CHAPTER 10

Beneath the Bridge

BANNISTER left The Pines at half-past ten.

He was alone, and he walked with long, easy strides, yet nothing about him suggested that he was nearer thirty than seventy. He carried a gnarled walking-stick, was dressed in shabby flannels and a Norfolk jacket, and wore a battered trilby hat.

The beach was not yet overcrowded, but there were hundreds of people, whole families settling down for the day, a few early arrivals already bathing. Large, complex sand-castles were being built by earnest youngsters, small sand-castles being built by earnest infants.

Past all this Bannister strode, smiling about him.

He might be going to his death.

He knew that as well as the Errols and Hoffmann, who followed him.

Hoffmann did not look very much like Hoffmann, in spite of his nose and chin. His cheeks looked plumper, his thin body was filled out, he walked with a stick. He was dressed as a woman—a middle-aged woman with heavy tread. The Errols looked like—the Errols. They were in close attendance on Bannister, and they knew quite well that at least one of Rutter’s men was following them.

As they drew near Alum Chine, fewer people were about. Bannister reached the path which ran through the chine to the residential streets on higher ground. From the sea-shore to the streets, along that path, it was a walk of twenty minutes at average walking pace. When Bannister had been walking for five minutes, however, the scene had changed. Wooded land was on either side of him, a glory of beech and birch, fern and long grass. The banks were rugged. Here and there steps were cut in them leading to roads on the right-hand side.

Bannister strode on purposefully. There were iron railings on one side of the path, but on the other common land, some sandy, some grass-covered. A few children played there, dogs chased other dogs or their own tails, a few seats were occupied by elderly people, already tired because the path ran uphill.

Suddenly Bannister moved off the path, and in a moment he was hidden from sight. Behind him, Mike Errol stopped.

Mark said, in a surprisingly loud voice:

‘Where the dickens has he gone?’

‘Towards those steps, perhaps,’ said Mike.

‘Possibly. The old idiot,’ grumbled Mark. ‘Why the devil we don’t put him in irons is beyond me. He’s nothing but a nuisance. A walk—phaugh!’

‘Hold it,’ said Mike. ‘The old chap must have some fresh air.’

‘I wish he’d choose somewhere else,’ said Mark.

All this was for the benefit of a big man, dressed in a sailor’s jersey and serge trousers, who was doing something with a rope at the side of the chine. He had red hair, and was freshly shaved. He heard every word, although he did not appear to pay attention.

‘I’ll go to the steps,’ said Mark.

‘I’ll keep my eyes open,’ said Mike. ‘He’s probably gone to commune with nature.’

‘We’ll have to commune with Loftus if we lose him,’ said Mark darkly.

All this had been prearranged; its purpose was simply to make any of Rutter’s men within earshot believe that they thought the Professor had come out for a morning stroll, and that they were perturbed only because he had given them the slip. They began to search, but did not find him, and, when Mike was searching with visible anxiety among the thickets, the man with red hair stood upright and raised his hand above his head.

A plump Jewess, now walking with heavier step, passed him as he did so. The red-haired man did not spare Hoffmann a second glance.

Farther along the chine, almost immediately beneath the suspension bridge, was little Lodge, rather scared, hopping from one foot to the other. Directly he got the signal from the first of Rutter’s men, he turned and hurried into the trees. Just there the foliage was very thick. Somewhere out of sight a brook gurgled softly. A few yards farther away from the sea, the flat boards of the suspension bridge, all that was visible from the path, boomed and echoed as people walked across.

Bannister, who had gone straight towards the bridge, knowing that the Errols would ‘lose’ him, peered towards the path from behind an oak tree. No one was near. He saw little, pimply Lodge disappear into a thicket, and after a few moments the man reappeared.

Maurice was with him, elegant and very alert.

‘Toller’s about somewhere,’ Lodge said. ‘I saw him. Where’s Kelly?’

‘Don’t give him a name, you fool,’ said Maurice. ‘He’s all ready.’

Bannister saw them talking. Maurice walked from the path towards the steps cut in the bank, looking about him warily. Bannister suddenly appeared from behind the tree, and Maurice stopped in his tracks.

‘Why Professor!’ he said.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Bannister. His inflection was remarkably good, the sonorous voice, learned from gramophone records after much practice, was exactly like Toller’s. He looked at Maurice with a frown, and pretended not to notice Lodge. Two other men from Rutter were now within sight, but could not be seen from the path.

For Bannister, it was the crucial moment.

For the Errols, pretending to look the other way but aware of what was happening, it was a moment of great tension. For Hoffmann, now admiring some large ferns near the railings on the path, it was a moment which made his heart beat so fast that it almost suffocated him.

Rutter might want Toller; but he might be intent only on substituting his masquerader. There was no certainty that Bannister would be taken alive, but a real possibility that, once Kelly had been ‘found’ by the Errols, he would be shot; he might even be shot before that.

Bannister looked into Maurice’s smiling eyes.

Lodge drew nearer; so did the other two men. He of the red hair had left his rope and was walking along the path. Dozens of people were sauntering along it, a few children were playing within a hundred feet of the scene—and Bannister did not move, but only frowned and waited for Maurice to speak again, or for a shot which he might not hear but which might send him to eternity.

‘I have a message for you, my dear Professor,’ said Maurice, and there was a sneer on his face which made him look no longer handsome. ‘From Dr. Morritz.’

‘I was told of that,’ said Bannister. ‘What is it?’

‘I will tell you in a few moments,’ said Maurice.

‘What do you mean, sir? Either you have a message for me, or you are telling lies.’ During that little speech Bannister looked in all directions, as if it were dawning on him that this was a trick, that he should not have evaded the Errols. ‘Let me have you know, sir, that I am with friends——’

‘Whom you very neatly dodged,’ said Maurice. ‘Don’t worry, Professor, your friends——’

He also broke off on that word. Lodge, who had been sidling nearer to Bannister, suddenly stepped forward. Something glinted in his hand. Involuntarily Bannister swung round towards him, trying to strike the glittering thing away. Maurice stepped forward and clapped a hand over his mouth, then gripped Bannister’s right arm.

A needle point was driven into Bannister’s arm.

‘All right!’ cried Lodge, exultantly. ‘He’s got the full dose. All right!’

He withdrew the glittering thing, a hypodermic syringe, and thrust it into his pocket. Bannister had not moved; and there was fear in him, for he did not know what the needle had contained, did not know what drug was even then circulating through his body. Suddenly he made a convulsive effort, and succeeded in breaking away. He stumbled over the root of a tree and pitched forward.

As he fell, Lodge struck him behind the head with a short ebony ruler. Bannister plunged into long grass. Maurice, swinging round, surveyed the path. No one was looking towards them— except a plump Jewess, half hidden by the trees, who was sitting on a seat smoking a cigarette. She got up.

Bannister lay there unconscious, hidden from everyone except Maurice and his men, who were close by. One of them hurried towards the thicket where Maurice had been hiding, and disappeared. The red-haired man came up, and Maurice said:

‘Get him out of sight.’

‘Okay.’ Bannister was no light-weight but, taking advantage of the foliage of the small trees, the red-haired man raised him, grunted as he hoisted him to his shoulder and then, in a dozen strides, was safely hidden from all prying eyes.

The Errols, a hundred yards apart from each other, saw little of that; but they had seen Bannister go down. Their hearts were heavy within them, although it was what they had expected. The uncertainty was the thing which worried them most, not knowing whether Bannister was alive or dead.

Five minutes later from the first thicket came a man who looked like Professor Toller.

Mark whistled; Mike rubbed the end of his nose.

The likeness to Toller—and Bannister when disguised—was uncanny. Rutter even appeared to have found an old Norfolk jacket, shabby flannels and a battered hat, which looked like Bannister’s. They were Bannister’s; in those few minutes his top clothes had been stripped from him, two men were putting others on him.

Rutter’s Kelly did not appear to see Maurice or any of the others. He showed great interest in a tiny growth on the trunk of a small oak, and seemed absorbed in that. Maurice, Lodge, the red-haired man and all the party withdrew to the safety of the trees. The little Jewess threw away her cigarette and began to walk up the chine again.

On the suspension bridge, looking down, stood Rutter. He was smiling now, with the reluctant curve of his lips which was his nearest approach to expressing satisfaction.

The Errols descended upon Kelly, who knew them by sight and gave a vacant smile. Kelly was probably the most nervous man in Bournemouth at that moment.

‘You put the wind up us,’ said Mark.

‘We’ve been hunting high and low,’ said Mike reprovingly. ‘Did you have to dodge off like that?’

‘My dear fellow,’ said Kelly, his voice a little high-pitched. He coughed, and spoke on a lower tone. It was too low. He tried again, watching the Errols closely, but they gave no sign that the voice sounded strange, and Kelly regained a little confidence.

‘My dear fellow, I was attracted by a rare specimen of parasite. I am surely at liberty to examine such things more closely if I wish?’

‘Do it with us,’ urged Mike.

‘Won’t anything make you understand that you’re in danger?’ demanded Mark.

Kelly coughed again, and turned away.

‘Nonsense,’ he said, testily. ‘Nonsense! You exaggerate. I have always told you that you exaggerate. I—— Look! Look at that! An even finer specimen!’ He scrambled up the bank with the agility of a young man, and behind his back the Errols exchanged winks.

They too felt better.

It was not wise to dwell too much on Bannister.

•           •           •           •

Loftus and Hammond were sitting alone in the small sitting-room. It was early evening. Upstairs Kelly, who played his part well, was ‘resting’. He had returned from the walk and complained of a headache, had his meals in his room, and was obviously taking as many precautions against discovery as he could.

Bannister had completely disappeared with Maurice and the others. The woods on either side of the chine had been carefully but surreptitiously searched by plain-clothes police as well as by Department Z men, but no trace had been found. There was some satisfaction to be derived from the fact that there was no body; that was the limit of the reassuring results.

‘I’ve come across some odd shows,’ said Loftus, ‘but this beats the band. They just didn’t leave the chine.’

‘I suppose they could have climbed up the banks,’ said Hammond, reasonably.

‘We had every hundred yards watched. If they’d come up from the chine in ones or twos, or altogether, we would have seen them. There wasn’t a stretch of the road which we hadn’t under surveillance—but then, you know that as well as I do,’ said Loftus, a little irritably. ‘There were six men in all—Bannister, and he was unconscious if not dead, Maurice, the red-head, the little man with the pimply face and a brace of others. They all disappeared.’

Since midday Loftus and Hammond had been severely shaken. Not only had Rutter’s men disappeared from Alum Chine, leaving no trace of their going, but the whole Rutter household had moved. They had not gone back to the house and, in the early afternoon, the fire service had received an urgent call from a neighbour. It arrived at the house too late to do anything to help, for the inside was an inferno. They saved other houses near by, although being in its own grounds, Rutter’s house burned without endangering much other property. The grounds were blackened and scorched, and there was no trace of contents or residents. Rutter, Bannister and the others had disappeared into thin air.

‘They’ll probably try to get out of the chine tonight,’ said Hammond. ‘You know, Bill, it wouldn’t be impossible to dig a hole or two, cover it with bracken, and hide there for a while. After dark, all they have to do is to pop out and climb up the banks. We’d better take precautions against that.’

‘Yes,’ said Loftus, and lifted the telephone. ‘It’s a good thing that Carr is helpful.’

Superintendent Carr, whom he telephoned, was still helpful and willing. Loftus told him briefly what he wanted. The whole of Alum Chine was to be watched, and car headlamps were to be shone on the roads at the top, along the path, and on the banks.

‘You’ll need more than car headlamps,’ said Carr. ‘I think I can find a firm who will start work at once, and get the whole chine floodlit.’

By half-past six workmen were in Alum Chine and on the banks, fixing cables to carry the power to light the flood-lamps. People gathered and watched them. The residents were curious, but holiday-makers outnumbered them by ten to one. At half-past eight the crowd was thick, and thousands thronged the chine and the surrounding district. Special forces of the police were called. The chine, after a long, wearisome effort, was cleared of all but police and Department Z men, and so were the roads which looked down on it. Men were stationed at every flight of steps, and at every place where the bank was negotiable.

When darkness fell, thousands of people were still near by, harassing the police, occasionally breaking the ropes which cordoned off the chine. There was a constant rumble of conversation and an occasional laugh. A little boy, no more than seven, escaped from his parents and darted laughingly across the road. He was near Mark Errol, who dived and saved him from falling over the edge.

Then the lights went on.

The scene was remarkable, not easily to be forgotten. The chine became alive. Trees were lighted up, casting odd shadows; there were patches of shadow and patches of bright light. Policemen walking along the path could be seen clearly. The crowd murmured at first, because the blaze of light dazzled them, and then gave way to silent wonder. Loftus and the little party with him watched, not unaffected by the magic of the scene.

In the strange quiet the ripple of the sea against the beach was audible, a soft lullaby.

Polly said to George: ‘They won’t get through this.’

‘Let’s hope,’ said George. He was more nervous than usual, and he smoked cigarettes chain-fashion. ‘I wouldn’t like to be too sure. I’m not even sure the beggars are there. I——’

He broke off with an exclamation. It was taken up by everyone else, for there was a dull, rumbling roar not far away—as if there had been an explosion in the chine. Then, like a shrill chorus from a thousand throats, there came a scream.

Part of the steep bank began to cave in, and with it went many of the people.