snapped: “Have a car go at once to my home and find out if Mrs. Gideon is there. Break in, if necessary!” He rang down on a startled: “Yes, sir!” and closed his eyes as a heavy, dull headache suddenly engulfed him. After a long moment, he managed: “One thing is certain, Alec, you were right to tell me. Thanks.” He could have added: “I wish to God you’d told me weeks ago!” but any hint of recrimination would do no good. Instead, he asked: “Has she seen a doctor?”
“She — she told him she had indigestion.”
“She must be terrified,” Gideon muttered. And although he had been aware of something different about Kate he had never even dreamed of this; had not even taken the trouble to talk seriously with her, to try to make her talk. How blind could a man be? As he sat there, he wondered how long it would be before a report came in from the Divisional patrol car. And then for the first time since Hobbs had asked for that private ten minutes, he thought fleetingly of the cases going through, of the hundred-and-one things that constantly preoccupied him — virtually obsessed him.
God above, it was his fault! If he had been more aware, if he had learned earlier, he would have made Kate see a doctor, gone with her, if necessary. He was the only one who could have made her.
The telephone rang, and he snatched it up. Kate?
“Superintendent Henry would like a word with you,” said the operator.
“Who? — oh.” His voice flattened. “Yes. Put him through.”
Henry, he thought. The Second Test Match, the young Jamaican woman — Conception. The risk of a mass demonstration at the Mecca of cricket. The Action Committee. Danger for the girl. All of these things were conscious thoughts, deliberately, painfully, plucked from his memory; normally, they would simply be part of instantaneous and comprehensive knowledge of each case. At least there was a little delay on the line: time for these separate thoughts to fall into place.
“Commander?” Henry said, at last.
“Yes.”
“Commander!” Henry repeated, and his voice sounded thick, as if he were having difficulty in articulating. Normally, Gideon would have waited, knowing there must be some thing badly wrong; now, he asked sharply: “Well, what is it?”
“I’m — I’m afraid something’s happened to — to Detective-Constable Conception.” Each word sounded hoarser than the last: “She — she’s been missing for eight hours. She should report in every four hours — I’ve never known her miss, before. But she — she hasn’t called since last night. She should have reported at eight o’clock and twelve noon. I’ve checked at her apartment and she didn’t get in, last night. She reported at eight o’clock last night that there was an emergency meeting and she’d been asked to attend. And I thought — well, sir, if we question the members of the Action Committee, we may not get the truth.”
There was a pause, before Henry went on; “I — ah — I would like your guidance, Commander. I’ve come to the conclusion that you were right — she is in physical danger.”
“I will call you back in fifteen minutes,” Gideon said, very deliberately. “Presumably you’ve checked her recent movements closely?”
“As far as I can, sir.”
“Fifteen minutes,” repeated Gideon, and rang off.
Juanita Conception, bound with cord and gagged with adhesive-plaster, lay in a darkened room. She was alone, but the sharpness of fear had gone and now she half-dozed. The effort of thinking seemed to make her drowsy, as if her mind refused to cope any more: found it simpler to accept the inevitable. Faces swam in her consciousness, from time to time. The faces of the young men she had betrayed. Gideon’s face, when he had asked her with a kind of approving roughness whether she too would go to the stake for what she believed in.
She was ‘going to the stake’ now.
She didn’t seriously expect to leave this room alive.
It was two o’clock on that second Monday in June; the tenth of June.
Barnaby Rudge felt very, very confident; yet there was something inside him, burning like a fuse. He knew that he had never been so fit in his life. He knew he could defeat his opponent without using his service once. But that service, now that he was walking on to the court, seemed like something alive, inside him: something imprisoned, straining to get out.
He could still hardly credit that he was there. Although it was surprising how ‘ordinary’ everything was, on the surface. This court itself-here, at Wimbledon! — might have been any court in the world. There was a small crowd, no more than a hundred or so, wandering about in the bright sunlight. Even the Centre and No. 1 Courts, he knew, were half-empty. Only the ice-cream vendors were busy, but no one else.
He put his sweater over a hanger, shook hands with the umpire, shook hands with his young, fair-haired opponent, and went to the court. Every muscle in his body seemed to sing.
Aunty Martha was very pleased with her new pupils; she had had them watched with great care, and they had all behaved very well. Little Kitty Strangeways was slightly nervous: she needed more practice with crowds. And Cyril Jackson had enjoyed it too much. He almost took chances, to prove how good he was. Cyril was a great one for dares, and would do anything. He might even try to cheat her, for the fun of it.
If he did, of course, he would very swiftly learn that there was never any fun in cheating Aunty Martha. She simply dared not allow it, no matter how ruthless she had to be.
At the Jockey Club’s Headquarters at Newmarket, in Suffolk, there was an unofficial meeting of the stewards; quite normal at this time of the year. The main interest, of course, centred on the Derby, an interest as great today as ever it had been since the first race, nearly two hundred years ago. And there was a great deal of discussion, for no horse had been scratched and there was so far no clear favourite: at least six horses were equally favoured in the betting, to date.
Of course, it was a long time, yet, before the off-nearly three weeks. Horses could fall out, get hurt on the hard courses, or reach and pass the peak of fitness. But every owner and every trainer with whom the Club was in touch reported a clean bill of health and seemed to be in high hopes. If this went on, there would be over thirty runners, not far off a record.
