Edgar Wallace - Blue Hand

“Nothing funny will happen to that machine of yours in the rain?”

“Oh no,” said Bronson. “I have put the sheet over the engines. I have frequently kept her out all night.”

Then you’re a bad man, thought Jim, to whom an aeroplane was a living, palpitating thing. So Eunice was there and they were going to take her by aeroplane somewhere. What should he do? There was time for him to go back to Rugby and inform the police, but—

“Where is Fuentes?” asked Bronson. “Mr. G. said he would be here.”

“He’s along the Rugby Road,” replied Villa. “I gave him a signal pistol to let us know in case they send a police-car after us. If you aren’t going to bed, Bronson, I will, and you can wait out here and keep your eye open for any danger.”

Fuentes was in it, too, and his plan to get back to Rugby would not work. Nevertheless, the watchful Fuentes had allowed Jim to pass, though it was likely that he was nearer to Rugby than the place where he had come out on to the road. They might not get the girl away on the machine in the darkness, but who knows what orders Digby Groat had left for her disposal in case a rescue was attempted? He decided to wait near, hoping against hope that a policeman cyclist would pass.

Villa struck a match to start a new cigar and in its light Jim had a momentary glimpse of the two men. Bronson was in regulation air-kit. A leather coat reached to his hips, his legs were encased in leather breeches and top-boots. He was about his height, Jim thought, as an idea took shape in his mind. What an end to that adventure! Jim came as near to being excited as ever he had been in his life.

Presently Villa yawned.

“I’m going to lie down in the passage, and if that dame comes out, she’s going to have a shock,” he said. “Good night. Wake me at half-past four.”

Bronson grunted something and continued his perambulations up and down the road. Ten minutes passed, a quarter of an hour, half an hour, and the only sound was the dripping of the rain from the trees, and the distant clatter and rumble of the trains as they passed through Rugby.

To the north were the white lights of the railway sidings and workshops; to the west, the faint glow in the sky marked the position of a town. Jim pulled his useless pistol from his pocket and stepped on to the roadway, crouching down, so that when he did rise, he seemed to the astonished Bronson to have sprung out of the ground. Something cold and hard was pushed under the spy’s nose.

“If you make a sound, you son of a thief!” said Jim, “I’ll blow your face off! Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” muttered the man, shivering with fright.

Jim’s left hand gripped his collar. The automatic pistol under his nose was all too obvious, and Felix Bronson, a fearful man for whom the air alone had no terror, was cowed and beaten.

“Where is the bus?” asked Jim in a whisper.

“In the field behind the house,” the man answered in the same tone. “What are you going to do? Who are you? How did you get past—”

“Don’t ask so many questions,” said Jim; “lead the way—not that way,” as the man turned to pass the house.

“I shall have to climb the fence if I don’t go that way,” said Bronson sullenly.

“Then climb it.” said Jim, “it will do you good, you lazy devil!”

They walked across the field, and presently Jim saw a graceful outline against the dark sky.

“Now take off your clothes,” he said peremptorily.

“What do you mean?” demanded the startled Bronson. “I can’t undress here!”

“I’m sorry to shock your modesty, but that is just what you are going to do,” said Jim; “and it will be easier to undress you alive than to undress you dead, as I know from my sorrowful experience in France.”

Reluctantly Bronson stripped his leather coat.

“Don’t drop it on the grass,” said Jim, “I want something dry to wear.”

In the darkness Bronson utilized an opportunity that he had already considered. His hand stole stealthily to the hip-pocket of his leather breeches, but before it closed on its objective Jim had gripped it and spun him round, for Jim possessed other qualities of the cat besides its lives.

“Let me see that lethal weapon. Good,” said Jim, and flung his own to the grass. “I am afraid mine is slightly damaged, but I’ll swear that yours is in good trim. Now, off with those leggings and boots.”

“I shall catch my death of cold.” Bronson’s teeth were chattering.

“In which case,” said the sardonic Jim, “I shall send a wreath; but I fear you are not born to die of cold in the head, but of a short sharp jerk to your cervical vertebra.”

“What is that?” asked Bronson.

“It is German for neck,” said Jim, “and if you think I am going to stand here giving you lectures on anatomy whilst you deliver the goods, you have made a mistake—strip!”

CHAPTER FORTY

UNDER menace of Jim Steele’s pistol, Mr. Bronson stripped and shivered. The morning was raw, and the clothes that Jim in his mercy handed to the man to change were not very dry. Bronson said as much, but evoked no sympathy from Jim. He stood shivering and shaking in the wet clothes, whilst his captor strapped his wrists behind.

“Just like they do when they hang you,” said Jim to cheer him up. “Now, my lad, I think this handkerchief round your mouth and a nearly dry spot under a hedge is all that is required to make the end of a perfect night.”

“You’re damned funny,” growled Bronson in a fury, “but one of these days—”

“Don’t make me sing,” said Jim, “or you’ll be sorry.”

He found him a spot under a hedge, which was fairly dry and sheltered from observation, and there he entertained his guest until the grey in the sky warned him that it was time to wake Villa.

Mr. Villa woke with a curse.

“Come in and have some cocoa.”

“Bring it out here,” said Jim. He heard the man fumbling with the lock of the door and raised his pistol.

Something inside Jim Steele whispered: “Put that pistol away,” and he obeyed the impulse, as with profit he had obeyed a hundred others.

Men who fight in the air and who win their battles in the great spaces of the heavens are favoured with instincts which are denied to the other mortals who walk the earth.

He had time to slip the pistol in his pocket and pull the goggles down over his eyes before the door opened and Villa sleepily surveyed him in the half-light.

“Hullo, you’re ready to fly, are you?” he said with a guffaw. “Well, I shan’t keep you long.”

Jim strolled away from the house, pacing the road as Bronson had done the night before.

What had made him put the pistol away? he wondered. He took it out furtively and slipped the cover. It was unloaded!

He heard the man calling.

“Put it down,” he said, when he saw the cup in his hand.

He drank the cocoa at a gulp, and making his way across the field to the aeroplane he pulled on the waterproof cover, tested the engine and pulled over the prop.

Eunice had swallowed the hot cocoa and was waiting when Villa came in. What the day would bring forth she could only guess. Evidently there was some reason why Digby Groat should not wait for her, and amongst the many theories she had formed was one that he had gone on in order to lead his pursuers from her track. She felt better now than she had done since she left the house in Grosvenor Square, for the effect of the drug had completely gone, save for a tiredness which made walking a wearisome business. Her mind was clear, and the demoralizing tearfulness which the presence of Digby evoked had altogether dissipated.

“Now, young miss, are you ready?” asked Villa. He was, at any rate. He wore a heavy coat and upon his head was a skin cap. This, with his hairy face and his broad stumpy figure, gave him the appearance of a Russian in winter attire. Why did he wrap himself up so on a warm morning? she wondered. He carried another heavy coat in his hand and held it up for her to put on.