“I agree,” Ames said and gave Corridon a sly smile.
Diestl hesitated.
“I might point out,” Corridon said, getting to his feet, “that you don’t run any risk. Until the job is done I shall have an escort when I go out. I can’t see what you are worrying about.”
“All right,” Diestl said, shrugging. “Then pay him.”
“I’ll have the money in cash for you the day after tomorrow,” Homer said. “Is that all right?”
“Yes. Have I permission to go to my bank if I am accompanied by someone?” Corridon asked, and glanced at Ames.
“I’ll go with you,” Ames said, promptly.
As they left the office together, Ames went on, “We’ll fix up to see the girls when we go to the bank. I don’t believe in wasting opportunities.”
“Nor do I,” Corridon said, and concealed a grin.
II
MacAdams came into Corridon’s room and put the model on the table.
“I think this is about right,” he said. “If you’ll check it over…”
Corridon examined the model. It was exactly what he wanted.
Three days had passed since the meeting in Homer’s office. He had been to the bank and paid in the five hundred pounds given to him in cash by Homer. While at the bank, he had left instructions for a hundred pounds to be sent to his solicitor for Susie Lawes’ use. Ames, who had been listening, glanced at him enquiringly.
“Believe it or not, she’s my god-child,” Corridon said. “I owed Milly the money. I’m paying it to get it off my conscience.”
Ames plainly thought Corridon was eccentric, but he didn’t say anything. His mind was too preoccupied with his thoughts of Hildy, and as soon as Corridon had finished his business at the bank, Ames drove him to Curzon Street.
Corridon had no trouble in getting Ritchie on the telephone. He gave him the details of the plan, the time and date, warning him the affair might end in disaster if he wasn’t very much on his guard, but Ritchie seemed confident enough.
“You take care of Chicho,” he had said. “I’ll look after MacAdams.”
“Have police cars within reach,” Corridon warned him. “Don’t underestimate Kara. She can drive. I don’t want her to get away.”
Ritchie said he would take care of everything at his end, and told Corridon not to worry.
Corridon had put the three through a searching test. Ames was correct when he had said both MacAdams and Chicho were good shots, but they were nothing like as quick as Ritchie, although Corridon made out to both Ames and Homer that they were. The one person who really did worry him was Kara. If anything, she was a better shot then Chicho or MacAdams, and she handled the big Buick in a way that made Corridon’s hair stand on end. Her judgment of distance was astonishing. Driving along the road to Baintrees with Corridon at her side, she had suddenly accelerated, shooting the car down the narrow lane at eighty miles an hour, and then, to Corridon’s horror, had swung the car through the gateway which had barely two foot of clearance each side of the car. She seemed to think nothing of threading the big car through small gaps at impossible speeds, and with Ames sitting at the back, she had driven Corridon along Western Avenue early one morning, taking the roundabouts at fifty miles an hour. He had thought Ames was a mad driver, but this girl was incredible. He wondered uneasily if the police would be able to stop her. Well, he had warned Ritchie, but for all that he was worried.
He had wanted a model of Stratford Road, so they could study the layout and know exactly the parts they had to play. MacAdams volunteered to make it, and within two days he had finished it.
Corridon thought the model was excellent, and said so. MacAdams merely grunted, but there was a pleased expression on his thin face.
Of the three Corridon liked MacAdams the best, but he knew him to be a dangerous fanatic. Chicho he disliked. The boy had no intelligence, but only a ferocious lust to kill with his gun. It was all he seemed to think about, and when he wasn’t shooting on the range at the back of the house, he was practising pulling the gun from his belt.
Now he had the model, Corridon intensified the rehearsals. He got Yevski to play the part of Ritchie. Yevski was as good a shot as MacAdams and Chicho, and more often than not he got in the first shot. Soon the word got round what they were doing, and each afternoon quite a crowd collected to watch the rehearsals.
Corridon had selected part of the drive that resembled the shape of the Stratford Road. He had erected a dummy phone booth and pillar-box. A garden gate represented Ritchie’s house.
He enacted the scene again and again, watching from the phone booth to see exactly how Chicho crouched behind the pillar-box. This was vital, for Corridon had to put him out of action before he had a chance of shooting Ritchie.
Both Homer and Ames came to see the rehearsals, and they seemed impressed with Corridon’s thoroughness.
But it was still Kara who worried Corridon. She seemed dissatisfied and restless with her passive role of remaining in the car, and while Corridon was instructing Chicho to come farther round the pillar-box so he could see him, making out he would be less likely to be seen by Ritchie in that position, she got out of the car and came over to him.
He turned and frowned at her.
“Did I tell you to leave the car?”
She gave him her insinuating hard little smile.
“I want to make a suggestion.”
Ames, who was standing nearby, joined them.
“What is it?” Corridon asked impatiently.
“I would like to cover Chicho,” she said. Mac fires first; then Chicho, then I could fire from the car. Isn’t that a good idea?”
“No,” Corridon said curtly. “Your job is to drive the car. It’s not necessary to cover Chicho. You are to remain in the car and keep the engine running. That’s your job, so stick to it.”
For a moment she hesitated, looking towards Ames, but Ames gave her no encouragement. She lifted her shoulders in an angry little shrug.
“Very well, but you may be sorry.”
“That’s my business,” Corridon said curtly. “Will you return to the car?”
She walked away, her back stiff.
“Wouldn’t it be wiser to let her join in?” Ames asked, as soon as she was out of hearing. “If Ritchie’s as dangerous as you say, three guns would be better than two.”
“Her job is to concentrate on driving,” Corridon said, anxious Ritchie shouldn’t have a third opponent. “We may have to get out in a hurry, and if she’s blazing away, her mind is off her real job.”
“Well, it’s your business,” Ames said. “I’ll leave it to you.”
That evening Kara came into Corridon’s room. He was relaxing in his armchair with a book, and he looked up, startled to find her standing in the doorway.
“What do you want?” he asked, curtly. “I didn’t hear you knock.”
She closed the door gently and came farther into the room.
“I was lonely,” she said, watching him from under her eyelashes. “I thought I would come and talk to you.”
Corridon waited.
She took out a leather cigarette-case, lit a cigarette, and held the case between her slim, strong fingers.
“Will you be sorry when Ritchie is dead?”
Corridon laid his book in his lap, his finger marking the sentence he was reading.
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Ritchie is an expert shot, isn’t he?”
“He can shoot.”
“He was in Russia during the war,” she said lightly. “I met him. He is the best shot in this country.”
This was so unexpected that Corridon had difficulty in suppressing a start.
“He was, but he is getting old now,” he said cautiously.
“And yet you are not anxious for me to cover Chicho?”
“That has nothing to do with it,” Corridon snapped, realizing this could be dangerous. “Your job is to drive the car.”
“I know.” She blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. “You won’t be armed, will you?”
“Where’s all this leading to?” Corridon demanded. “What are you driving at?”
“I don’t think either Mac or Chicho are coming out of this alive,” she said and smiled. “I don’t care very much. They mean nothing to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ritchie doesn’t die.”
Corridon studied her for a moment, then got up, walked across the room, opened the door and went out. He walked quickly along the passage to Ames’ room and went in.
Ames was lying on his bed, smoking, and going through a book of photographs.
He looked up and grinned.
“Here, have a look at these…” he began, but Corridon made a gesture that brought him to his feet.
“What is it?”
“Come to my room,” Corridon said. “Kara’s there. I would like you to hear what she has been saying to me.”
Ames’ face darkened.
“What’s she been saying?”
“She’ll tell you.”
Corridon returned to his room with Ames at his heels. Kara was moving to the door as they entered. There was a cold, wolfish look in her eyes and when she saw Ames, her mouth tightened.
“Tell Ames what you have just said,” Corridon said.
She hesitated while Ames stared at her coldly.
“It was nothing. Besides, it’s nothing to do with him,” she said at last.
“Tell him!” Corridon snapped.
She gave him a look of angry hatred, and made to move to the door, but he grabbed her wrist and jerked her round. She broke loose with a quick twist that staggered him, and again made for the door.
“Wait!” Ames said, his voice like the click of a trap.
She paused.
“It’s nothing…” she began.
“I think it is,” Corridon said. “She said she didn’t think either MacAdams or Chicho were coming out of the shooting alive, and Ritchie will escape.”
Ames looked at her.
“Why do you say that?”
Again she hesitated, and Corridon guessed she was trying to make up her mind how to get out of the situation.
“I – I was joking,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”
Ames’ fist shot out and his knuckles crashed into her mouth, sending her reeling back. She tried to regain her balance, then sat heavily on the floor.
“Don’t joke about such things,” he snarled. “Now, get out!”
She got slowly to her feet, her hand covering her mouth, blood running from her nose. She didn’t look at Corridon or Ames.
When she had gone into her room and shut the door, Ames said, “She’s getting too damned cocky. She’ll be all right now.”
Remembering the concentrated hatred in the green eyes, Corridon was uneasy.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have hit her.”
Ames smiled.
“It’s the language women and dogs appreciate,” he said. “You’ll have no further trouble with her.”
Corridon hoped he was right.
It was only later that evening, when he was sure he wouldn’t be disturbed, that Corridon opened the bottom drawer in the wardrobe for the Mauser pistol he had taken from Bruger. He had decided to check the weapon and clean it. It was essential to his plan.
He had hidden the gun under the white boiler suit he had put in the drawer, but when he lifted the boiler suit, the gun had gone.
He sat back on his heels, his face set and his eyes hard. Kara has been left alone in the room. He guessed she had taken the gun, and without it he was powerless to help Ritchie.
He remained for several minutes sitting on his heels, staring at the empty drawer, wondering what to do. Then he got slowly to his feet. He had to get hold of another gun. One false move now would be disastrous, but if he was to save Ritchie’s life, he had to have a gun.
III
In the hall, a clock chimed two. For the past three hours Corridon had been sitting at his open window, staring into the grounds. The night was moonless, and it was dark, with heavy black clouds moving sluggishly against the white sky. By now his eyes were accustomed to the darkness. While he had been sitting at the window he had seen two men and three dogs who passed below his window every half hour.
He had made up his mind he had to take the risk and break out of Baintrees. There was a telephone booth about a hundred yards down the road past the main gates. He had seen it when he had driven with Ames to Curzon Street. If he could reach that and arrange with Ritchie to get him a gun, all might still be well.
He decided it was time to go. He turned from the window to wedge a chair back under the handle of his door. It was unlikely anyone would visit his room at this hour, but he felt the precaution was wise.
The dogs worried him. He had no fear of the guards. He was experienced enough to avoid them, but the dogs were dangerous. The only weapon he could find in the room was a short steel poker, and this, he decided would have to serve. He wound a towel round his left arm and knotted it securely. With this to act as a buffer between his arm and the dog’s teeth, he hoped to escape injury if he was attacked.
He returned to the window. After a few minutes, he again saw the two guards and the dogs on leads as they passed below him. One of the guards was smoking a cigarette, and talked in a low voice. Neither of them seemed to be on the alert. As soon as they were out of sight, Corridon swung his leg over the sill, and reached for the stack pipe. He went down quietly and without haste. Dropping lightly onto the flower-bed, he stepped onto the gravel path and paused to smooth over the footprints he had left in the soil.
He stood listening for a minute or so, then hearing nothing, moved from the path onto the lawn. Silently and swiftly he ran across the lawn to the big clumps of rhododendron bushes. He paused and looked back at the house. It was in darkness. The rhododendron bushes grew all along the drive to the gates. He decided to keep under cover of these bushes and not risk walking down the wide, open drive. It would take longer, but would be safer.
He moved off, as silently as a shadow, pausing every so often to listen.
After a while he caught a glimpse of the drive through the bushes, and suddenly paused as he caught sight of a figure standing in the drive. He immediately recognized the thin, tall figure of Yevski who was motionless as if he were listening.
Corridon waited, controlling his breathing, the poker gripped tightly in his right hand.