rose to his feet, brushing mud from himself, replaced his hat which had been crushed over his nose and called: “Cobden! Are you all right?”

“Quite, thank you. I am among, I think, raspberry canes. I say, do you feel as though you were still floating? How wonderful—show a light, I can’t see you—how wonderful to know it’s only an illusion. Hullo, there’s a house here and lights are going on. What do we do, run?”

“Certainly not, I’m surprised at you. Leave it to me.”

In the silence they heard distinctly the sound of bolts being drawn and a key turning in a lock: the next moment a door opened and laid a path of light across the lawn. A large figure appeared silhouetted against the light and a typical parade-ground voice demanded, with menaces, to know exactly what the hell was happening in his garden, and if it was a runaway steam-roller they would hear about it on the County Council. A torch was then switched on and the speaker advanced.

“This is the goods,” said Tommy. “Come on.”

Followed by Cobden, he went forward to meet the large figure, removed his hat, and said: “Sir, I owe you a thousand apologies, but before I begin, tell me, is this England?”

“England? Of course it’s England——”

Tommy uttered a yell of triumph and flung his hat in the air.

“We’ve won! We must have won. At least, it’s been a damn good trip.”

“What is all this——”

Tommy laughed apologetically.

“Sorry to appear so excited, sir. This is a balloon race, though why they call it a race when it’s a question merely of who goes furthest has always been a mystery to me. A duration test would be a better title.”

“Balloon race? Good God, I didn’t think anybody went in for that sort of thing nowadays.”

“They’ve only just started them again,” said Tommy, blinking in the light of a torch directed steadily upon his face. “In fact, I believe this is the first since some time before the war.”

“Indeed. And where’s the balloon?”

“Here, sir,” said Tommy, and led the way to the collapsed balloon which sprawled limply across the cabbages or bulged weakly in places where pockets of gas were still retained in the folds. The basket lay on its side with loose ropes wreathed about, the newcomer directed his torch upon it and remarked that it looked very small.

“Cramped,” said Hambledon with feeling, “very cramped. But lightness is the primary object.”

“How many of you in it?”

“Two. May I introduce my friend and accomplice, Mr. Cookson——”

“How d’you do?” said Cobden.

“And my name’s Harrington.”

“How d’you do? My name’s Waterbury, Colonel Waterbury. I should think it was damned cold floating about in that thing, what? Better come in and get warm.”

“I am nearly frozen,” said Tommy, allowing his teeth to chatter, “and Cookson’s about as bad.”

“Come in and we’ll blow up the fire,” said the Colonel. “What d’you want to do with that balloon?”

“If we might leave it for a short time to allow the gas to dissipate, we’ll pack it up later. Valuable things, balloons.”

“Certainly, certainly. Come along to the house,” said the Colonel, leading the way. “What’s it made of?”

“Silk,” said Tommy, who had not the faintest idea.

“Nylon,” said Cobden. “Doped nylon.”

“Well, it looked like silk—it’s not my balloon, I borrowed it,” said Hambledon truthfully. “I believe the latest models are made of nylon.”

“So that’s where the stockings go,” said the Colonel, chuckling. “Next time my nieces moan at me about nylon stockings I’ll tell them to apply to you.”

“Delighted,” murmured Hambledon.

“And what’s the gas inside it?”

“Hydrogen.”

“Oh. Very inflammable. Have to be careful with that stuff.”

“That’s why I proposed leaving it for a time,” said Tommy. “It’ll soon disperse.”

“Quite right. Quite right. Well, here we are, come in.”

The Colonel was now visible in detail as a big man with a bald head and a white moustache, and dressed in pyjamas and a Paisley-patterned dressing-gown. He urged them down a passage and into a lounge with the dying embers of a fire still glowing in the grate. Hambledon and Cobden went straight towards it and crouched down, rubbing their hands.

“You look perfectly blue with cold, let me put some more logs on. It will soon burn up. Tell you what, I’ll get a firelighter. Splendid things, firelighters.” He left the room.

“What do we do now?” whispered Cobden.

“Get warm,” answered Hambledon. “Gosh, I didn’t realise how cold I was.”

Colonel Waterbury returned, thrust a firelighter among the logs, lit it, and was rewarded by leaping flames. Hambledon said “Ah!” in a comforted voice and relaxed into a heap on the hearthrug.

“Spot of whisky?” said Waterbury.

“You ought to have been a doctor,” said Cobden. “You’d have been a world-famous Harley Street consultant.”

The Colonel laughed and took a decanter and glasses from a corner cupboard. “Soda? Or, I say, wouldn’t a drop of hot water do you more good? Yes, I shall prescribe it, that’s the word, isn’t it? Won’t take a minute, a kettle on that fire.” He hurried away.

“I’d rather have something to eat,” murmured Cobden.

“Consider the poor man’s rations.”

“Think he’s got any bread and dripping?”

Waterbury came back with a kettle in his hand, thrust it among the blazing logs, and said it wouldn’t take long, he’d filled it from the hot tap. “I gather you started from the Continent since you asked if you were in England. Where have you come from, Paris?”

“No,” said Hambledon. “Monte Carlo.”

“Monte? Monte Carlo? Not really? That’s a hell of a long way. How long did it take you?”

“Fifty-seven hours,” said Tommy, yawning. “I beg your pardon, so much fresh air. Very fresh. Yes, fifty-seven hours and eleven minutes to the moment when we touched down on your lawn. We left Monte at three in the afternoon two days ago, went up to three thousand two hundred and found a nice steady breeze, so we carried on at that level. As no doubt you know, Colonel, in ballooning the idea is to rise to a level where there’s——”

“I don’t know anything about ballooning,” said the Colonel, “but I should think you must be damned hungry.” Hambledon smiled. “I suppose you carried rations! Of course, and ate them up far too soon, I’ll bet. I’ll go and raid the larder——”

“No, Colonel, certainly not,” said Hambledon firmly. “We’re not going to eat your rations, we shouldn’t think of it. If you’d be so good as to direct us to the nearest hotel—incidentally, where are we?”

“At Agersfield, near Swaffham, in Norfolk. Rations my foot, there’s some cold partridge, nice plump birds though I shot them myself. You won’t get anything like that at the local pub, believe me, and anyway they’re all in bed hours ago. Look here, let me give you a shake-down here for to-night and I’ll drive you into Swaffham in the morning. You’re going to London, I suppose? Yes, I can drop you at the railway station. I’ve got to go in before ten, anyway, I’m on the Bench. The kettle’s boiling.”

They were refreshed, fed and warmed, and the Colonel’s kindly but open curiosity about them only added interest to a cheerful hour. He asked about ballooning and said it seemed very risky to him, suppose the wind changed and they were blown out into the Atlantic? He then abandoned a topic which he was plainly only pursuing out of politeness, and asked Cobden if he were any relation of the Cooksons of Malvern, particularly old George Cookson who had been a subaltern with him—Waterbury—in the Middlesex Regiment in ninety-seven and eight. Good fellow, old George, would have done well in the Army only, of course, his father died and he had to sell out and go home to look after the property. After which he turned upon Hambledon and asked if he were any connection of Bill Harrington who was killed in the South African War, his sister married that extraordinary Dago fellow who played the ’cello, they went to live in New York and had been lost sight of years ago. Hambledon said that he’d heard his father speak of a cousin Bill who was killed in South Africa, and added modestly that his late father, Erasmus Harrington, had been Professor of Archaeology at the Sorbonne. The Colonel nodded thoughtfully and said he believed he’d met the man once at a party in one of those big Kensington Palace Gardens houses in Bayswater Road. “Damned dull party, I remember. I only went there to meet a girl and then the hussy went off and married a Major in the Guards. Let’s have some port.”

After which the party became practically a family affair, and it was as in a dream that they went into the garden, folded up the now flaccid balloon into its basket and stowed it in a disused stable. Hambledon said that he would arrange to have it taken away in two or three days, and the Colonel told him to come and fetch it himself and stay longer next time. “Well, I hate to break up a jolly evening, but d’you know it’s past two? Haven’t been up so late since the last Reunion Dinner when some of us fellows went round to Fortescue’s rooms in Albany and yarned till the milkman came. I’ll put you in the spare room together, if you’ll forgive me, there are two beds in it and I know they’re aired. Not made up, or whatever they call it, though. You can manage with blankets, can’t you? You’ll be called at seven-thirty, breakfast eight-fifteen. Well, good night.”

Hambledon, his eyelids dropping with sleep, warmth and port, sat down at once and pulled his shoes off. Cobden watched him with surprise.

“Are you going to bed?”

“Of course I am. What else d’you suppose I’d do at this hour?”

“Get away. We’ll have five hours’ start before we’re missed.”

“Look here, Cobden, don’t be an ass, there’s a good fellow. We’re going to be seen off at the station in the morning by a pillar of the local magistracy who’s known our families for five generations and will tell everyone so. If the station platform’s crowded with police two-deep waiting for us they’ll only stand at attention and open the carriage door. Take the gifts the good gods send and sleep on a spring mattress for a change. We shall have to borrow razors in the morning. Turn out the light when you’re ready. G’night.”

“You know,” said Cobden in an almost awestruck tone, “you ought to be the con man, not me.” But Hambledon did not hear him, for he was asleep.

At Swaffham station next morning the Colonel insisted upon coming on the platform to see them off. Hambledon and Cobden bought first-class tickets for London, and passed the barrier in company with their escort who was kept busy exchanging greetings with practically everyone he met, including two police-constables in uniform. They were standing inside the barrier watching the people come and go; when they saw Colonel Waterbury they came to attention and saluted.

“Oh, hullo! Morning, Griggs. Morning, Simpson. What are you doing here?”

“On duty, sir.”

“So I see, but why?”

“Two convicts escaped last night, sir, we’ve had orders to look out for them.”

“What, those two from Northern Moors? Saw it in the paper. They won’t come here, man, why should they? They’re hiding in a haystack five miles from the jail, that’s where they are. Wasting your time.”

“We often do, sir.”

The Colonel laughed. “Used to it, eh? Well, I expect you have to be. Here’s your train, Harrington, dead on time for once. Look here, I haven’t got your address, or yours, Cookson.”

“The Royal Aero Club will find us,” said Tommy libellously. “Good-bye, and a thousand thanks——”

The Colonel waved his hat in farewell as the train pulled out, his pink bald head shining in the morning sun. Hambledon and Cobden settled down in the compartment they were lucky enough to have to themselves and laughed.

“Nice old boy,” said Cobden, “but what an obvious victim! The con man’s dream.”

“Now then, where’s this address I’ve got to find; Sixty-seven North End Road, Neasden, N.W. Doesn’t sound very aristocratic, does it?”

“What did you expect? A number in Park Lane?”

“You never know,” said Tommy. “You aren’t coming with me, are you?”

“I think not. There seems no point in our both going, and I might be more useful if they don’t know me. You can say I ran away, can’t you?”

“I shall say you baled out of the balloon half an hour before she grounded and I haven’t seen you since. In fact, I think we’d better not be together too long now, the next time this train stops one of us had better find another compartment. Where can I get in touch with you in Town?”

“I must find somewhere to live,” said Cobden. “We’d better not live at the same address, either, had we? No, I was afraid not. Then you’ll have to find somewhere to live, too. We’d better meet for dinner to-night, I think. There’s a restaurant called The Kobold at the top of Edgware Road—the Marble Arch end—about a hundred yards up on the west side. Lots of small tables. Meet you there at a quarter to seven?”

“I’ll be there, tide permitting,” said Hambledon. The train slowed down at a station, Cobden left the compartment and disappeared along the corridor, nor did Tommy catch even a glimpse of him at Liverpool Street.

Sixty-seven North End Road, Neasden, was a small newspaper and tobacco shop. The window was crowded with cigarette packets which were certainly dummies, a number of women’s weeklies of the cheaper sort and some children’s comic papers printed in two colours. On either side of the windowpane were a number of cards stuck inside the glass with bits of stamp paper; they were written in various hands and advertised Pram for Sale, Good Cheap; also Lodgings for Single Man; Lost, a Fur Tippet; Lost, A Tortoiseshell Kitten with white paws; Found, a Fur Lady’s Glove; Wanted, Cleaning Work Mornings Only; Wanted, a Baby’s Bath. Hambledon pushed open the door and in so doing rang a bell, he waited at the overcrowded counter till a harassed woman bustled in from a back room.

“Good afternoon,” said Hambledon. “I was told to call here and show you this.” He gave her the envelope with the pencilled address written across the back; she took it from him and looked at it carefully.

“Oh, yes,” she said, in a tone of elaborate unconcern, “I do b’lieve I’ve got a letter for you somewhere.” She dropped Hambledon’s envelope in her pocket, took from a drawer behind the counter another envelope, pale pink and flimsy, and gave it to him without looking at him. Hambledon took it, there was something stiff inside.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Thanking you,” she answered, still keeping her eyes down, nor did she look up until he had left the shop and shut the door behind him.

“Odd,” said Tommy to himself. “Now why?” Then it occurred to him that if she did not look at him attentively she could neither describe him nor, probably, recognise him again. A woman of experience, evidently. Safety first, and all that.

He waited until he was some distance away before he tore open the envelope and looked at its contents. There were two numbered tickets for stalls at the matinée showing of Gas and Gaiters at the Vavasour Cinema in Marjorie Street, Soho, and the date was the following day.

He showed the tickets to Cobden that evening. “I shall go,” said Tommy, “if only to see what they look like. I should probably get more æsthetic satisfaction in the monkey-house at the Zoo, but I may be wrong. Some golden-hearted film star, as beautiful as good, may be behind all this, though I doubt it.”

“So do I,” said Cobden. “They want their money back, that’s what they want.”

“They’ll be unlucky.”

“I’m coming too. No, not inside, I’ll leave that to you. I shall lurk in the offing for the satisfaction of seeing you come out again. Remember what I told you about my friend who was found shot? These animals are dangerous.”

“Not gentle folk, no,” said Hambledon.