War in Heaven by Charles Williams (free children's online books .txt) 📖

the priest. Kenneth only, in as good condition, younger and with longer legs, overtook the fugitive half-way to the gates. Up to that moment he had still been sceptical and undetermined in his mind; but he knew, as he came level, that, right or wrong, it was impossible for him to lay a detaining hand upon his friend, and as he felt the decision taken his own gaiety returned. He ran on in advance, reached the gate and threw it open, reached the Duke’s car in three strides, and opened that door also.

The Duke had been writing poetry; Constable Puttenham had been asleep in the August sun. But the Duke, hesitating over a word, had been staring at the gate, and saw the returning guests before the distant shouts had done more than pleasantly mingle with the constable’s dreams.

“Drive like hell,” Kenneth said to the Duke as the Archdeacon reached the car, and himself jumped up by the driver’s side. The constable, awaking to cries of “Puttenham” from the Colonel rushing round the curve of the drive, sat bolt upright. “Stop him, Puttenham,” the Colonel yelled. But the bewildered policeman saw no-one to stop. He saw the Archdeacon settling down in the car, and Mornington by the Duke’s side. He saw the other car begin to move, but who it was he was to stop was by no means clear—it couldn’t be the Duke. Nevertheless, the ducal car was the only thing in sight—unless it was Gregory Persimmons; he by now had reached the gate in advance of the shouting Colonel. The constable ran for him, and met him. “Not me, you everlasting ape!” Gregory howled at him. “The car, you baboon, the car!” “The Archdeacon,” the Colonel bellowed. “Stop the Archdeacon!” The constable left Gregory and began to run after the car, which by now had got fairly started. “Stop, God blast you!” the Colonel yelled again. “Come back, you fool!” The constable, in one entire maze, stopped and came back, to find Gregory and the Colonel scrambling into their own car. “Drive like hell,” the Colonel said; “we may catch him.”

“After the Duke, sir?” the bewildered constable asked.

“After that damned black-coated hypocrite,” the Colonel shouted, still in a stentorian voice, so that the Archdeacon, a quarter of a mile away, unconsciously turned to protest. “I’ll unfrock him—I’ll have him in the dock!”

“Drive,” Gregory said, looking unpleasantly at the constable, and the constable drove.

So through the English roads the Graal was borne away in the care of a Duke, an Archdeacon, and a publisher’s clerk, pursued by a country householder, the Chief Constable of a county, and a perplexed policeman. And these things also perhaps the angels desired to look into.

At least the Duke of the North Ridings did. After a few moments he said to Mornington, “I suppose you know what we’re doing?”

“We’re carrying the San Graal,” Mornington said. “Lancelot and Pelleas and Pellinore—no, that’s not right—Bors and Percivale and Galahad. The Archdeacon’s Galahad, and you can be Percivale: you’re not married, are you? And I’m Bors-but I’m not married either, and Bors was. It doesn’t matter; you must be Percivale, because you’re a poet. And Bors was an ordinary workaday fellow like me. On, on to Sarras!” He looked back over his shoulder. “Sari-as!” he cried to the car behind. “We shall meet at Carbonek!”

“What in God’s name are you singing about?” the Duke asked.

Mornington was about to reply when the Archdeacon, leaning forward, said with a slight formality: “I couldn’t take advantage of your kindness, my lord, unless you knew the circumstances. I don’t want to rush you… “

“Really?” the Duke said, manipulating a corner. “Oh, really? Well, I’m not objecting, but—damn that dog!—there seems to be a slight rush somewhere. Perhaps it’s the people behind. Mornington, stop laughing and tell me where I’m to drive to.”

“But, indeed,” the Archdeacon protested, “I’d rather you put me down than—”

“No, look here,” Kenneth said, pulling himself together, “it’s all right really. Honestly, Ridings. The Archdeacon has got the Graal there.”

“The Graal?” the Duke said, and again, in a voice that rejected the idea still more strongly, “The Graal?”

“The Graal,” Kenneth assured him. “Malory? Tennyson—Chretien de Troyes—Miss Jessie Weston. From Romance to Reality, or whatever she called it. That’s what’s happening, anyhow. I give you my word, Ridings, that it’s really serious.”

The Duke spared him a glance. An hour’s conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy. Mornington went on explaining as quietly and as clearly as was possible, and at last the Duke said, shrugging his shoulders, “Well, if you say so… But where are we going?”

Kenneth looked back at the Archdeacon, then changed his mind and said, “Where are we going now, anyhow?”

“London as straight as we can,” the Duke answered.

“Humph!” said Kenneth. “I suppose you’ve got a house there?”

“Of sorts,” the Duke answered.

“Well, let’s go there, and we can tell you the whole thing in full. Unless they telephone to the police on the way?” Over his shoulder he offered the Archdeacon the question.

“I don’t think he’ll do that,” the priest said. “He wants it kept quiet too.”

“They can’t stop us without arresting us,” the Duke said thoughtfully, “if I refuse to stop.”

“Arrest of the Duke of the North Ridings and the Archdeacon of Fardles. Strange story. Is the Holy Graal in England? Evidence by a retired publisher. By God, Ridings, they daren’t stop us!” Kenneth cried, as the magnitude of the possibilities of publicity became clear to him.

“London, then,” the Duke said, and gave himself up to his destiny.

Kenneth glanced back at the pursuing car. “The Archdeacon’s lost his Rectory,” he thought, “and I’ve lost my job, and the Duke’s near losing his reputation. But poor old Gregory’s lost the Graal—and Giles Tumulty will lose his nerve if I ever get a chance at him,” he added, remembering the previous afternoon.

In the pursuing car the same thought of publicity entered the minds of its occupants, and first of Gregory. He was therefore in time to check the impulse of Colonel Conyers towards the station telephone by pointing out to him the dimensions of the scandal which might result. “In the courts it’s bound at best to be a drawn battle; I may recover the chalice, but a lot of people will believe the Archdeacon—all the clerical party. Whereas, if we can only get hold of the Duke and explain matters, it’s quite likely he’ll see how strong my case is. Is he a great friend of the Archdeacon’s?”

“I didn’t know they even knew each other,” the Chief Constable said. “The Duke’s a Roman Catholic; all his family are. He’s in with the Norfolks, too; his mother was a Howard. It makes this freak of his all the more surprising. That damned clergyman must have bamboozled him somehow.”

As they rushed on, however, Gregory began to recover his poise; the Duke was the only unknown quantity in the allied opposition, and he found it impossible to believe that the Duke was unpersuadable. He had other resources after all; there was Sir Giles, who had a good deal of curious knowledge of hidden circles, for it was at his advice that a visit had been paid on the Saturday to the Greek in the chemist’s shop. Sir Giles had insisted that a pedigree could be more easily and more certainly created there than by a reliance on the less effective Stephen. With this, and the police if necessary behind him, he smiled at the car in front, which maintained a steady space between them. It escaped, as a white hart of heaven, before the pursuing hounds—escaped for a while, but hardly, and with little hope. The teeth were gnashing behind at it; already the blood showed here and there on the white coat; already the pursuer felt the taste in his mouth. Mornington should suffer; that was clear; and the Archdeacon—but how was not yet clear. And the Graal should be withdrawn again into the seclusion of a frozen sanctuary.

They approached London, still with the distance varyingly, but on the whole steadily, maintained; they entered it, and ran down towards the West End. The Duke kept the car at as great a speed as possible, and stopped it at a house in Grosvenor Square. Mornington sprang out and opened the door for the Archdeacon, who got out, still holding the Graal, and the three ran to the front door, which opened before them. The Duke pushed the other two in, and, with his arms in theirs, led them on through the hall, saying over his shoulder as he did so, “If anyone calls, Thwaites, I am not at home.”

“Very good, your Grace,” the footman said, and went calmly to the door as footsteps sounded before it.

“Ridings, Ridings!” the Colonel called, and found his way blocked as the Duke and his friends disappeared in the indistinct shadows.

“His Grace is not at home, sir,” the footman said.

“Damn it, man, I saw him!” the Colonel cried.

“I am sorry, sir, but his Grace is not at home.”

“I am the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire,” Colonel Conyers raged. “I represent the police.”

“I am sorry, sir, but his Grace is not at home.”

Gregory touched the Colonel’s arm. “It’s no use,” he said. “We must write, or I must call presently.”

“It’s perfectly monstrous,” the Colonel cursed. “The whole thing’s insane and ridiculous. Look here, my man, I want to see the Duke on important business.”

“I am sorry, sir, but his Grace is not at home.”

“Come with me,” Gregory said. “Let’s make sure of my right first and enforce it afterwards.”

“You’ll hear more of this,” the Colonel said threateningly. “It’s no use standing there and telling me these lies. Tell Ridings I’m going to have an explanation, and the sooner he lets me hear from him the better. I’ve never been treated like this before in my whole life.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but his Grace?”

The Colonel flung away, and Gregory went with him. The footman closed the door, and, hearing the bell, went to the library.

“Have they gone?” the Duke asked.

“Yes, your Grace. One of the gentlemen seemed rather annoyed. He asked you to write to him explaining.”

The three looked at one another. “Very well, Thwaites,” the Duke said. “I’m not at home to anyone till after lunch, and see that we have something to eat as soon as possible.” Then, as the servant left the room, he sat down and turned to the priest. “And now,” he said, “let’s hear about this Graal.”