Bruised and half stunned from their desperate struggle the two men were lugged to their feet and thrust down the bank. Half a hundred threatening figures milled round them, their scowling faces lit by the glare of the torches. Pilots, loaders, and the men off the train—all left their jobs to crowd about the captives. Every man on the secret base arrived at the scene of the excitement where they jostled together muttering hoarse questions.
A tall figure elbowed his way through the press. ‘Silence!’ he thundered. ‘Stand back there. I’ll attend to this.’
It was the Limper. The men gave way before him, forming a semi-circle, while he stood in its centre glowering at the prisoners, a little trickle of blood oozing from his forehead where Gregory’s torch had cut it.
‘You, you, you, you,’ he jabbed his finger at four husky fellows, ‘take these birds over to the inn. The rest of you get back to work. This upset’s put us two minutes behind schedule. You’ve got to make it up. To work! Like blazes now!’
The four men thrust Gregory and the Inspector forward. The Limper followed close behind with the sharp warning: ‘No tricks now. I’ll shoot you in the back the instant you try anything.’
The breath having been kicked and beaten out of their bodies they were in no state at the moment to do more than stagger along between their captors; even if they had been mad enough to think of attempting a breakaway.
At the inn they were dragged into the little bar parlour and the door slammed to behind them. The fat landlord was still behind his bar and the handsome knife-thrower of Trouville, now in airman’s kit, leaned against it drinking a tot of brandy.
‘Q’est-ce qu’il-y-a,’ he exclaimed, as the others tumbled into the room.
‘Spies,’ snapped the Limper. ‘Caught trying to board the train. Preventative officers I expect; we’ll soon find out.’
The Frenchman evidently understood English. An evil little smile twitched at his lips. With a single jerk he drew a murderous-looking knife from his sleeve. ‘Espions, hein,’ he murmured. ‘Ca s’arrange trés simplement.’
‘Stop that, Corot.’ The Limper jerked his hand out swiftly at the Frenchman’s knife. ‘This is not the place. Now you,’ he swung on Gregory, ‘what’s your little game?’
Gregory pulled himself together as well as he could with the two thugs still hanging on his arms. ‘What’s yours?’ he blustered, ‘that’s more to the point. We’ve got no game. We were just lost in the marshes. Seeing the lights we came over to ask if you could put us on our road again; but before we had time to open our mouths we were set upon.’
‘That’s a lie,’ said the landlord, leaning forward over his bar. ‘The two of them were here at nine o’clock. Said they were attached to the Ordnance Department and on their way to spend the night at Lydd.’
‘So we were,’ Gregory protested hotly, ‘but our car broke down and we tried to get back here to telephone. We took what we thought was a short cut and lost ourselves. We’ve been tumbling about in dykes and ditches for hours.’
‘That’s so,’ Wells affirmed, glaring with feigned indignation at the Limper. ‘You may be the boss of this gang of railway workers, employed on special night construction that’s being kept dark by the Government for some purpose, but that doesn’t give you the right to manhandle people. If you don’t let us go at once I’ll report this matter to the police.’
It was a gallant attempt to persuade the Limper that they had no idea of his real business; but at the sound of Wells’s voice Corot took a few mincing steps forward, peered into the Inspector’s face, and then began to laugh; a low unpleasant chuckle.
‘What’s bitten you?’ the Limper asked him.
He shrugged. ‘Tiens! C’est ce scélérat de Scotland Yard.’ Then he turned, stared at Gregory for a moment and added: ‘Et voila! l’autre.’
His knife slid out again. With a vicious snarl he raised it remembering how Gregory’s intervention had prevented his attack on Wells succeeding the last time they had been face to face.
As the blade flashed high above Corot’s head Gregory jerked himself backwards but, before the knife came down, the Limper grabbed the Frenchman’s arm.
‘Not here,’ he said sharply. ‘Your planes are leaving. Get back to them and see them home. I’ll handle this and I’ll see these two never worry us again. I’ll croak the two of them before morning but it’s got to be done in the proper way; so there’s no trouble for us afterwards.’
Corot’s handsome face went sullen, like that of a greedy child who has been robbed of an entertainment, but he shrugged, spat on the floor at Gregory’s feet and, turning, slouched out of the inn.
‘Search them,’ snapped the Limper, raising his automatic a little, as an indication that he meant to shoot if they tried to break away, while his four henchmen ran through their pockets.
Pistols, night glasses, torches, letters and money were piled upon the drink-puddled bar. When they were held firm again the Limper glanced through the papers; then stuffed them in his jacket.
‘Quick march now,’ he ordered. ‘Take them to my plane.’
The prisoners were hustled out into the night and across the grass. The smuggler fleet was leaving; only four planes remained now upon the landing ground. The men were busily transporting the cargo from the railway embankment to the fleet of lorries beyond the inn; the train had gone.
A four-seater monoplane stood a little apart from the big de Havillands. The Limper scrambled into it, dived down to a locker near the floor, and pulled out some lengths of cord. ‘Truss them up,’ he said, ‘then push them into the back of the plane.’
Gregory and Wells were securely tied hand and foot; then bundled in behind. One of the men got into the plane with them and the Limper went off to supervise the departure of the convoy. At short intervals the other planes roared away into the air. The landing ground was now in darkness and the lorries began to rumble down the road; the smugglers had disappeared when the Limper returned and climbed into the pilot’s seat.
He slammed the door and pressed home the self-starter. The plane ran forward, bumped a little and lifted, then with a steady hum it sailed away lightless into the night.
Gregory was hunched on his side in a back seat but his face was turned towards one of the windows of the enclosed plane and he could see a good section of the sky. After they had been flying for a few moments he managed to pick up one of the major constellations, and knew, from its position, that they were flying in a north-westerly direction, towards Quex Park. His agile mind began to conjure frantically with the possibilities of drawing Mrs. Bird’s attention to their wretched plight so that she could secure help.
Mrs. Bird and Milly would be in bed by now though, he remembered, as it was well after midnight, probably somewhere near one o’clock. The Limper would certainly do nothing to rouse them from their slumbers and he had spoken of seeing to it that his prisoners were both dead before the morning.
Gregory had faced death many times, but on those previous occasions his hands had been free and generally there had been a handy weapon in one of them. This was a different business altogether. They were trussed like Christmas turkeys for the slaughter and must depend upon their wits alone to save them.
As they were not gagged, they could, of course, scream in the hope of rousing Mrs. Bird but, whereas a few nights before she might have telephoned the police at once upon hearing shouts for help, she would now more probably wait to investigate the matter or see what happened next, knowing that Wells and his men had the Park under observation.
What about Wells’s men who would be watching the place? They would be certain to appear on the scene if they thought murder was being done, but unfortunately both of them were stationed outside the Park gates, and it was nearly a mile in width. Would the most lusty shouts carry half that distance? Gregory doubted it; moreover, it seemed certain the Limper would shoot them out of hand if they bellowed for help. They would be dead long before anyone arrived upon the scene.
The situation began to assume a far grimmer aspect in his mind. From the moment when he had gone down under the rush of men, every second had been occupied until now, so he had not had a chance to realise the full danger in which they stood. No one except Wells and himself knew of the secret landing ground at Romney Marshes, or what their intentions had been when they left Quex Park, so no one would worry about them if they failed to turn up until a day or two, at least, had elapsed without news of them. Then the police would begin to wonder where Wells had got to; but that was little comfort if they were to be killed before morning.
The plane banked steeply and began to descend. Beads of perspiration broke out on Gregory’s forehead. ‘We’re there already,’ he thought, ‘this plane must be a mighty fast one, or else it’s just that time rushes by when you need it most. And I’ve thought of nothing. We may be for it now any moment—once we land. By Jove! this is tougher than anything I can remember.’
They scarcely felt the bump as the Limper landed the plane and it flashed through Gregory’s mind that the fellow was a first-class pilot. The engine ceased to hum and for a moment there was dead silence then the Limper opened the door of the cockpit and wriggled out. The beam of a torch showed from near by and a new voice came out of the darkness.
‘He’s on his way over.’
‘Good,’ replied the Limper. ‘I’ve got them both here. Get ’em out and bring ’em inside.’
The Limper’s assistant pilot leaned over and grabbed Wells by the shoulders, hoisted him up and pushed him head foremost through the door, where two other fellows seized him and pulled him to the ground. A minute later Gregory was bundled out beside him.
He wriggled his head and looked around. A gentle wind was blowing which brought with it the salt tang of the sea. No lights were to be seen anywhere, and no dark groups of trees, such as he had expected, broke the starry sky line in any direction. Perhaps he had been wrong about their course being to the north-eastward; at all events it did not seem as though they had landed in Quex Park.
Before he had further time for speculation the cords about their feet were undone and they were jerked upright. Limper’s assistant pilot and the two new men pushed them forward, while he brought up the rear, lighting their way now and again with flashes from a torch.
After a few moments they came to a wire fence, through which the prisoners were pulled, and then to a steep embankment. On its flat summit they tripped and stumbled across a double railway line, slid down the further bank across another fence, and so into a field. They tramped on for two hundred yards, slightly down hill, then came to a wooden paling. One of the men unlatched a gate and the party tramped up a brick pathway, through a kitchen garden, to a small dark cottage.
Round at its side a chink of light showed beneath an ill-fitting door on which the Limper gave three single and then a double rap. It was pulled open by a seedy-looking man in corduroy trousers who, judging by his cauliflower ears and broken nose, might at one time have been a pugilist.
The room had an old-fashioned fireplace and oven let into one wall and a smaller room which led off it, barely larger than a cupboard, was obviously the scullery; otherwise the place was furnished as a living-room although it probably served the purpose of kitchen as well.
The man with the cauliflower ears shut the door after them and bolted it quickly, then he shot a shifty glance at the two prisoners, and asked somewhat unnecessarily and, Gregory noted, ungrammatically: ‘These them?’
‘Yes,’ said the Limper, signing to the others to stand Wells and Gregory at the farthest end of the room up against the white-washed wall. Then he lowered himself with a sigh into a worn saddle-bag arm-chair.
When they had faced each other at the Brown Owl Inn Gregory had still been half-dazed from the blows he had received in the scrap so this was the first opportunity he had really to study the Limper. The man was obviously a much better type than the average professional crook. He had good grey eyes under straight rather heavy brows and a direct glance with none of the apprehension about it noticeable in that of the flashy ‘con’ man who is always anticipating a detective’s touch on the shoulder. The Limper did not boast an Oxford accent but his voice was an educated one and had a crisp note in it which comes from the habit of command. Only the thin, discontented mouth, which turned down a little at the corners. betrayed a certain hardness in his nature and, perhaps, explained his choice of occupation. Gregory summed him up as the product of one of the lesser public schools, who had slipped up somewhere, perhaps in business, or possibly in one of the services. At all events he did not look at all a killer type and Gregory racked his wits for a good opening, whereby he might possibly arouse sympathy, but Wells forestalled him.
Although he was a younger man than Gregory his professional duties had brought him into quite as many rough-houses and was a courageous fellow; but his thoughts during the brief journey in the plane had been far from comforting.
He knew, although Gregory did not, that his Superintendent would have his report on Gregory’s operations the night before by now, and be aware that they had both set off again for the Brown Owl Inn on Romney Marshes. His people would, therefore, become very active indeed if they did not hear from him again by midday, but that was little comfort if they were both to be wiped out in an hour or so. He took the bull by the horns and began to lie like a trooper.
‘I think this has gone far enough,’ he said evenly, ‘unless you want to make things far worse for yourself. We’ve been on your trail for days and we know all about you. Headquarters have got all your addresses so they can pull you in any time they want to, and if my report’s not in by six o’clock in the morning the Flying Squad will be out on a round up. It’s no good thinking you’ll get away by crossing the Channel in your plane either, because the French police have got a line on your outfit the other side, so you’ll be pinched on landing.’
The Limper stared at him with open disbelief. ‘That’s a pretty story, Inspector, but I’m afraid it won’t wash. Even if it were true there’s nothing to stop me avoiding any net you may have spread by flying to Holland after I’ve settled your business.’
‘Perhaps, but they’ll get you in the end, don’t you worry.’ Wells leaned forward impressively. ‘They’ll get you, and you’ll swing for it as sure as my name’s Wells, if you do us in.’
‘It doesn’t rest with me,’ the Limper shrugged, ‘so you might as well save the argument. I brought you here under instructions, that’s all, and the Big Chief should be here at any moment. It’s for him to say whether you go down the chute or if he can think of other means of silencing you.’
There was a horrid silence which lasted nearly a couple of minutes while the Limper pulled out a cigarette and lit it. The men who had met them on the landing ground, the extra pilot, and the ex-pugilist still held Gregory and Wells against the wall, although their arms remained tied behind their backs.
Suddenly the three single raps, followed by two quick ones, came upon the wooden door again. The Limper rose, pulled back the bolt and flung it open, revealing a strange little figure upon the threshold.
Gregory was expecting Lord Gavin Fortescue to put in an appearance after the Limper’s last remark but Wells had never seen the Duke of Denver’s abnormal twin before and greeted him with a fascinated stare.
Lord Gavin’s small, perfect, childlike body was clad in a dinner-jacket suit. Over it he wore a black evening cape; the folds hid his hands resting upon the two sticks with which he assisted himself to walk; but it was his massive, leonine head that held Wells’s attention. A shock of snow-white hair was brushed back from the magnificent forehead and beneath the aristocratic upturned brows a pair of pale magnetic soulless blue eyes, utterly lacking in expression, stared into his own.
Lord Gavin nodded slowly then sat down carefully in the arm-chair the Limper had just vacated. It was quite a low one yet his tiny feet, in their shiny patent shoes, still dangled an inch or so from the floor. ‘The two gentlemen from Trouville,’ he said softly. ‘Inspector Wells and Mr. Gregory Sallust. You have been very indiscreet, extremely indiscreet.’
Gregory tried to step forward but the men held him back as he burst out: ‘Now look here, Lord Gavin, your record’s bad enough! You’ve been mighty lucky to get away with it so far but you’ll tempt fate once too often. They know all about your little game at Scotland Yard this time so you’d better let us go, or else the charge against you is going to be a really ugly one.’
‘When I wish for your advice I will ask for it,’ said Lord Gavin smoothly. ‘I was just saying that you have been very indiscreet. You were indiscreet that night when you followed little Sabine out of the Casino; you were even more indiscreet when you refused to take the warning which I sent you the following morning, and now …’
‘How did you know that Sabine was with me that night?’ Gregory interrupted. ‘I’ve often wondered.’
‘I saw you follow her out of the salle de jeu so I thought it possible that you were responsible for her not returning to me after her business was done. That unfortunate scar above your left eyebrow makes it tolerably easy to trace you and having given your description to my agents they very soon ran you to earth at the Normandie. My men confirmed my impression that Sabine was with you when they reported that she had left the café at Trouville in your company.’
Gregory forced a smile. ‘Well, give her my love when you next see her.’
‘Certainly, if you wish it. She will be most distressed to hear of your demise as she seems to have enjoyed her time with you in Deauville. As there will be no possible chance of her running across you again I must try to make it up to her in some way—another bracelet perhaps—sapphires, I think. Sabine likes sapphires.’
As Lord Gavin made no mention of their having met again in London Gregory assumed that Sabine had concealed the fact that they had spent a good portion of the previous day together. The brief silence was broken by Wells; who shot out suddenly:
‘Cut out the talking and say what you mean to do with us.’ The quiet manner of this sinister little man was beginning to fret the Inspector’s nerves in a way which no bullying or bluster could have done.
Lord Gavin turned his heavy head slowly in Wells’s direction and his pale eyes glittered for a moment. ‘Surely there can be no question in your mind, Inspector, about my intentions regarding you. Both you and Sallust have pried into my affairs. You ferreted out the address of Sabine’s firm in Paris: in consequence I have been compelled to close it. Not a matter for grave concern but an inconvenience all the same; and now it seems that the two of you have actually witnessed certain operations by my people south of Romney Marshes. You know too much. You have signed your own death warrants. There is no alternative.’
‘But you can’t kill us in cold blood!’
Lord Gavin shrugged. ‘What is there to prevent me? My interests are far too great for me to jeopardise them just because the lives of two inquisitive young men are in question.’
‘You’ll hang for it if you do,’ snapped Gregory. ‘Scotland Yard knows what you’re up to this time, I tell you. You can’t murder us and dispose of our bodies without leaving any trace; sooner or later they’ll get you for it.’
‘It is most unlikely that they will ever get me for anything, but if they do they will never be able to pin your deaths upon me. Both of you are going to disappear and without leaving any trace’
Wells grunted. ‘Lots of people have thought they were so clever they could get away with murder—but it’s not so easy.’
‘Indeed?’ A cold smile twitched Lord Gavin’s lips. ‘Do you know where we are at the moment?’
‘Somewhere in Thanet.’
‘No, we are a little to the south of Thanet, less than half a mile from the coast of Pegwell Bay. Does that convey anything to you, I wonder.’
‘Only that it’ll be useful to have the location of another of your bases when we’re out of this,’ said Wells doggedly.
‘You will never be out of this, so the knowledge is quite useless to you and, whenever I wish them to do so, my fleet of planes will continue to land upon that beautiful stretch of ground called Ash Level, so convenient to the railway line which you must have crossed when you were brought here. It seems you do not know the peculiarities of Pegwell Bay.’
‘It’s very shallow,’ said Gregory slowly. ‘If I remember, the tide runs out for nearly two miles, and when it turns comes in nearly as quickly as a man can run. There are lovely sands too. I went for a gallop along them once when I was staying with some friends at Sandwich.’
‘Excellent sands,’ Lord Gavin nodded. ‘That is, for the first half mile or so from the shore, but farther out there are certain areas which have cavities of water beneath them, although they appear firm and beautiful to the uninitiated. It is a dangerous thing to take a short cut across the big bay at low tide, particularly at night, if you do not know the location of the treacherous patches. People have died that way, just disappeared beyond all trace, their bodies being swallowed up by the quicksands.’
The muscles of Gregory’s hands tightened, and he felt that his palms were damp; while Gerry Wells’s freckled face went a perceptible shade paler.
Lord Gavin went on unhurriedly: ‘That was the reason I had you brought here immediately my people telephoned to tell me that they had caught two spies. It is a great convenience that one of my bases should be adjacent to my private burial ground. The tide is running out. It will be low at six-ten this morning. A stone’s throw from the cottage here we have the river Stour, which flows through Sandwich and empties itself into the sea by a deep channel in the bay. At five o’clock, while the tide is still running out, my men will take you in a boat down the river and out to sea; then they will throw you overboard in a place where it is too shallow for you to swim and which the tide will probably have left dry by the time you are engulfed in the sand up to your armpits. You have a little over three hours now to exercise your imagination as to what will happen after that.’
‘God! you’re not human,’ Gregory gasped.
Lord Gavin wriggled forward in the arm-chair and shuffled to his feet. ‘I am as the God you invoke made me,’ he said with sudden venom and all the stored up bitterness of years seemed concentrated in his voice. His childish body shook with a sudden gust of passion and he spat out at them: ‘You have had health and strength, been able to run and leap, and take your women, during your time. Now, your feet shall be tied by the grip of the sands and your great muscles will not help you. You chose to match your wits with mine, and I have proved your master. In your little minds you plotted to interfere with the work that I would do. All right then! You shall gasp out your lives repenting of your folly.’
Suddenly the storm passed and he went quiet again. ‘You’ll see to it,’ he said softly to the Limper, and drawing his black cloak about him he left the cottage without another word.
As the door banged to behind him Wells let out a sharp breath. Little beads of perspiration were now thick upon his forehead. He had been in some tight corners before now, criminal dens in the East End where crooks would have given him a nasty mauling if they had suspected he was a policeman, but nothing to compare with this where he would lose his life unless he could think of a way out.
‘Tie their feet again,’ said the Limper, ‘and push them in the scullery.’
His order was the signal for a fresh struggle. Gregory and Wells both kicked out with savage violence and tried to break away but their arms were still tied and they had four of the Limper’s men against them. The uneven tussle could only end one way. The pugilist hit Gregory in the pit of the stomach; one of the others sloshed Wells on the side of the jaw. The Limper did not even need to go to the assistance of his underlings. The prisoners were forced down on the floor and their ankles tied again with thick cord. Then they were dragged across the room and laid out side by side upon the scullery floor.
Gregory had given up the fight before Wells, and as soon as he got his strength back he was thinking, ‘If only they shut us in we’ll cheat the devils yet. If Wells rolls over on his face I’ll unpick the knots that tie his arms with my teeth. The rest’ll be easy providing they don’t hear us going out through the window.’ But even as he was planning an escape the Limper’s voice came again:
‘Don’t shut the door. Leave it wide open; so I can keep my eye on them in case they start any tricks.’
The ex-pugilist put a kettle on the hob and then produced a greasy pack of cards. He and his three companions sat down to a game of nap while the Limper picked up a tattered magazine and settled himself in the arm-chair to read.
A grim silence fell inside the cottage, broken only by an occasional murmur from one of the card players or the squeak of a chair as it was pushed back a little across the boards.
Gregory turned over twice to ease his position but each time he moved he saw the Limper glance up and stare in his direction.
For a quarter of an hour, that seemed like and eternity, he decided to try bribery.
Struggling into a sitting position he spoke softly to the Limper. ‘Come here a minute will you.’
The Limper put down his magazine and walked over to the entrance of the cupboard-like scullery. ‘What is it?’
‘Just wanted a word with you,’ Gregory said in a low tone. ‘You’re in this game for what you can get out of it—aren’t you?’
‘That’s so,’ agreed the Limper non-committally.
‘Well, I don’t know what Gavin Fortescue pays you but I’m a bidder for your services. I’m not a rich man myself, although I could raise a tidy sum, but there’s a friend of mine who’s next door to being a millionaire—Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust—you may have heard of him. He looks on me as a sort of adopted son and he’ll honour any arrangement that I make without a murmur. Fix it how you like with the others, but get us out of this and we’ll pay you £5,000, besides seeing to it that you get safely out of the country. It’s Gavin Fortescue we’re after and we can afford to shut our eyes to anything you’ve done if you’ll give us a break. How about it?’
The Limper’s mouth hardened. Its corners turned down more than ever; making his face suddenly grim and pitiless. He lifted his foot, planted it swiftly on Gregory’s chest, and kicked him savagely backwards. ‘Another word from you and I’ll have you gagged,’ he said contemptuously. Then he turned back to his arm-chair and magazine.
Gregory’s head hit the stone floor of the scullery with a crack which almost knocked him senseless and made further thinking impossible for some minutes.
Gerry Wells had listened to Gregory’s proposition with mingled hope and fear. He too had been revolving every possible approach in his madly racing brain; yet could think of nothing. Each time he tried to plan a line of action Milly’s face appeared before his mental vision. Death might not be so bad—a decent death—but it was hard to go now that he had found her. She was so utterly different from other girls; so gentle and unspoiled and lovable. The sort that made a big fellow like him just ache to protect her, and she liked him, liked him a lot. He was certain of it. Not a word of any significance had passed between them but it was just the way she looked at him with shy admiration in her big blue eyes. He thought of the wonderful day they had spent together, their flight over Thanet in the morning and their jolly time on the beach in the afternoon; but he mustn’t think of her now. It was utterly suicidal. He had got to concentrate on getting out of this ghastly mess he was in; and yet he could not. Every time he tried to reason or plan he pictured Milly’s delicate oval face, crowned by its mass of golden hair, rose before him.
Time drifted on slowly but inexorably. The pain at the back of Gregory’s head was less now and he was trying to formulate new plans. Threats had failed; bribery had failed. They were trussed like sacred offerings for the slaughter. What was there left? If Wells had sent in a report about the base near Dungeness, and the police went there, they would discover nothing. The places where the flares had been, a few tracks of aeroplanes, perhaps, and the marks of the lorry wheels in the dust of the road. But they wouldn’t go there: why should they when the essence of the game was for Wells and himself to gather all the threads of the conspiracy together before the authorities acted? Even if they blundered, and made a premature mop up for some unknown reason, they might raid Quex Park and the Brown Owl Inn and the Café de la Cloche near Calais, but this other base at Ash Level, just inland from the southern arm of Pegwell Bay, was unknown to them.
How those three hours drifted by neither of them knew and both began to believe that the Limper had forgotten how time must be passing. At last he stood up and gave a curt order. The men came in and dragged them out of the scullery into the living-room again.
Their ankles were untied and they scrambled to their feet. The Limper produced his automatic. ‘Understand now,’ he said. ‘The sands will swallow up a dead body as quickly as a live one. I’ll be behind you while we’re walking to the boat and if there’s any attempt at breaking away I mean to shoot you.’
They were led out of the cottage and round the corner to its other side. Beyond, through the grey half-light that precedes the dawn, they could see a deep gully with muddy banks. In its bed a narrow stream was ebbing swiftly. They crossed it a little farther down by a plank bridge and came again on to the grassland, up a bank, and across the broad main road from Sandwich to Ramsgate. It occurred to both the condemned men to make a dash for it there. If they were shot down, well—better death that way than what awaited them; yet such is the instinct of all humans to cling to life up to the last possible moment that both hesitated, knowing the odds to be so terribly against them. Before either had decided to start kicking out they were across the road and had been pushed down the far embankment; to a place where the river appeared again having made a hairpin bend.
Here the channel was deeper and the stretch of water wider. Swiftly and silently it raced towards the sea in an endeavour to keep pace with the out-going tide.
They were led along to a little wooden landing-stage, running out above the mud, at the far end of which a stout-looking rowing boat was moored. Another moment and they were hustled into its stern. Two of the men took the oars while the other two and the Limper crowded into the seats which ran round its after-part.
The Limper sat in the middle with his pistol drawn, Gregory and Wells on either side of him, and beyond each of them one of the other men, holding them firmly by the back of their collars in case they attempted to jump overboard.
The ex-pugilist, in the bow, cast off the painter and, without any effort on the part of the oarsmen, the boat was carried by the swift current towards the sea.
Dawn had broken and, as the boat emerged from between the two banks into Sandwich Haven on the southern portion of the bay, the captives saw the vast area of sand stretching before them. The river continued; its deep channel twisting and winding between the flat stretches which, at high tide, would be covered by the sea. Only the quiet splash of oars now broke the silence of the early morning. Not a soul was to be seen across all the wide expanse, or upon the steep cliff over a mile away to the northern extremity of the bay, although Gregory and Wells both searched them with frantic glances.
Another few moments and they reached the spot where the river met the outgoing tide. It was rippling gently along the golden sand, yet running out with such speed that every little wavelet broke ten yards farther to the seaward, leaving a fresh stretch of damp, faintly shining sand exposed to view.
The men pulled vigorously and the boat began to heave a little on the gentle swell. Wells’s face was now a mask of whiteness in the early morning light while Gregory’s eyes were deeply sunk in his face on which the tan showed unnaturally grey.
The Limper produced a pocket compass and, steadying it as well as he could, took a rough bearing.
‘Turn her,’ he said. ‘We must do the job about fifty yards to the left from here.’
The men plied their oars again. The tide was now only a distant ripple so that its rapid approach was hardly perceptible. A few more agonising moments passed for the prisoners then the Limper jerked his head in Wells’s direction.
‘Undo his hands,’ he said. ‘If the sands shift and they’re washed up later it’ll look as though they were caught by the tide.’
The man obeyed while the Limper thrust his gun within two inches of Wells’s mouth. ‘Make a move,’ he said, ‘and I’ll blow your head off.’
Gerry Wells’s arms were free. His impulse was to lash out but his hands had been tied behind his back for over five hours. His muscles were cramped and stiff and when he tried to move he found that the effort only resulted in agonising pain.
The Limper gave a quick glance round. No boat was to be seen. There was no one on the shore. Full dawn had hardly come and the faint, still lingering, twilight must obscure their actions from any distant casual watcher.
‘Over with him,’ he grunted.
Too late Wells wrenched his arms forward. The man beside him stooped, placed a hand beneath his knees, and tipped him backwards over the gunwale.
The oarsmen were dipping their oars, keeping the boat more or less in position, so that it drifted only very slightly. The Limper jabbed his automatic against Gregory’s face while the man beside him loosed his hands and pulled the cord away. Like Wells, his arms were almost paralysed from having been tied behind him for so long, but he jerked himself to his feet, his eyes wide and staring.
‘I’ll make it ten thousand,’ he gasped.
The Limper only showed that he had heard by the sneer which lifted his upper lip and an added pressure from the muzzle of his pistol on Gregory’s cheek.
For an instant Gregory’s right leg twitched under him. If he could only knee the Limper in the groin, flashed through his mind, but the pistol would explode automatically with the contraction of the Limper’s finger upon the trigger and the bullet would shatter his face into a bleeding mass of pulp.
He decided to duck and take the risk, but the man who had held him, and the other who had dealt with Wells, came at him simultaneously, pushing him violently upon the chest and shoulders so that his knees gave beneath him and he went overboard with a loud splash.
Spitting and choking he came up with his mouth full of sea water; shaking the drops from his eyes he glanced wildly round. The boat was already heading back towards the river mouth; its crew pulling lustily. Then he saw Wells, a dozen yards away, floundering about in the shallows.
It was a matter of seconds only before his feet touched the sand. He tripped upon it, regained his balance, and stood up. The water was only up to his middle, but instantly he stood he felt the sand giving beneath his feet, so that he was in to his ankles before he could pull them out again.
He flung himself flat and began to swim out to sea, knowing that his only chance lay in reaching deeper water, but the tide was ebbing with terrifying swiftness. As he lunged out his toes kicked the bottom; interfering with his stroke so that his hands swept downwards and his nails scraped on the sand below him.
Gerry Wells was staggering from side to side, trying to fight his way towards the shore, but at every step he took the sand gave like oozy mud under his feet and he felt himself sucked down.
‘On your face you fool,’ shouted Gregory desperately. ‘Try and reach the deeper water, then we’ll swim for it.’
‘I can’t!’ gasped Wells. ‘I can’t swim. But the tide’s running out! If I can reach firm sand I’ll get those devils yet.’
The depth of the water had now decreased to a couple of feet. Gregory floundered on but at every stroke he took the sand was churned up by his feet behind him.
Wells stuck. He could advance no farther. He stood there in the shallow water waving his arms wildly as he endeavoured to fling himself forward, but his feet had sunk right in and the sand had him in its grip up to the calves of his legs.
‘Help,’ he bellowed. For God’s sake give me a hand to pull me out.’
Gregory turned a little and splashed towards him but his knees were now touching bottom at every movement that he made.
The light was brighter now; almost full day. In the distance the Limper’s boat appeared; a cockle shell heading towards land up the channel.
Gregory could swim no farther. He began to crawl forward on his stomach knowing that to distribute his weight was the best way of preventing himself from sinking.
Wells had gone down to above his thighs and was still shouting wildly.
At last Gregory reached him and, although he knew that he could never pull him out, extended a hand towards him. The Inspector grabbed it, drawing Gregory towards him, but the suction of the sand was so powerful that he could not free his legs.
Gregory’s knees and elbows were embedded. Every second he shifted his position so that the sands should not get a grip on him. ‘Lean forward, distribute your weight,’ he bellowed, but Wells had been sucked down to the waist and could only scrabble at the low water in front of him with outstretched hands.
Both of them could see the mark of the receding tide as it approached now by leaps and bounds. At one moment they were struggling in six inches of water, the next it was down to three and, almost before they had time to realise it, the sea was gone, leaving them stranded in the glittering sand.
Gregory felt it well up about his thighs and, wriggle as he would, there was no way to free himself of it. The tiny particles formed a glutinous mud which would not even bear his weight, more or less distributed as it was. His knees were buried and it trickled over the hollows behind them. Wells had sunk up to his arm-pits.
Both of them visualised the awful moment when the sand would be above their chins, when they could no longer lift their arms and were dragged down by the constant sucking motion, so that the sand reached their lips and entered their mouths in spite of all their efforts, choking them as they sank.
They began to scream at the top of their voices, yelling for help with all the force of their lungs, but not a sound came back to them from the desolate wastes that spread upon either hand, and no human figure appeared upon the distant cliff tops.