Читать книгу The Flying Squad - Edgar Wallace - Страница 10

Table of Contents

SHE made her way down to the garage, put on the lights and examined the petrol tank before she threw open the doors and, knocking away the chocks, let the car roll of its own volition down the gentle incline to the mews. She closed the doors and took one quick survey left and right. There were two ways out, that which led into New Cavendish Street and that to the street that ran parallel. She decided on the latter route, sent the car quickly over the uneven paving of the mews, turned back to Portland Place and ran steadily and without check into Regent's Park.

She followed the Outer Circle, making the widest detour, until she came to Avenue Road, and a few minutes later she was speeding up Fitzjohn's Avenue to the Heath. The straight road to Oxford, which would take her through Maidenhead and Henley, she avoided, and came by a little- used road to Beaconsfield and Marlow.

Henley was more difficult to avoid. She ran through the wide main street at a leisurely pace, and, as she believed, unobserved; had reached the foot of the long, wide, tree-lined Oxford Road, when she heard a voice shout at her. She turned her head quickly. Drawn up in a side lane was a big car, its lights burning dimly. She saw three men standing at the end of the lane rush for the machine as another jumped towards her footboard.

He missed, and almost at the same moment she saw the other car swing out of the lane and the men who formed its crew scramble aboard. She stepped on the accelerator and the machine leapt forward. There was need for haste. Somebody in the pursuing car was signalling with a red lamp to "stop." Police obviously—she knew by its drone the new type of car they were using.

She had a clear road and only one crossing to chance—she came in sight of this at eighty miles an hour, She ignored the frantically waving danger lamp and flashed across the bonnet of a swift Rolls that was coming at right angles with not more than a foot to spare. Behind the Rolls she saw, out of the tail of her eye, the flickering lights of a big lorry—that would block pursuit for a minute. The mirror fixed at the side of the windscreen showed her the lights of the police car (now ablaze) swerving—skidding, probably, under a sudden application of brakes. A distant "plop"—a burst tyre; nothing else could make that sound.

Now she had careened round a sharp bend of the road. Half a mile away were two rows of cottages flanking the road, and she knew that beyond there was a crossing, and in the daytime a policeman. Short of the cottages a side road ran northward, and this was only safe if she could negotiate the little village which she knew lay midway. She always thought of this village as a bead through which ran the narrowest of threads. Her speedometer was down to forty-five, and, looking back, she could see or hear nothing, though she might well be deceived, for the narrow road twisted and turned. Here was the village ahead of her—she dropped to twenty.

Yet another policeman appeared out of the darkness—a mounted man, whose horse grew restless in the glare of her head-lamps. He had heard nothing apparently—and waved her on. And then she heard the shrill of his whistle and increased her speed. On the farther edge of the village the road ran straight and the surface had been recently made up. She stepped on the pedal and hew. It was pitch dark the lamps turned the road and the fringing hedge into a lane of gold.

There was a bridge over a deep stream. She slowed for the hump of it; and then, right ahead of her, she saw two blazing lights appear, and above these the little green lamp which advertised the profession of its passengers.

She had to decide quickly. There was no room to turn the machine —if that mounted policeman's whistle meant anything, it meant that she was being followed and that he had received some signal to hold her. She knew that the Buckinghamshire police had a code of rocket signals to meet the depredations of motor bandits.

Switching off her lights, she stopped the car dead on the crest of the bridge, took out the package she was carrying, and, peering into the night, flung it into the swollen river. Then, restarting the car, she went on at her leisure.

The car coming towards her was moving as slowly and keeping to the crown of the road. Turning her head-lamps on full, she sounded her klaxon, but the machine ahead did not budge. There was nothing to do but to stop. Both cars halted together, their bonnets within a few inches one of the other. She saw two men approach and come running towards her, and heard a hated voice.

"Why, if it isn't Miss Perryman!"

He could not have recognised her, and his simulated surprise was all the more offensive.

"You slipped us rather nicely, and I'm afraid there's going to be a little trouble."

It was the voice of Sergeant Simmonds.

"Now, young lady, perhaps you'll explain what you mean by driving to the common danger?"

The stout man with his bristling moustache she had not met since the day he brought her the dreadful news of Ronnie's end.

"I'm not aware that I was so driving," was her answer.

He snorted at this.

"You're under arrest," he said gruffly, and called one of his men to take charge of her car. "Get down, please."

He gripped her firmly by the arm, and she went hot with fury.

"Let me go! There's no need to hold my arm."

She struggled to free herself, and he released her. But she was now visible in the light of the electric lamps that were focussed on her.

"Get into that car." He pushed her into the tender, sat on one side of her and another detective on the other.

The man who had taken charge of her machine backed it almost into the hedge to give them a dear passage. As they passed, Simmonds shouted:

"Bring that car back to the station-yard. I want it searched thoroughly."

Mr. Simmonds's manner changed once they were on the way to London.

"A sensible young lady like you ought not to give the police all this trouble, Miss Perryman," he said reproachfully. "You might have killed somebody running your car at that rate! I don't suppose you knew what you were doing, or else you've been led into this by others."

A very sententious man was Sergeant Simmonds of the bristling moustache; but he was not a good actor. He was in truth the most obvious of kidders.

"You tell me where you were going and all about your little game. Miss Perryman, and I'll make things easy for you. I'm going to mention no names, but I know you're doing something which you wouldn't do if you knew what it was you were doing."

"That sounds rather involved," she said coldly, and he chuckled in the most genial manner.

"Ah, I haven't had your education. Miss Perryman! You know, a young lady like you oughtn't to be running around the country at this time of night; you're liable to meet all sorts of unpleasant people—"

"I have," she said grimly, and this time he was really amused.

"Sharp, eh, Walters?" He addressed the other detective. "Like a needle! We're not so bad, Miss Perryman—we're doing our duty. We're here for the protection of the citizen, his life, property and personal belongings. A lady like you ought to give us all the help you can, instead of—"

"What law have I broken?"

Mr. Simmonds considered this. "Well, you've driven to the common danger for one thing," and she smiled contemptuously in the darkness.

"It is a little difficult to prove, isn't it? I don't remember a case of a driver being summoned for speeding at night."

Sergeant Simmonds was well aware of his difficulty. Magistrates are chary of accepting evidence of identification. Cars on that part of the road where she had been chased were fairly frequent and difficult to identify; besides which, she was coming in the opposite direction to that she had been following when he had chased her.

"That won't be any trouble," he said, with spurious confidence. "But I don't want to charge you with anything. All I want is five minutes' talk with you. Just tell me who you were going to meet and what you had to deliver, like a sensible young lady, and you'll never see the inside of a police court." He added under his breath: "Except to give evidence."

Ann was unimpressed.

"I don't know what you're talking about—you've certainly no right to cross-examine me. You're not beating me, are you?" she demanded sarcastically.

Sergeant Simmonds emitted sounds of protest.

She answered no further questions, and after a while Simmonds sank back into the corner of the car and dozed for the remainder of the journey to London.

They took her to the little police station which lies in Scotland Yard. Ten minutes later a cell door clanged upon her.