But where could he hide in the meantime?
He heard the policemen come out of the wings. For safety he ducked back into the hold—
And found himself staring straight at the answer to his problem.
He could hide in Lady Oxenford’s trunk.
Could he get inside? He thought so. It was about five feet high and two feet square: if it had been empty you could have got two people into it. It was not empty, of course: he would have to make room in it by taking out some of the clothes. Then what would he do with them? He could not leave them lying around. But he could cram them into his own half-empty suitcase.
He had to hurry.
He crawled over the piled luggage and grabbed his own suitcase. Working feverishly, he opened it and stuffed Lady Oxenford’s coats and dresses into it. He had to sit on the lid to close it again.
Now he could get into the trunk. He found he could close it from the inside easily enough. Would he be able to breathe when it was shut? He would not be inside for long: it might get stuffy but he would live.
Would the cops notice if the clasps were undone? They might. Could he close them from inside? That looked difficult. He studied the problem for a long moment. If he made holes in the trunk near the clasps, he might be able to poke his knife through and manipulate the clasps through the holes. The same holes would bring him air, too.
He took out his penknife. The trunk was made of wood covered with leather. The dark green-brown leather was imprinted with a pattern of gold-colored flowers. Like all penknives, his had a pointed implement for getting stones out of horses’ hooves. He set the point in the middle of one of the flowers and pushed it in. It penetrated the leather easily enough, but the wood was harder. He worked it in and out. The wood was about a quarter of an inch thick, he guessed. It took a minute or two but eventually he got through.
He pulled the point out. Because of the pattern, the hole could hardly be seen.
He got inside the trunk. With relief he found that he could close and open the clasp from inside.
There were two clasps on top and three down the side. He went to work on the top ones first, as they were most visible. He had just finished when he heard footsteps again.
He got inside the trunk and closed it.
Somehow it was not so easy to close the clasps this time. Standing with his legs bent he found it difficult to maneuver. But he managed it at last.
His position was painfully uncomfortable after a couple of minutes. He twisted and turned but got no relief. He would just have to suffer.
His breathing sounded very loud. Noises from outside were muffled. However, he could hear footsteps outside the hold, probably because there was no carpet there and vibrations were transmitted through the deck. There were now at least three people out there, he guessed. He could not hear doors opening and closing, but he felt a much nearer step and knew someone had come into the hold.
A voice came suddenly from right next to him. “I don’t see how the bastard got away from us.”
Don’t look at the side clasps, please, Harry thought fearfully.
There was a knock on the top of the trunk. Harry stopped breathing. Maybe the guy just leaned his elbow on it, he thought.
Someone else spoke from a distance.
“No, he ain’t on this plane,” the man replied. “We’ve looked everywhere.”
The other party spoke again. Harry’s knees hurt. For God’s sake, he thought, go and chat somewhere else!
“Oh, we’ll catch him all right. He ain’t gonna walk a hundred and fifty miles to the border without somebody sees him.”
A hundred and fifty miles! It would take him a week to walk that far. He might hitch a ride, but in this wilderness he would surely be remembered.
There was no speech for a few seconds. At last he heard receding footsteps.
He waited awhile, hearing nothing.
He took out his knife and poked it through one of the holes to undo the clasp.
This time it was harder still. His knees hurt so much that he could hardly stand, and would have fallen if there had been room. He became impatient, and poked the blade through the hole again and again. A panicky claustrophobia seized him and he thought I’m going to suffocate in here! He tried to be calm. After a moment he was able to blank out the pain while he carefully worked the blade through the hole so that it engaged the catch. He pushed the blade. It lifted the brass loop, then slipped. He gritted his teeth and tried again.
This time the catch came undone.
Slowly and painfully he repeated the process with the other catch.
At last he was able to push the two halves of the trunk apart and stand upright. The pain in his knees became excruciating as he straightened his legs, and he almost cried out; then it eased.
What was he going to do?
He could not get off the plane here. He was probably safe until they reached New York, but what then? He would have to stay in hiding on the plane and then slip out at night.
He might get away with it. He had no alternative, anyway. The world would know that he had stolen Lady Oxenford’s jewels. More important, Margaret would know. And he would not be around to talk to her about it.
The more he contemplated this possibility, the more he hated it.
He had known that stealing the Delhi Suite put his relationship with Margaret at risk; but he had always imagined that he would be around when she realized what had happened, so he could try to make it all right with her. Now, however, it might be days before he reached her; and if things went wrong, and he got arrested, it would be years.
He could guess what she would think. He had befriended her, made love to her and promised to help her find a new home; and it had all been a sham, for he had stolen her mother’s jewelry and left her high and dry. She would think the jewels had been all he wanted right from the start. She would be heartbroken, then she would come to hate and despise him.
The idea made him feel sick with misery.
Until this moment he had not fully realized what a difference Margaret had made to him. Her love for him was genuine. Everything else in his life had been faked: his accent, his manners, his clothes, his entire way of life was a disguise. But Margaret had fallen in love with the thief, the working-class boy with no father, the real Harry. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him. If he threw it away, his life would always be what it was now, a matter of pretending and dishonesty. But she had made him want something more. He still hoped for the country house with the tennis courts, but it would not please him unless she were there.
He sighed. Harry boy was not Harry boy anymore. Perhaps he was becoming a man.
He opened Lady Oxenford’s trunk. He took from his pocket the tan leather wallet containing the Delhi Suite.
He opened the wallet and took out the jewels once again. The rubies glowed like banked fires. I may never see anything like this again, he thought.
He replaced the jewels in their wallet. Then, with a heavy heart, he put the wallet back in Lady Oxenford’s trunk.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Nancy Lenehan sat on Shediac’s long plank pier, at the shore ward end, outside the air terminal. This was a building like a seaside cottage, with flowers in window boxes and awnings over the windows; but a radio mast beside the house and an observation tower rising from its roof gave away its true function.
Mervyn Lovesey sat beside her in another striped canvas deck chair. The water shushed against the pier in a soothing way, and Nancy closed her eyes. She had not slept much. A faint smile twitched the comers of her mouth as she recalled how she and Mervyn had misbehaved in the night. She was glad she had not gone all the way with him. It would have been too sudden. And now she had something to look forward to.
