pick them up. The sun was hot now and as they skidded down the rough track they could smell the scent of the pines and wild thyme growing in the marquis through which it ran. At the village they turned on to the main coast road and three quarters of an hour's drive brought them to Molly's villa. There, Christina, John and C. B. hastily packed suitcases and said good bye to her. Another three quarters of an hour, with the driver urged on by the promise of a handsome pourboire, and the others were set down at the Nice airport.
It was twenty five to one when they got there, and they were lucky enough to pick up two seats that had been returned that morning on the B.E.A. plane. C. B. sent a telegram to his office, asking that his car should be sent to meet him at Northolt; then, as there was still a quarter of an hour to spare, they had drinks and some delicious snacks at the airport bar.
When the time came to say good bye, John and Christina both tried to make light of the matter; and he jokingly told her that when he met her at the prison gates on Monday he would have his pockets sewn up, as it was certain that by then she would have become a real old lag. Since they were in public he made no attempt to kiss her, but their eyes held one another's in a long glance as they parted. Malouet watched with her until the plane had taken off, then they returned to the car and did the last four miles in to the centre of Nice.. By two o'clock Christina’s name had been entered on the prison register, and, now a number, she was being escorted by a fat, garlic breathing wardress to a cell.
The journey in the aircraft proved uneventful; and, having been up most of the night, John and C. B. slept through the greater part of it. The Cote d'Azur, with its sun and palms, was soon left behind. Over Avignon they ran into cloud and only occasional patches of land or sea were visible for the rest of the way. When they same down at Northolt it was raining. Everyone at the airport was polite and helpful, so the formalities of landing were over in a few minutes, and a pretty air hostess led them out to the place where C.B.’s car was waiting. He took it over from the junior who had bought it out, made John get into the driver's seat, and soon after four o'clock they set out for Essex.
North of London the earliest daffodils and almond trees were not yet out, so there was no colour in the gardens, and the branches of the trees still displayed their winter bareness. The skies were grey, a chill wind was blowing and the rain lashed against the windows of the car; so their sixty mile drive was a depressing contrast to the one through a smiling land of summer they had taken only that morning. It was already dark when at six o'clock they entered Colchester.
There, they engaged rooms at the Red Lion for the night, dropped their bags, and, having enquired the way to Beddows Agricultural Tractor plant, drove straight out to it.
As the factory was working night shifts, it was brilliantly lit and still a hive of activity. On asking for Mr. Beddows they were told that he was not there, and had not been to his office for a week or more. They then asked to see his secretary. She had gone home for the night, but after stating that their business was personal they were shown into a garish modem waiting room. Presently a Mr. Hicks came down to see them, and he proved to be a senior member of the staff. In spite of all their pressing that they must see Mr. Beddows on a matter of the utmost urgency, he assured them that his chief had gone abroad ten days before, leaving no address, and orders that all correspondence was to be dealt with in his absence as he could give no certain date for his return.
Their failure to learn Beddows' whereabouts was a bitter disappointment; so they returned to the Red Lion, had a wash, and sat there very despondently drinking Gimlets until dinner was served. The meal, and even a bottle of claret, followed by half a bottle of port, to wash it down, did little to cheer them.
There was, however, still a chance that something might be learned at Beddows' home, so at half past eight they got out the car again and took the road leading east out of Colchester to Walton on the Naze.
The country they were now entering was that northeastern segment of Essex which has its curve upon the sea and its two sides formed by the Rivers Stour and Colne. Its only towns of any size are the pleasure resort of Clacton in the south and the naval base of Harwich in the extreme north. For many centuries the two rivers almost enclosing it shut it off from easy communication with neighboring districts; so no great highway passes through it, and to this day it remains almost as unindustrialized as it was when Cromwell raised a company of his Roundheads from its scattered hamlets.
When they had covered a few miles the road forked, and they ran on through a series of narrow, winding lanes. Twice they took wrong turnings and had to ask their way once at an old thatched cottage and once of a benighted cyclist from whose mackintosh cape the rain was streaming : but at length they came to a triangular village green with half a dozen buildings dotted round it. One was a pub called the Weaver's Arms. On C. B. enquiring at it, they found that this was Little Bentford and that The Grange lay about two miles beyond it on the road to Tendring.
After following a sharp bend for half a mile, they passed an ancient stone church with a squat, square tower, and a little further on a moderate sized private house of hideous Victorian Gothic design; they then ran through a wood and out again into the open country.
From the description C. B. had been given, they had no difficulty in finding The Grange. It stood some way from the road in a slight hollow and a curved drive led down to it. As the car approached and the headlights threw it up, they saw it was one of those inelegant, nondescript houses, not uncommon in the English countryside, which have resulted from two or more generations adding bits in the Style of their own day to an original building. No light showed in any of its windows; in spite of the rain a suggestion of mist lurked round it up to the first floor level, and it had a chill, forbidding air.
C. B. got out and rang the front door bell. He could hear it ringing, but no one came to answer it; so, after waiting a few minutes, he rang again. Still there was no reply and there was no sound of movement within the house.
John left the car, went over to join him and said, `I remember Christina telling us that the only servants were a couple named the Jutsons, and that they lived over the garage, in the flat where she was born. Let's go round there and see if they are about.'
At the back of the house they saw lights in two first floor windows of the outbuildings and, locating a narrow door next to the big ones of the garage, C. B. rang the bell beside it. Footsteps sounded on the stairs and the door was opened by a thin faced, rather sour looking middle aged woman. To C.B.’s enquiry she replied
'No: Mr. Beddows is away. I'm afraid I can't help You.'
C. B. clinked some silver in his pocket. `We're very anxious to get in touch with him; perhaps you could suggest someway. ..'
A man's voice cut him short by calling, `Who's that, Mary?'
There came more clumping of feet, then Jutson appeared and pushed past his wife. He was a small man with grey hair close cropped at the sides; his face was careworn and tight lipped. He was in shirt sleeves and wearing an unbuttoned waistcoat, but no collar. A wireless was reeling off sporting news upstairs, and evidently he was annoyed at being disturbed, as he gave his callers a most unfriendly stare while C. B. repeated his request.
`No.' He shook his bullet head. `The guv'ner's from home. Has been for near a fortnight, an' we dunno when 'e'll be back.'
`Can't you possibly think of someone who might be able to help us?' John asked persuasively. `We are friends of Miss Chris ... Miss Ellen Beddows.'
`That don't make no difference. I tell you 'e ain't 'ere, an' we dunno where 'e is neither. 'Tain't none of our business; an' it's no good you fiddlin' with your note case neither. G'night.'
With that Jutson slammed the door and they were left standing in the rain. As they walked back to the car John said miserably, `What appalling luck! Everything depends on our getting hold of him. How else can we hope to free Christina from this beastly thing that gets into her at night? There must be some way we can trace him.'
`I'll get on to a pal of mine at Scotland Yard tomorrow. They will do more for me than for most people without asking any questions.' C. B. made the promise in the hope of cheering John up, but he was by no means optimistic of getting results, as it now seemed certain that Beddows was still abroad.
Climbing into the car again, they took the road back to Little Bentford. Half a mile before they reached it, on the corner of a lane opposite the church, there was a pillar box, and the car lights showed a man just posting a letter in it. His back was turned to them, but they could see that he was elderly, as a rim of silvery hair caught the light between the collar of a dark cloak and the clerical hat he was wearing. As they passed him John said in an excited whisper
`I'll swear that was Canon Copely Syle. Christina said that he lives in the village at a house called The Priory; so it must have been.'
