Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

The torch hit my face, and the idea hit my mind, one after the other-right-left-bang! Between them I lost my head. Instead of saying “Good evening, constable,” and behaving as if I’d every right to be there I was, I gave the whole show away by taking to my heels and bolting up Olding Crescent.

I heard the policeman’s whistle go behind me, and I thought I’d never heard such a beastly row in my life; it sounded as if it would wake the dead. But it didn’t wake those dark houses on the other side. They stayed in their black silence; not a blind moved, not a window opened, not a spark of light showed in the whole grim crescent.

I kept in under the trees. After the first start I took it fairly easy. I used to be able to touch two minutes for the half mile, so I wasn’t really worrying about any policeman. I aimed at getting round the corner and cutting up the first side road. The minute I began to run, I felt quite happy and confident again.

It’s rather odd how you can think of two things at once. I had my eye on the corner of Churt Row, and my ears cocked for the sound of the bobby behind me; and at the same time I was most awfully taken up with the question of whether Arbuthnot Markham was, or wasn’t, Fosicker. I can’t think why I should have bothered about it, but I did. All the time that I was running, I was trying to make up my mind.

First of all I thought he was speaking the truth. And then I wondered why he had talked about Fosicker at all, out there in a dark shrubbery with at least the possibility that some one might be near enough to overhear what he was saying. Anna had seen a match struck, and he had come out with a torch to see who was there, and on the top of that he had gone out of his way to talk about not being Fosicker. All at once it came to me that the beam from his torch had struck through a gap in my cypress bush and hit me in the face. It was quite a little gap, and I thought he hadn’t seen me; but now I wondered whether he had.

I didn’t think all this in words; it just came in my mind, like a picture comes in water. And then something broke the whole thing up, as you break a reflection when you pitch a stone into the middle of it. The policeman behind me blew his whistle again-he was a long way behind-and just round the corner of Churt Row another whistle answered it, and, blip round the corner, there came policeman number two, running for all he was worth.

I stopped bothering about Arbuthnot Markham. The second policeman was only about thirty yards away. I thought about tackling him low; but if he managed to get a grip of me anywhere, the other man would have time to come up. I only had a second to make up my mind. Just ahead the trees hung so low that they would only just clear me. I ran up close to the wall and felt above my head for a sizeable branch. As luck would have it, my hands closed on a limb as thick as my wrist. I pulled on it and brought a larger branch within reach, and, scuffling, scraping and sliding, I went up the wall.

I was nearly up, when I remembered the chevaux dé frise on the top. It was a perfect beast to negotiate, but the tree stood my friend and saw me through. I got hold of a higher branch, swung myself over, and dropped.

Just as I let go, two torches flashed up their light from below, and two hearty police voices shouted to me to come down out of it. I came down with a thud-but not on their side of the wall.

It was good soft falling-leaf-mold a foot deep-and I was up in a moment. I didn’t think they’d try to climb the wall. I shouldn’t have liked to take it on myself in a heavy tunic, or in cold blood. They’d have to go back to the gate, and my idea was to cut across the garden, climb the wall anywhere I could, and get away. I didn’t know, of course, whether there was a road on the other side of the garden, or the grounds of a house; but it didn’t really matter.

I pushed through the shrubbery, got out on to a lawn, and started to run across it. Away from the trees it wasn’t so dark. There was no actual light; but the sky wasn’t black, and the trees were, so I could get my direction. All at once something was right in front of me. I put out my hands just in time to save myself from running headlong into a holly hedge. As it was, I got scratched.

My luck seemed to have broken down-for I defy any one to climb a holly hedge. I had to decide which way I would go. If I followed the hedge to the left, it might run along between me and the wall as far as the corner of Churt Row or farther, in which case I should be dished. I couldn’t risk it. I turned to the right and ran along the hedge in the direction of the house-at least that’s the way I figured it out.

I ran for a bit, and then slowed to a walk and listened. I could hear some one tramping about down in the direction of the gate, and I could see an occasional lash from his torch. I thought there was only one man looking for me, which meant that the other was up the Crescent or watching the gate. I was getting my wind back nicely, but I was worried about my clothes. I felt pretty sure I must be horribly begrimed, and I knew I was bleeding from a scratch on the hand, and that my right trouser leg was torn below the knee. I was going to be a fairly conspicuous object whenever I emerged into the light.

The holly hedge ran on to the end of the lawn. My feet left the grass and scrunched on gravel. The hedge went on on my left. It came to a stop about twenty yards farther, at the entrance of a stable yard. There was an open arch, and then I was on cobble-stones old enough to be worn almost smooth. I couldn’t see anything in front of me, but there was the feeling of a closed-in space and a smell of petrol.

I stood still, because something told me to stand still. And then, without any warning, the headlight of a car sent two brilliant shafts across my path.

I stood just where I was. The nearer of the two dazzling lanes of light was about four yards away. I could see shadows round all the cobble-stones on the farther side of the yard; the shadows were as black as spilled ink. I could see the lanes of light, but I couldn’t see the car from whose headlights they sprang. I couldn’t see it, because the wide, dark screen of the open garage door cut off my view.

As soon as I saw that, I moved as silently as I could, until I was standing right against the open door and behind it. Then I had another look.

I had altered my position for the worse as far as seeing anything was concerned. The door made a right angle with the front of the garage. I stood behind the edge of it, and didn’t dare put my head round to see what was on the other side. All I could see was the bright misty dazzle and a lot of cobble-stones, with a dim impression of the wall and the arch through which I had come.

On the other side of the door some one was trying to start up the car, and when the self-starter had buzzed and failed for the third time, I heard him swear vigorously, and I recognized Arbuthnot Markham.

I don’t like a man who swears at his horse or his car. The thing he is swearing about is pretty nearly always his own fault. The way Arbuthnot took it out of his battery made me put him down as a pig-headed ass, but after a bit he got out and cranked her by hand. When he had got her running, he walked across the yard and came back with a suit-case in his hand. That made me sit up and take notice. He’d pressed Anna to stay and made an appointment to meet her at Croydon Aerodrome at three next day, and here he was, starting up his car and ramming suit-cases into it in the deuce of a hurry at somewhere about one in the morning. If it was one, it was to-day that he was going to meet Anna; but I wanted to know why he should be pushing off about ten hours too soon.

He opened the back door on the farther side, threw the suit-case in, and went back again across the yard. By this time I knew what I wanted. I wanted a lift down the drive and out of the gate past the police. I had to think quickly and take a bit of a risk.