Part 55 (1/2)

'I said I was here to protect you,' affirmed Uncle Stephen, 'and I shall do it still. I have always won the last battle. Always and always.'

'Come away with me, Uncle Stephen, while there's time.'

He went through burlesque bristling motions. 'You don't suppose I shall knuckle down to a couple of schoolboys with their pockets full of gum.' He expressed it facetiously, but of course he meant it, could hardly have meant it more.

Now that the firing had ceased for some time, the encircling host had begun to relax. Cups of tea were being consumed; ambulance workers were chatting to firemen on familiar subjects, their respective rates of pay and conditions of employment, their pension prospects, the maladies of their dear ones.

'Oh come on, Uncle Stephen. If the boys have gone, we can go too.'

To her consternation, he was not to be budged. 'No, girl,' he said. 'This is my home, my castle, as we used to say; and perhaps by now it's your home and castle too. Wouldn't you say that's very nearly true, Millie?' He had given up fiddling with the gun, and was addressing himself to something even more important.

'The boys will return,' she said. 'When all the people have gone. And you'll be in endless trouble for firing that gun in any case, even though I know you did it for my sake.'

'All my guns are licensed, Millie. I'm a registered holder of firearms. And as for the boys, let them come. I want nothing better. They've won a battle. They won't win the war. They're hulking brutes, but they're still only schoolboys. Look at this.' Uncle Stephen displayed the mess on his hands and combat suit.

'We shan't feel the same about the house ever again, Uncle Stephen. You must know that.'

'If we were all to let ideas of that kind govern our lives, we'd all be homeless.' Uncle Stephen sat back on the semi-dismantled gun. 'You mustn't suppose, girl, that I don't know what you mean. It's simply that not one thing in life is ever gained by running away. This is our home, yours and mine, and here we stay.'

'I'm afraid of the boys coming back,' said Millie. 'I'm terrified.'

The big lights were being turned out, one after another. It is often noticeable that they are in use only for a few minutes. By now Millie was unsure whether she preferred the crude glare or the deep darkness.

Someone was hammering at the front door. It was of course inevitable, sooner or later. Probably it had been going on at a lesser intensity for some time.

Millie dropped down the attic ladder and flitted through the dark house like a noctambule. She was not going to wait for any nonsense from Uncle Stephen about taking no notice. All the same, at the foot of the stairs she stood and called out. After all, it might conceivably be the boys.

'Who's there?' In the hall, the trophies were s.h.a.ggy as a tropical forest.

'I'm a police officer, madam. Kindly open the door.'

She knew the voice. She slipped the chain and drew the big bolts in a trice.

'We're old friends, officer.'

All the same, he showed his card, and said, 'Detective-Sergeant Meadowsweet.' Millie smiled. 'May we have some light on the scene, madam?'

'Would that be safe?'

'Safe as could be, madam. The two men have been sighted miles away, and we're closing in steadily.'

'Oh!' gasped Millie. 'So you know?'

'Of course we know, madam. What else did you think we were doing here. Now, I just want you to tell me all that's taken place. After that, I must have a word with the gentleman upstairs who's been treating himself to a little pistol practice.'

'I hope he's not done any damage.'

'No particular damage that we know of, but that's more by luck than judgement, wouldn't you say?'

'He's got all the necessary licences.'

'We know that, madam, but he happens not to have a licence to fire at intruders, because no such licence exists. Jobs of that kind must be left to the police. It sometimes causes hards.h.i.+p, but it's the law, and a gentleman with all those different licences knows better than most what they permit him to do and what not.'

'Perhaps I should say,' put in Millie, 'that the gentleman's my uncle. He kindly took me in after the trouble we had a year ago. A little more than a year, actually.'

'I could see at the time that your husband wasn't much help,' said Detective-Sergeant Meadowsweet in his inimitable way; and then duly added, 'If you don't mind my saying so, madam.'

'Oh no, I don't mind,' said Millie. 'Phineas was utterly wet from first to last. The whole thing was the biggest mistake I ever made. Not that ”mistake” is quite a strong enough word. But do sit down, Sergeant.'

'I take it,' said the Detective-Sergeant as he did so, 'that the two men were attempting to force an entrance? Tonight, I mean.'

'They're really only boys,' said Millie, 'absurd though it seems.'

'I don't think we need to go over that ground again, madam. If you remember, we covered it fully when Mr. Morke was there. So the two of them were attempting to force an entrance?'

'Well, not exactly, as I have to admit. What happened was simply that I saw one of them out on the lawn and rather lost my head. You know what they look like, Sergeant? How enormous they are?'

'Yes, we know very well, madam. Don't you worry about that. The approved school couldn't hold them for a week. The Tower of London would be more the thing, I'd say. So what happened then?'

'They're so strong too. I admit that I'm frightened to think about it. But of course you know about that too.'

The Sergeant nodded. He had settled himself on a big black stool from somewhere in French West Africa. Millie had been given to understand that, before the French came, the potentate whose official seat it had been (perhaps even throne) had at times waded through blood almost to the knees. She had difficulty in remembering which of the different regions the different things came from; especially as Uncle Stephen had s.h.i.+fted in mid-career from the fairly Far East to Africa, and then back to the East. The legs of the stool were decorated with small projecting bones and teeth, inserted into the woodwork. Above the Detective-Sergeant's head flapped a faded rushwork curtain originally intended, Uncle Stephen had said, to deter the flesh-eating birds and bats from entering one's room during the night.

'So what happened then, madam?'

'I admit that I completely lost my head, and ran in to my uncle, who took steps to defend me. No more than that.'

Another voice broke in. 'I take full responsibility, officer.'

Uncle Stephen had appeared at the top of the stairs. He had changed into his usual sharply pressed trousers and camel-hair jacket. 'The situation was extremely menacing. I was protecting my own flesh and blood against a couple of thugs.'

'Yes, sir, they're a nasty enough pair, according to all the evidence. The police are fed to the teeth with them, I can tell you that.'

'Very good of you to confirm what I say, officer. I am sorry I had to take the law into my own hands, but you'll agree that I had every justification. I've spent most of my life in places where you have to think quickly the whole time, or you find yourself dead. Worse than dead. May I suggest that we say no more about it? Let me give you a stiff whisky before you go?'

'We're not supposed to drink while we're on duty, sir.'

'Of course not,' said Uncle Stephen. 'I have served with the police myself. In several different parts of the globe.'

A little later, when the three of them were sitting amicably together, Millie began to feel intensely sad.

'I cannot help feeling partially responsible,' she blurted out. 'Do you think, Sergeant, there's anything to be done? Anything, even in theory, that I could do? Any possibility?'

At once Uncle Stephen shouted out, 'Clap them in irons, I should hope. Use straitjackets, if necessary. Though you'd have to have them specially made big enough. And then you've got to lay hold of the boys first. Eh, officer? They won the first round against me, you know.'

'We'll manage that all right, sir,' replied Detective-Sergeant Meadowsweet. 'The police don't fancy having the mickey taken out of them by two overgrown kids. Which is what you and Mr. Morke both said they were, madam.'

'But what can be done then?' persisted Millie, though somewhat against the grain, as she was perfectly well, although confusedly, aware. 'Is there anything that I could do?'