Chapter Twenty-Five

Going Places

It wasn’t only pressing now; it caused a sharp pain, as if the point of the knife were piercing Mark’s flesh. He could just see the man’s face, the half-smile that was really a sneer. To passers-by this must look like a chance encounter, a meeting of friends. The engine of the car was ticking over softly, a man in a peaked cap sat at the wheel. There were fifty people within as many yards of the car. Mark stood quite still with the sharp pain in his side, Sybil close to him. Her grip on his forearm was vice-like. Mark’s assailant said: “Now listen, Lessing, I’m not going to wait all night. I’ll slash the dame’s face if you don’t get in.”

He moved his knife, swiftly, pressed it sharply into Mark’s belly. Mark jabbed at his chin – and won by surprise. The man reeled back, something dropped to the pavement with a metallic sound – the knife. The man on Sybil’s other side took her arm and twisted viciously, making her gasp and release her hold on Mark’s arm. She was dragged away. Mark tried to stop her, but the man he had hit now kicked at his groin. The blow landed painfully on the inside of the thigh. Sybil was now near the open door of the car. A group of girls near by stared in astonished silence.

Mark shouted: “Police!”

A figure loomed close to him, a hand moved near his face, and he saw a light glinting on steel. He backed away. “Police!”

A girl screamed.

Sybil was now half-way inside the car.

Mark’s second assailant blocked his path when he tried to reach her. His first had fully recovered from the attack and kicked again, getting Mark in the pit of the stomach and forcing him to stagger back, drawing in an agonised breath. Lights went in wild circles, he could no longer see steel, or faces, or the car; he could only cry out at the top of his voice: “Help! Help!”

And there came the sound of footsteps of men running.

The blurred and circling lights steadied, but before he could see clearly or tell whether help was at hand, his legs were swept from under him arid he fell heavily. He heard a door slam and the car moved off.

Two youths were running towards Mark, as well as a girl. Not far away, a whistle sounded – so the police had heard the cry.

A man bent over Mark.

“You okay?”

Mark gasped: “Car—got my girl—car!”

“They’re after it,” the man said laconically.

Then a policeman came up …

The policeman was efficient and reassuring. The cry for help had soon been heard, one of his colleagues had commandeered a car and was giving chase. Meanwhile, as soon as the gentleman was better he would like some information. His girl had been kidnapped, according to one of the youths – was that the truth? Who was she, where had she come from, what was she dressed in?

Mark said: “Listen, constable. Telephone Scotland Yard, with a message for Chief Inspector West. Tell him that Miss Lennox—got that?—Miss Lennox has been kidnapped.”

“Scotland Yard, sir?”

“Yes.”

A police-car drew up.

“Better come with me to the station, sir,” said the constable, “we can get through quicker from there.”

It was a sleek, powerful car, and it threw off the challenge of a commandeered Morris disdainfully, lost itself in the warren of back streets in Brighton, threaded its way softly and stealthily towards the London road, hummed along for a few miles, swung off the main road into a narrow lane, and came to a standstill.

The man sitting next to Sybil said: “Out.”

She fumbled for the handle of the door, just visible in the reflected light from the headlamps, and managed to open the door and stagger out of the car. She missed her footing, for the car was close to the hedge and there was a shallow ditch. Her right foot went ankle deep in water, and the cold chilled her through.

Mark’s assailant, who had been sitting next to the driver, had also climbed out. He took her arm and hauled her out of the ditch. The man who had ordered her to get out now followed. He said something to the driver, who let in the clutch. The engine hummed again, tyres crunched on gravel, and then the car moved furtively off, using only the sidelights. Some distance behind them, cars travelling along the main road cast great beams, but the lights did not spread as far as this spot.

A man gripped Sybil on either side, holding her just above the elbows.

“Come on,” one of them said.

They were dark, shadowy figures; their faces were just pale blurs, grotesque, frightening. Sybil was panting, as if she had been running a long way, and her legs were so weak that she knew she would fall if it weren’t for the support of the two men. They went on for a hundred yards or so along the by-road in the wake of the car which had completely disappeared, and then one of the men said: “This is it.”

Something white loomed out of the gloom on their left – a gate. She saw, when she was closer, that it was a five-barred gate to a field, not to the drive of a house. It groaned as it was pushed open. They went through the gate on to rough meadow-land.

Above, the stars were bright and clear, and there was no wind. Some way off, Sybil could see a myriad of lights, a great patch of darkness and then jutting arms of light, and she knew she was on high ground, overlooking Brighton – the jutting arms were the piers.

On they went.

Something came between them and the lights and the dark Channel. Trees, or a hill, or even a house cut the view off. There was now no light at all, but the men seemed to know the spot well and they didn’t slacken their pace. She was half-dragged along, her ankles kept turning over – and then she trod on a hump and her shoe came off.

She resisted their pressure.

“I’ve lost my shoe!”

“Never mind your—”

“My shoe!”

They wouldn’t stop and go back for it, so she hobbled along, her stockinged foot on the grass which felt very cold. The other shoe came off when they had gone another hundred yards or so, and she was able to walk more evenly.

As soon as they had passed through a gate, she trod on gravel. Sharp, pointed pieces cut her feet; it was agony to walk and yet she wasn’t allowed to slow down. Soon she saw another open gate, and was dragged through it towards a building – house or barn, she couldn’t be sure which. A torch flashed and showed a car inside an open shed.

The man with the torch called out: “Where’s Lessing?”

“He ducked.”

The man waiting near the car said: “He won’t like that.”

“I don’t give a damn what he’ll like,” said her captor. “We didn’t do so badly to get her.” At last they released her.

It was agony to stand, but there was nowhere to sit except on the running-board of the car, and the way to that was blocked.

“She talked?” the waiting man asked. “I don’t think she’ll give much trouble. Take her over to a box and let her sit down. We’ll be back.”

Only one man was left with Sybil.

Once she was sitting on an upturned box, the relief was exquisite. There was something rather hard but not painful beneath her feet; it rustled a little, and she realised that it was hay or straw. The torch went out. How long she stayed there, she had no idea. An hour? More? She was both dazed and frightened. Now and again she heard a man move, and knew she was being watched all the time. Then the others came back. One of the men was doing something which took him some time. The others lit cigarettes. Soon a lamp gave a mellow flame; it was a hurricane lamp, and the man who had lit it hung it on a long nail which jutted out from the whitewashed wall. The lamp spread a cosy glow about the corner of the barn, showing the bonnet of the car, a pile of straw, a square block of tightly compressed hay, and some farm implements including a scythe with the blade wrapped in hessian.

The three men stood in front of her, in a half circle.

The spokesman stood in the middle. He was the tallest of the three, and his eyes glinted. His face was blacked now, so that he could not be recognised. He drew on his cigarette and made the tip glow, then suddenly he shot out his hand, buried his fingers in her hair, and thrust her head back. At the same time, he brought the edge of his other hand down sharply on her taut throat. The blow made her gulp, the air seemed to be drawn out of her lungs, she couldn’t breathe. It was all over in a moment, and when she was able to see again, he was standing in the middle of the trio, as if he had not moved.

He said: “Listen, Sybil, I’m going to ask a lot of questions, and you’re going to answer every one of them. If you don’t, then …” He shrugged his shoulders. “We could do a lot of things to you, things you wouldn’t care to remember.”

She nodded.

“Why did you go around with Lessing?”

“He … was friendly.”

“So he was friendly,” sneered her questioner. “You knew he was a pal of West’s. Why—”

“I didn’t!” she burst out. “It isn’t true!”

“Mark Lessing is an old buddy of the great Roger West,” said the man. “You’re saying that you didn’t know?”

“Of course I didn’t!”

“I’m not so sure I believe you,” said the man, and he moved his hand forward slowly. She shrank away. He didn’t touch her this time, but went on: “Did you know Lessing followed you to Fulham this afternoon?”

“No!”

“Well, he did,” said the man. “So you went to Fulham and made the contacts we told you to make, and Lessing watched you. That ground was lousy with policemen this afternoon, it’s a cinch that you were seen. Even if you weren’t, Lessing will have told his buddy by now where you went. That means they’re on to us at Fulham. That’s very bad, Sybil. Did you tell them in the first place that we sometimes met on the ground?”

“No!”

“Oh no,” sneered the man. “Now, think about what you’ve said to Lessing. You knew who he was all right. He was down here to make you talk because West didn’t believe you’d told everything. West thought that a smooth guy like Lessing could get the rest out of you. How much did you tell him?”

“Nothing! I didn’t know who he was!”

The man glanced first at one companion and then at another. In that interval, Sybil’s fear grew into terror – it was as if she could read the thoughts in their minds, the things they were prepared to do to make her tell the ‘truth.’ Then the man stretched forward, pulled open her coat, thrust it back so that her arms were forced behind her and her chest was thrust forward. One of the others slipped behind her, and fiddled with the coat; he fastened it in some way, so that her arms were pinioned and she couldn’t move them. She sat precariously on the box, staring at her captors.

“How much did you tell Lessing?” the man asked.

“Nothing!”

“Now, be sensible, Sybil,” the man said. “We don’t want to hurt you for the sake of it, but we’ve got to have the truth, and we’re going to get it.”

One of the others stepped to the wall, and she saw him touch the handle of the wrapped scythe. He bent down, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. He took out a small knife which glittered, and then he cut the hessian, ripping it so that the bare, cruel blade of the scythe showed.

The spokesman stepped forward again and touched her neck – then laid his forearm across her, his hand touching one shoulder, his elbow near the other. He moved his arm sideways in a quick slicing movement, and said: “Now, if that was the scythe instead of my arm, a lot of what you’ve got now wouldn’t be there, Sybil. Afterwards you wouldn’t be such a catch. How much did you tell Lessing?”

“I didn’t tell him a thing.”

The man said: “He went to see the store – Perriman’s. He hung about there a lot. Why?”

“I don’t know! I didn’t know he did!”

His arm was pressing against her again, and the man with the scythe made sweeping motions through the air, sideways and downwards – as if he were practising.

“You told him that he might learn plenty from that shop,” the man insisted in his harsh, hateful voice.

“It’s not true!”

Silence again.

One of the others said slowly: “She won’t talk until she feels what that blade’s like. Better—”

The other man raised the scythe.

Sybil stared at it, her eyes rounded pools of dread – and then she screamed. The man leapt forward again and pressed his hand tightly over her mouth, one finger poking her in the eye. She bit at his palm, but her teeth slid over it. He put his other hand to her hair and gripped and began to twist.

He let her go, and spoke in a quiet, evil voice. “Now you know what to expect, Sybil, and we’ll give you just one more chance to tell us what you told Lessing.”

She gasped: “I didn’t—tell him—anything!”

The man said sharply: “Okay, let her have it.”

She opened her mouth to scream again, but before she uttered a sound, he thrust a screwed-up handkerchief between her teeth. It made her choke and gasp. She wriggled, but her arms were still locked by the coat and there was nothing she could do. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the glittering scythe.

And then a powerful light shone out, illuminating the scythe, and three men, and Sybil. The men swung round in startled silence. A shot rang out. The scythe clattered to the ground.

The men began to run.

They didn’t get far.

A cordon of police had been flung round the barn, and among them were Roger and Mark Lessing.

Sybil was sitting in an easy chair in the hotel. Her feet had been bathed; they would be sore for a few days, but there was nothing much the matter with them or with her.

Mark sat astride an upright chair near her, leaning on the back and looking at her intently. Roger stood by the fireplace in the big bedroom. By the girl’s side were coffee and sandwiches, the men had beer in tankards.

It was about two hours since they had returned from the barn. Roger hadn’t pressed Sybil with questions, but had let Mark tell her what had happened after the kidnapping.

It was simple enough. Radio calls for immediate help had been sent, and had reached the Brighton Police-Station just as Roger had arrived – Mark, of course, had learned there that the CI was on his way to Brighton. The car in which Sybil had been taken away had been seen near the narrow turning by a patrol car. Police had followed the three men and Sybil.

They had heard the questions and Sybil’s answers. There was something surprising in Roger West’s informality. So far, Roger hadn’t asked a single question. And now Mark began to speak.

“Look here, Sybil, you know enough about these beggars now to be sure they’ll give you a hell of a time if they catch you again – and that whatever they’re doing has to be stopped. They killed Guy Randall. They killed Relf, Kirby, and others – and there’s no telling where they’ll stop if they’re allowed to go on. They scared you into keeping something back from Roger – you’ve got to tell us everything now.”

Sybil moistened her lips.

“We all know you’re scared, and that’s why you didn’t tell the whole truth,” Mark went on. “But this time – well, if you won’t come across, Roger won’t have any alternative, you’ll have to be charged with conspiracy.”

She didn’t comment.

“Make a start with this,” Roger advised. “Why did you keep something back from us after you’d told us so much? Was it just that you were frightened of what they would do to you if you talked?”

“Yes,” said Sybil at last. “I thought—they might—let me alone if I didn’t tell you everything.”