A Rogue by Compulsion by Victor Bridges (top fiction books of all time TXT) 📖

my arm through Tommy's. "Come along," I said. "We must get out of this before there's a row."

Swift as we had been about it, our little operation had already attracted a certain amount of notice. People were hurrying up from all directions, but without paying any attention to them, we walked back towards the taxi, the driver of which had apparently been too astonished to move.

"Gor blimey, Guv'nor," he ejaculated, "what sorter gime d'you call that?"

"It's all right, driver," said Tommy gravely. "We found him insulting this gentleman's sister."

The driver, who evidently had a nice sense of chivalry, at once came round to our side.

"Was 'e?—the dirty 'ound!" he observed. "Well, you done it on 'im proper. You ain't drowned 'im, 'ave ye, gents?"

"Oh no," I said. "He's addressing a few words to the crowd now." Then seeing Joyce standing in the doorway I hurried up the steps.

"Joyce dear," I said, "put on a hat and come as quick as you can. It's quite all right, but we want to get out of this before there's any bother."

She nodded, and disappeared into the flat, while I strolled back to the taxi.

It was evident from a movement among the spectators that George was making his way towards the steps. Some of them who had come running up kept turning round and casting curious glances at us, but so far no one had attempted to interfere. It was not until Joyce was just coming out of the flats, that a man detached himself from the crowd and started across the road. He was a big, fat, greasy person in a bowler hat.

"Here," he said. "You wait a bit. What d'ye mean by throwing that pore man in the river?"

I opened the door of the taxi and Joyce jumped in.

"What's it got to do with you, darling?" asked Tommy affably.

"What's it got to do with me!" he repeated indignantly. "Why, it's just the mercy o' Gawd—"

"Come on, Tommy," I said.

Tommy took a step forward, but the man clutched him by the arm.

"No yer don't," he said, "not till … Ow!"

With a sudden vigorous shove Tommy sent him staggering back across the pavement, and the next moment we had both jumped into the taxi and banged the door.

"Right away," I called out.

I think there was some momentary doubt amongst the other spectators whether they oughtn't to interfere, but before they could make up their minds our sympathetic driver had thrust in his clutch, and we were spinning away down the Embankment.

Joyce, who was sitting next to me, slipped her hand into mine.

"I love to see you both laughing," she said, "but I should like to know what's happened! At present I feel as if I was acting in a cinematograph play."

We told her—told her in quick, eager sentences of how the danger and mystery that had hung over us so for long had at last been scattered and destroyed. It was a broken, inadequate sort of narrative, jerked out as we bumped over crossings and pulled by behind buses, but I fancy from the light in her eyes and the pressure of her hand that Joyce was quite contented.

"It's—it's like waking up after some horrible dream," she said, "and suddenly finding that everything's all right. Oh, I knew it would be in the end—I knew it the whole time—but I never dreamed it would happen all at once like this."

"Neither did George," chuckled Tommy. "How long had he been with you,
Joyce?"

"About twenty minutes," she said. "He came straight to me from Harrod's, where he's spent most of the day buying stores for his yacht. He had quite made up his mind I was coming with him. I don't believe he's got the faintest idea about what's happened this morning."

"He will have soon," I said. "That's why I threw him in the river. He's bound to go back to the house for a change of clothes, and he'll find the police waiting for him there."

"That'll be just right," observed Tommy complacently. "There's nothing so good as a little excitement to stop one from catching cold."

"Except lunch," I added, as the taxi rounded the corner of Piccadilly and drew up outside the Café Royal.

What the manager of that renowned restaurant must have thought of us, I find it rather difficult to guess. It is not often, I should imagine, that two untidy mud-stained men and a beautiful girl turn up at four o'clock in the afternoon and demand the best meal that London can provide.

Fortunately, however, he proved to be a gentleman of philosophy and resource. He accepted our request with perfect composure, and by the time we had succeeded in making ourselves passably respectable he presented us with a menu that deserved to be set to music.

Heavens, what a lunch that was! We ate it all by ourselves in the big empty restaurant, with half a dozen fascinated waiters eyeing us from the end of the room. They were probably speculating as to whether we were eccentric millionaires, or whether we had just escaped from some private lunatic asylum, but we were all far too cheerful to care what they thought. We ate, we drank, we laughed, we talked, with a reckless jubilant happiness that would have survived the scrutiny of all the waiters in London.

"I know what we'll do, Joyce," I said, when at last the dessert was cleared away and we were sitting in a delicate haze of cigar smoke. "As soon as things are fixed up I'll buy a good second-hand thirty-ton boat, and you and I and Tommy will go off for a six months' cruise. We'll take Mr. Gow as skipper, and your little page-boy as steward, and we'll run down to the Mediterranean and stop there till people are tired of gassing about us."

"That will be beautiful," said Joyce simply.

"I'll come," exclaimed Tommy, "unless the Secret Service refuse to give me up." Then he stopped and looked mischievously across at Joyce and me. "It's a pity we can't ask Sonia too," he added.

"Poor Sonia," said Joyce. "I am so glad you got her off."

"Are you really?" asked Tommy. "That shows I know nothing about women. I always thought that if two girls loved the same man they hated each other like poison."

Joyce nodded. "So they do as a rule."

"Well, Sonia loved Neil all right; you can take my word for it."

Joyce laughed softly. "Yes, Tommy dear," she said, "but then, you see,
Neil didn't love her—and that just makes all the difference."

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