Lay Her Among The Lilies

“You shouldn’t kid about those things,” she said seriously. “You might get yourself

disliked. I wouldn’t like to dislike you unless I had a reason.”

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.

“That’s fine. Are you just talking to gain time or do you mean that?”

“I was told you had the manners of a hog and a way with women. The hog part is right.”

I opened my eyes to leer at her.

“The woman part is on the level, too, but don’t rush me.”

Then the telephone rang, startling us both. It was right by me, and as I reached for it she

dipped swiftly into her handbag and brought out a .25 automatic. She pushed the gun against

the side of my head, the little barrel rested on my skin.

“Sit where you are,” she said, and there was a look in her eyes that froze me. “Leave the

telephone alone!”

We sat like that while the bell rang and rang. The shrill sound gnawed at my nerves,

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bounced on the silent walls of the room, crept through the closed french windows and lost

itself in the sea.

“What’s the idea?” I asked, drawing back slowly. I didn’t like the feel of the gun against

my face.

“Shut up!” There was a rasp in her voice. “Sit still!”

Finally the bell got tired of ringing and stopped. She stood up.

“Come on, we’re getting out of here,” and again the automatic threatened me.

“Where are we going?” I asked, not moving.

“Away from telephones. Come on if you don’t want to get shot in the leg.”

But it wasn’t the thought of being shot in the leg that made me go with her; it was my

curiosity. I was very, very curious because all of a sudden she was frightened. I could see the

fear in her eyes as plainly as I could see the little hollow between her breasts.

As we walked down the steps to a car parked just outside my front gate, the telephone

began to ring again.

V

The car was a stream-lined, black Rolls, and its power and pace was tremendous. There

was nothing about the car to convey a feeling of speed : no sway, no roll, no sound from the

engine. Only the thunder of the wind ripping along the stream-lined roof and the black,

blurred smudge of a madly-rushing night told me the needle of the speedometer, flickering on

ninety, wasn’t fooling.

I sat beside Maureen Crosby in what felt like a low slung armchair and stared at the

dazzling pool of light that lay on the road ahead of us and that fled before us like a scared

ghost.

She had whipped the car along Orchid Boulevard, blasting a Path for herself through the

theatre traffic by the strident, arrogant use of the horn. She overtook cars in the teeth of

oncoming traffic, slipping between diminishing gaps and a certain head-on crash by the

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thickness of her fender paintwork. She stormed up the broad, dark Monte Verde Avenue and

on to San Diego Highway. It was when she got on to the six-traffic-lane highway she really

began to drive, overtaking everything that moved on the road with a silent rush that must

have made the drivers start right out of their skins.

I had no idea where we were going, and when I began to say something, she cut me off

with a curt, “Don’t talk! I want to think.” So I gave myself up to the mad rush into the

darkness, admiring the way she handled the car, sinking back into the luxury of the seat, and

hoping we wouldn’t hit anything.

San Diego Highway makes its way through a flat desert of sand dunes and scrub and comes

out suddenly right by the ocean, and then cuts in again to the desert. Instead of keeping to the

highway when we reached the sea, she slowed down to a loitering sixty, and swung off the

road on to a narrow track that kept us by the sea. The track began to climb steeply, and the

sea dropped below us until we breasted the hill and came out on to a cliff head. We were

slowing down all the time, and were now crawling along at a bare thirty. After the speed we

had been travelling at, we scarcely seemed to be moving. The glaring headlights picked out a

notice: Private. Positively No Admittance, at the head of another narrow track lined on either

side by tall scrub bushes. She swung the car into it, and the car fitted the track like a hand fits

in a glove. We drove around bends and hairpin corners, as far as I could see, getting nowhere.

After some minutes she slowed down and stopped before a twelve-foot gate smothered in

barbed wire. She tapped her horn button three times: short, sharp blasts that echoed in the still

air and was still coming back at us when the gate swung open apparently of its own accord.

“Very, very tricky,” I said.

She didn’t say anything nor look at me, but drove on, and, looking back, I saw the gate

swing to. I wondered suddenly if I was being kidnapped the way Nurse Gurney had been

kidnapped. Maybe the whisky I had swallowed was taking a hold, for I really didn’t care. I

felt it would be nice to have a little sleep. The clock on the dashboard showed two minutes to

midnight: my bed-time.

Then suddenly the track began to broaden out into a carriage way, and we slip through