If they once reached Sir James Peel Edgerton in safety, all would be well. But would they reach him? Would not the silent forces of Mr Brown already be assembling against them? Even that last picture of Tommy, revolver in hand, failed to comfort her. By now he might be overpowered, borne down by sheer force of numbers … Tuppence mapped out her plan of campaign.
As the train at length drew slowly into Charing Cross, Jane Finn sat up with a start.
‘Have we arrived? I never thought we should!’
‘Oh, I thought we’d get to London all right. If there’s going to be any fun, now is when it will begin. Quick, get out. We’ll nip into a taxi.’
In another minute they were passing the barrier, had paid the necessary fares, and were stepping into a taxi.
‘King’s Cross,’ directed Tuppence. Then she gave a jump. A man looked in at the window, just as they started. She was almost certain it was the same man who had got into the carriage next to them. She had a horrible feeling of being slowly hemmed in on every side.
‘You see,’ she explained to Jane, ‘if they think we’re going to Sir James, this will put them off the scent. Now they’ll imagine we’re going to Mr Carter. His country place is north of London somewhere.’
Crossing Holborn there was a block, and the taxi was held up. This was what Tuppence had been waiting for.
‘Quick,’ she whispered. ‘Open the right-hand door!’
The two girls stepped out into the traffic. Two minutes later they were seated in another taxi and were retracing their steps, this time direct to Carlton House Terrace.
‘There,’ said Tuppence, with great satisfaction, ‘this ought to do them. I can’t help thinking that I’m really rather clever! How that other taxi man will swear! But I took his number, and I’ll send him a postal order tomorrow, so that he won’t lose by it if he happens to be genuine. What’s this thing swerving – Oh!’
There was a grinding noise and a bump. Another taxi had collided with them.
In a flash Tuppence was out on the pavement. A policeman was approaching. Before he arrived Tuppence had handed the driver five shillings, and she and Jane had merged themselves in the crowd.
‘It’s only a step or two now,’ said Tuppence breathlessly. The accident had taken place in Trafalgar Square.
‘Do you think the collision was an accident, or done deliberately?’
‘I don’t know. It might have been either.’
Hand-in-hand, the two girls hurried along.
‘It may be my fancy,’ said Tuppence suddenly, ‘but I feel as though there was someone behind us.’
‘Hurry!’ murmured the other. ‘Oh, hurry!’
They were now at the corner of Carlton House Terrace, and their spirits lightened. Suddenly a large and apparently intoxicated man barred their way.
‘Good evening, ladies,’ he hiccupped. ‘Whither away so fast?’
‘Let us pass, please,’ said Tuppence imperiously.
‘Just a word with your pretty friend here.’ He stretched out an unsteady hand, and clutched Jane by the shoulder. Tuppence heard other footsteps behind. She did not pause to ascertain whether they were friends or foes. Lowering her head, she repeated a manœuvre of childish days, and butted their aggressor full in the capacious middle. The success of these unsportsmanlike tactics was immediate. The man sat down abruptly on the pavement. Tuppence and Jane took to their heels. The house they sought was some way down. Other footsteps echoed behind them. Their breath was coming in choking gasps as they reached Sir James’s door. Tuppence seized the bell and Jane the knocker.
The man who had stopped them reached the foot of the steps. For a moment he hesitated, and as he did so the door opened. They fell into the hall together. Sir James came forward from the library door.
‘Hullo! What’s this?’
He stepped forward and put his arm round Jane as she swayed uncertainly. He half carried her into the library, and laid her on the leather couch. From a tantalus on the table he poured out a few drops of brandy, and forced her to drink them. With a sigh she sat up, her eyes still wild and frightened.
‘It’s all right. Don’t be afraid, my child. You’re quite safe.’
Her breath came more normally, and the colour was returning to her cheeks. Sir James looked at Tuppence quizzically.
‘So you’re not dead, Miss Tuppence, any more than that Tommy boy of yours was!’
‘The Young Adventures take a lot of killing,’ boasted Tuppence.
‘So it seems,’ said Sir James dryly. ‘Am I right in thinking that the joint venture has ended in success, and that this’ – he turned to the girl on the couch – ‘is Miss Jane Finn?’
Jane sat up.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, ‘I am Jane Finn. I have a lot to tell you.’
‘When you are stronger –’
‘No – now!’ Her voice rose a little. ‘I shall feel safer when I have told everything.’
‘As you please,’ said the lawyer.
He sat down in one of the big arm-chairs facing the couch. In a low voice Jane began her story.
‘I came over on the Lusitania to take up a post in Paris. I was fearfully keen about the war, and just dying to help somehow or other. I had been studying French, and my teacher said they were wanting help in a hospital in Paris, so I wrote and offered my services, and they were accepted. I hadn’t got any folk of my own, so it made it easy to arrange things.
‘When the Lusitania was torpedoed, a man came up to me. I’d noticed him more than once – and I’d figured it out in my own mind that he was afraid of somebody or something. He asked me if I was a patriotic American, and told me he was carrying papers which were just life or death to the Allies. He asked me to take charge of them. I was to watch for an advertisement in The Times. If it didn’t appear, I was to take them to the American Ambassador.
‘Most of what followed seems like a nightmare still. I see it in my dreams sometimes … I’ll hurry over that part. Mr Danvers had told me to watch out. He might have been shadowed from New York, but he didn’t think so. At first I had no suspicions, but on the boat to Holyhead I began to get uneasy. There was one woman who had been very keen to look after me, and chum up with me generally – a Mrs Vandemeyer. At first I’d been only grateful to her for being so kind to me; but all the time I felt there was something about her I didn’t like, and on the Irish boat I saw her talking to some queer-looking men, and from the way they looked I saw that they were talking about me. I remembered that she’d been quite near me on the Lusitania when Mr Danvers gave me the packet, and before that she’d tried to talk to him once or twice. I began to get scared, but I didn’t quite see what to do.
‘I had a wild idea of stopping at Holyhead, and not going on to London that day, but I soon saw that would be plumb foolishness. The only thing was to act as though I’d noticed nothing, and hope for the best. I couldn’t see how they could get me if I was on my guard. One thing I’d done already as a precaution – ripped open the oilskin packet and substituted blank paper, and then sewn it up again. So, if anyone did manage to rob me of it, it wouldn’t matter.
‘What to do with the real thing worried me no end. Finally I opened it out flat – there were only two sheets – and laid it between two of the advertisement pages of a magazine. I stuck the two pages together round the edge with some gum off an envelope. I carried the magazine carelessly stuffed into the pocket of my ulster.