Dennis Wheatley - The White Witch of the South Seas

Later that afternoon a Juge d'Instruction questioned both of them. Gregory again gave the true story, but James, as instructed, refused to talk. Back in his cell, Gregory could now only wait and hope that Ribaud would succeed in arranging their escape without compromising himself, and that they would get away safely.

At ten o'clock that night an Inspector whom Gregory had not previously seen came to his cell and said abruptly, `Now that you have been committed to trial, in accordance with usual practice, we are transferring you from this headquarters to the prison. Come along now.'

In an outer office Gregory found James, already handcuffed to one gendarme. He was handcuffed to another, then the Inspector led the way out to a large car. The gendarmes and their prisoners got into the back, the Inspector took his seat beside the driver, and the car moved off.

They had covered about a mile and were passing through a slum quarter when a lorry emerged without warning from a side turning. Their driver sounded his klaxon, then gave a shout. Next moment the police car hit the lorry amidships and, with a grinding crash, came to a halt. This, Gregory instantly realised, was it.

Even before the gendarme to whom he was handcuffed had said in a swift whisper, `Out you get and pull me after you,' he had his free hand on the handle of the door. Turning his head, he shouted to James, `Get out. Pick up your man and carry him if necessary. Then follow me.'

Pandemonium followed. The lorry driver, the Inspector and his men were all shouting. Gregory was no sooner in the road with his gendarme staggering after him than the man said, `Quick; down that alley opposite:

Gregory dived into it, dragging the gendarme, who put up only a token resistance, after him. James was hard on their heels, the gendarme to whom he was handcuffed slung over his shoulder. The Inspector had jumped from the car and drawn his pistol. Had the escape been unplanned, he might well have hesitated before firing at the fugitives, for fear of hitting one of his men. To the few onlookers who were about, he appeared to chance that, but actually sent three bullets swishing over their heads.

The end of the alley was crossed by another. `Turn right, then left,' gasped the man Gregory was dragging along. It was dark there and as they pulled up, the gendarme said with a laugh, `You boys in the Deuxième

Bureau certainly lead exciting lives.!

'So that's who old Ribaud has said we are,' Gregory thought gleefully. `Damned clever of him.' By then his companion had got from his pocket the key of the handcuffs. As he unlocked himself from Gregory, he said, `You and your big friend are supposed to have knocked us out. Run on for a hundred yards and you'll find a car a blue Citroen. It will take you where you are to go.'

Having said that, he knocked his forehead against a nearby wall, so that the skin was torn and began to bleed a little, then lowered himself to the ground. James, meanwhile, had set down his gendarme and had his handcuffs unlocked. After a hasty word of thanks to the men who had helped them escape, they ran side by side down the alley. At its end they found the Citroen. A man in plain clothes was sitting at the wheel. As they came pounding up, he threw open the rear door. They scrambled in and Gregory slammed the door behind him. Without a word the driver let in the clutch. Still maintaining silence, he twisted his way through several short, mean streets, then, by way of a long, straggling suburb, to the low land behind the town.

By then the moon had risen and by its light there could be seen a row of low hangars and a building surmounted by a squat tower. It was the Magenta airport. The driver did not take them to the office but pulled up a hundred yards short of it. Putting his finger to his lips to enjoin continued silence, he got out and led them across the grass to the end of the line of hangars, signed to them to go round to the front, whispered 'Bonne chance', then turned and hurried back to his car.

Walking cautiously round the corner, they saw that a small aircraft was standing in front of one of the hangars. Beside it there were two men quietly talking. On seeing Gregory and James they stopped and waved a greeting. One was dressed in pilot's kit, the other was an Army officer.

`Messieurs,' said the officer, whom Gregory now saw to be a Major, `you will appreciate that the fewer people who see you leave, the better. Be pleased to go aboard before I summon the ground staff.'

The plane was a four seater reconnaissance aircraft. As James and Gregory settled themselves in the rear seats, the latter asked, 'What about our baggage. Is it here?'

The Major shook his head. `No. Were you expecting it to be? If so, I am sorry; but I was told nothing of this. And we cannot delay. You must leave without it.'

Gregory was annoyed, as to land in Tujoa without his passport, his clothes and other belongings, was going to cause him considerable inconvenience. But he felt that in all other respects, Ribaud had planned their get away so efficiently that he could not he greatly blamed for this one oversight.

The Major blew a whistle, then got in beside the pilot. Vaguely seen figures of ground crew moved round the aircraft, the propellers began to turn, she glided down the runway, halted while the engines revved up, then took off.

The tension in case some hitch occurred to prevent their escape had been so considerable that neither of the passengers felt like sleep, and for Gregory the flight proved a fascinating one. Since the war, nearly all his air travel had been in jets, flying at a height of many thousand feet, whereas the small prop plane was travelling at an altitude of only about two thousand.

As the nearly full moon gradually mounted higher in the sky, he could see the scene below quite clearly. Rarely for long were they out of sight of one of the innumerable islands that in the South Pacific seem almost as numerous as the stars overhead. The majority were no more than atolls set in a blue black sea that, here and there, broke in white foam on these coral strands. But when they passed over some of the larger islands in the Loyalty Group, mountains, rivers and little clusters of white buildings could be made out.

After an hour or so he began to tire of sitting at an angle peering down, and his thoughts turned to speculation on the situation they would find in Tujoa. Lacost and his friends had had two clear months in which to work. It seemed as good as certain that their salvaging apparatus would have reached the island many weeks ago. But they had no licence, so it seemed probable that the French Resident on Tujoa would have prevented them from starting operations. Would Lacost have ignored the ban and endeavoured to salvage the treasure clandestinely on moonlit nights or, as de Carvalho apparently thought he would, got fed up and thrown in his hand?

And de Carvalho? Having sailed from Noumea ten days previously, he could have been in Fiji for the past week. Was he idling his time away in Suva or had he decided that the time had come to go to Tujoa and find out how the land lay there?

Thinking of Fiji brought `Gregory's thoughts to Manon. What would she be doing now? The story of James' attack on de Carvalho would for certain have been reported in the New Caledonian papers, and their escape afterwards. As James was a Ratu and the hereditary High Chief of the Nakapoa Group, it was a news item that would have been printed in the Fij Times, so Manon must have learned of it. But, as they had taken to sea in a small launch and she had heard nothing from him for over two months, the odds were that she would assume James and himself to have been drowned.

Cynically, Gregory decided that by this time she would be consoling herself with another lover. The thought did not distress him, because he had never loved her. Love for him meant Erika, and only Erika. Other affaires were just fun, to be enjoyed as long as his virility remained. And Manon had been fun: a superb bedfellow, instinctively capable of providing as many amorous delights as if she had been a star pupil in a brothel and, to boot a highly intelligent companion. In his mind's eye he could see her now: no true beauty, owing to her receding chin, overlarge mouth and sallow skin; but the skin of her body was satin to the touch, her figure that of a dryad, her commonsense refreshing and her laughter infectious. He decided that, as soon as the situation on Tujoa was cleared up, he would return to Fiji and seek her out. He felt fairly confident that if she had taken another lover he would find a way to induce her to give him up and again become his mistress. To spend further nights with her would be well worth taking quite a lot of trouble.