Dennis Wheatley - Contraband

The girl proved a poor audience. She was a dull creature and her share in the conversation was limited to polite meaningless expressions and a series of nods.

When the topic of their holiday was exhausted Gregory asked permission to remove the bottle to a table in the far corner and, with Rudd, parked himself at it.

So far he had purposely refrained from even glancing at the other visitors; giving them ample time to accept this invasion of their haunt by strangers. They had settled down again now after having listened with one ear to the story he had told the girl behind the bar.

When he had seated himself in the corner with his back to the wall, so that he could survey the whole of the low raftered room, he scrutinised each figure in turn while keeping up a desultory conversation with Rudd. He carefully hid his satisfaction as he noticed that one of the three men who were talking at a table near the doorway was the dark, curly haired young thug who had thrown a knife at him a few nights before in Trouville. Mr. Corot of the telegram, Gregory decided to assume for the moment.

Pulling his raincoat up round his ears, and his hat down over his eyes, he shifted his chair a little so that Rudd should come between him and the Frenchman in case the fellow happened to glance round. He had no desire at all to be recognised at the moment.

At a little before eleven the domino party broke up and the players left the estaminet. Only five others, including the curly headed knife thrower, now remained, and they were all seated together. Gregory and Rudd were halfway through the litre bottle of brandy. It was cheap, fiery stuff, but both of them possessed heads like rocks and if they had ceased drinking Gregory knew they would soon be informed that they had outstayed their welcome.

They talked together in English but avoided all mention of the real reason for their presence at the cafe in case 'Corot' or one of his friends should understand the language.

It was a dreary business waiting there for they did not know quite what, but something to happen, and Gregory was thankful when, at about a quarter past eleven 'Corot' stood up, obviously summoned by a few musical notes upon a motor horn, twice repeated, from a spot not far distant on the road outside.

As he left the inn the notes on the motor horn were sounded again with evident impatience which gave Gregory the opportunity to say casually to the girl behind the bar, 'I wonder if that's our friend, poor old Brown, who's found our ditched car at last and is wondering what's happened to us. As he wouldn't know we're here I think we'd better go and see.'

He pulled out a note and paid the bill in a leisurely way, treating the girl to some cheerful half tipsy badinage before he left, in order to avoid the appearance of deliberately following the other man.

It was Rudd who, fearing that they would miss the fellow in the darkness unless they left without further delay, muttered something about 'not keeping old Brown waiting any longer', and pulling Gregory by the arm led him outside.

'Good lad,' muttered Gregory directly they were clear of the cafe. 'We managed that exit splendidly. Now, where's our curly haired assassin got to?'

They could not see the man but fifty yards down the road stood a car. Keeping in the shadows they made their way along the side of the estaminet and then by a wide detour through an adjoining field until they came opposite the place where it stood in the roadway.

Like the majority of French roads, there was no hedge separating it from the field, behind which they could shelter, but only a ditch, so they had to get down on their hands and knees and crawl the last twenty yards to avoid being seen against the skyline.

The car was a powerful limousine and 'Corot' was standing by its doorway on the side nearest the ditch. A faint light lit the interior of the car and Gregory smiled in the darkness as he recognised the small hunched figure on the back seat. Then he caught his breath for beyond Lord Gavin sat Sabine; looking even more beautiful than his memory of her. He grasped Rudd's arm and pressed it.

'Take a good look at the old boy,' he whispered. 'That's the fellow we're after; Lord Gavin Fortescue's his name. Looks like an archbishop, doesn't he, but he probably deserves to die kicking at the end of a rope more than any man in Europe. Think you'd know him again?'

'Sure thing, sir,' Rudd whispered back. 'Looks like a monkey on a stick ter me, but 'e's got a distinguished sort of dial I will say. And ain't his girl friend a bit of orlright.'

Lord Gavin was talking in a quick low voice to 'Corot'. The watchers could not catch his words but they saw him pass over a sheaf of papers.

The handsome knife thrower touched his checked cap; then closed the car door and it was driven away at a high speed towards Boulogne.

For a second Gregory considered attacking the thug for the purpose of seizing the papers he had just received from Lord Gavin, but the chances were that, if they set on him, his shouts would bring his four friends tumbling out of the cafe before they could master him and get away. In any case, Gregory decided, more valuable information would probably be obtained by remaining under cover for the time being and following the man to see where he went.

'Corot' only waited long enough for the dust, thrown up by the car, to disperse, then he returned to the estaminet; but only to poke his head inside the door.

A moment later, the four others joined him outside and, as the whole party set off together up the road, Gregory saw that all five of them were now carrying things that looked like fat cylinders or oil drums, slung across their backs.

He gave them a few minutes' start; then followed. It was easy to keep the group in view as the road switched backed towards the rising ground and on each low crest they stood out plainly silhouetted against the starlit sky. After a mile they left the main road and took a track leading in the direction of the coast. Along this Gregory and Rudd had more difficulty in keeping sight of them as it wound in and out among the dips and hillocks of the deserted down land.

No lights were to be seen in any direction and Gregory knew that they were now well inside that desolate windswept triangle, entirely lacking in roads and villages, which lies between the three points; Boulogne, Calais and Cape Gris Nez.

A good two miles were covered, then the Frenchmen turned in the direction of Boulogne again, leaving the track to trudge over the short coarse grass. There was little cover in this open country which made the shadowing of them more difficult. Gregory had to drop much further behind, allowing them time to mount each gentle slope and disappear into the next shallow valley before he and Rudd dared to move on again, in case one of them should turn suddenly and realise that they were being followed.

Twice Gregory lost his quarry for a moment "but on each occasion he managed to pick them up again because, all unsuspicious, they were laughing and talking as they walked, and their voices carried clearly on the light airs of the still warm night.

They had long since left behind the last twinkling lights of Calais Town. It was over an hour since they had left the inn and in all that time they had not passed a single farmstead or seen a human being. As the slopes began to rise more steeply Gregory realised that they were moving towards the high ground which dominates that uninhabited area and is known as Mont Couple.

The group in front suddenly fell silent and must have turned off in a new direction for Gregory lost the shadowy blur of their moving figures in the semidarkness for the third time, and now, although he chanced discovery by trotting forward a hundred yards he failed to regain touch with them.