COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2005 by Philip Harbottle
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidebooks.com
DEDICATION
For Claire Jane King
CHAPTER ONE
GERALD Dawson, twenty-six-year-old son of Sir Robert Dawson, the eminent surgeon, had never done anything in his life to be particularly proud of. Bluntly, he was a waster, and far too much of a drinker. As the eldest child, he was distinctly a failure—a fact of which Sir Robert and his wife, Maude, were painfully aware.
This particular day in October represented something of a crisis in the life of Gerald Dawson. The gloom that obsessed him had something in common with the weather outside. His girl friend had at last realized the kind of fellow he really was and turned him down flat. Instead of an official engagement to one of the beauties of the younger social set, he found himself sitting in the lounge of the Cocktail Bar—his favorite retreat—with an unused diamond ring in his pocket and a positively foul temper clouding his mind.
With a drink in front of him he disinterestedly surveyed the softly lighted lounge. He recognized one or two habitués—and one or two strangers. Nothing unusual about that. The place was not a club anyhow: entirely open to the public, one of dozens of such places to be found in the heart of London. None of the newcomers was a woman, Gerald reflected, which was a pity. His one desire at the moment was to take up with another woman, if only to show his erstwhile girl friend that she did not count for much.
No—nobody interesting. Not even the quiet looking man in a nearby corner who had a peculiarly compelling face and almost colorless pale blue eyes.
Gerald grunted to himself, downed his drink, and then after due reflection left the Cocktail Bar end climbed back into his red sports car. He had just remembered Effie Brook: might be worth renewing acquaintance with her. She was blonde, very shapely, not too intelligent.... Might be worthwhile. So Gerald weaved through the busy London traffic and towards eleven paid her a visit.
He emerged again with a metaphorical punch on the nose. Effie Brook was not so dumb as he had thought. So, disgusted with things in general, he returned to his sports car and spent the rest of the day in a useless round of old flames—to get the same answer each time. It was not to be wondered at that by the time he reached home—or more correctly the Georgian type residence owned by his father—he was not in a particularly good humor.
After having snapped off the heads of his two sisters he retired to his bedroom to start changing for dinner—when the extension telephone rang. Irritably he whipped the instrument up.
“Well?” he demanded, and the voice of the maid came to him from the hall.
“Somebody to speak to you, Mr. Gerald.”
With that she rang off and a more cheerful look came over Gerald’s face. Probably one of the girls had changed her mind and—
“I have a message for you, Mr. Gerald Dawson,” said a soft, mellow voice. “I will make it as brief as possible. You will die at precisely nine o’clock tonight. Good bye.”
The line clicked. Gerald stared in front of him, at the telephone in his hand, then slowly put it back on its rest. Gradually his mind came back to normal.
“Dam’ tomfool message,” he grunted. “As if I haven’t enough to worry over without that! Wait till I find who’s responsible!”
He went on with his dressing, then paused in the midst of it and looked at himself, strange thoughts twisting in his mind. There was no doubt that he intended, originally, to dress for dinner—Then why on earth had he changed into a sports suit with its matching champagne-silk shirt. He pressed finger and thumb to his eyes and tried to recollect why he had done such a thing.
“But of course!” he exclaimed suddenly, recollecting. “I’m going to see Betty! Wonder why it slipped my mind earlier?”
This was a question he could not answer. All that mattered now was that he visit her—and the fact that she lived fifty miles away on the south coast did not alter his decision either. He reckoned he could cover the distance in his sports car in forty-five minutes.
In a far happier mood, even if there was some slight inward puzzlement, Gerald completed his dressing and then hurried downstairs. He nearly ran into June, his eldest sister, as he went across the hall. She looked at him in some surprise.
“Not staying for dinner?” she asked, rather dryly.
No.” Gerald pulled his overcoat and cap from the hall wardrobe. “I’ve just remembered an important date.”
June smiled rather contemptuously. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but would it be a woman?”
“Mind your own business!”
And with that chivalrous remark Gerald pulled open the main front door and slammed it behind him. In the space of a few moments he was on his way, his sports car roaring and snorting as it picked up speed down the driveway.
He noticed, though not for any particular reason, that it was five minutes before eight on the dashboard clock. Time for dinner at home. That was not the point. It meant that he ought to be at Betty’s place by 8:45, if he went all out—and once free of the cramping London traffic that was precisely what he intended doing.
Muffled to the ears, his cap pulled well down against the cold of the dismal October night, Gerald cursed and accelerated his way through the city traffic, and succeeded in losing half an hour before he came to the clearer regions at the edge of the city. Then he really opened out, headlights blazing, and the speedometer needle gradually creeping up. At this rate it would be nearer half past nine when he reached Betty’s.
Actually, when he came to ask himself the question, he did not know why he was so anxious to see her—or why he was going at such breakneck speed to do it. Still there it was, and he never let up his speed except when traffic regulation, or lights, compelled him to do so.
So, as he raced through the country roads under a black and starless sky, following the two tunnels of radiance made by his headlamps, he found himself thinking about that odd phone call he had received.... Death! At precisely nine o’clock! He scowled to himself as he tried to think who could have been responsible for such a rotten joke. He’d find out in time, and then there would be trouble.
Joke or otherwise, he could not help his attention straying ever and again to the dashboard clock, and as it began to near nine the thought crossed his mind that suppose it had not been a joke after all? Yet on the other hand, how could anybody possibly predict his death so accurately, especially when nobody knew where he was going, or what his intentions were?
“Ridiculous!” he exclaimed finally, and to prove just how felt he jammed his foot down on the accelerator to floor level. Fast though it was traveling, the supercharged racer moved even faster. It leapt along the narrow hill-track road it was following—at the eastern end of the South Downs—and with a screech of tires swung towards the corner that loomed directly ahead.
Then something happened. Gerald had no idea what it was. Abruptly a blinding light, perhaps from an approaching car headlamp, swung straight into his face—a terrific effulgence which swamped him completely.
He simply could not see where he was going. The road had gone amidst the blazing brilliance—and a second later the road had gone altogether as the sports car jumped over its edge and went reeling and crashing into the waste land ten to fifteen feet below road level.
From light Gerald plunged into abysmal darkness. The night was split by the sound of cracking metal and shattering glass, then there dropped a complete quiet. The light that had virtually swept Gerald off the road had vanished—and somewhere in the ruins of the supercharged sports car a smashed dashboard clock registered one minute after nine.
* * * * * * *
By the usual avenues news of Gerald’s accident finally reached home, and a long distance truck