Lucky Jim

'A taxi? a taxi? just for three or four hundred yards?' He gave a shuddering laugh.' I'll have you back with Mum in less time than it'd take to phone. Good-night, Professor; goodnight, Mrs Barclay. Well, it's a good thing we haven't far to go; rather chilly. Did you say good-bye to the others for me?' They were far enough away by now for him to be able to add: 'Good. That's fine. Well done.' Nearby a car started up.

Behind him he heard Mrs Barclay say something to her husband.

'What's going on?' Christine asked with undisguised curiosity. 'What's all this about?'

'We've pinched their taxi, that's one of the things that's going on.

It's parked just round this corner.'

As if answering its name, the taxi, tired of waiting, emerged from the side-street and turned up towards the main road. He ran furiously off in pursuit, calling loudly: 'Taxi. Taxi.'

It drew to a stop and he went up to the driver's window. After a brief conversation, the taxi moved off again and disappeared into the main road. Dixon ran back to Christine, whom the Barclays had now rejoined.

'Sorry I couldn't get him for you,' he said to them. 'He'd got someone to pick up at the station in five minutes. What a nuisance.'

'Well, thank you very much, Dixon, for trying,' Barclay said.

'Yes, thank you all the same,' his wife said.

He took Christine's arm and walked her round into the side-street, calling good-night. They started to cross over.

'Does that mean we've lost the taxi? It was ours, was it?'

' Ours after it was theirs. No, I told the driver to drive round the corner and wait for us a hundred yards along the road. We can cut up through this alley, be there in a couple of minutes.'

'What would you have done if he hadn't driven out just then? We couldn't have driven off under the noses of those people.'

'I'd already worked out we'd have to do something like that.

We'd got to establish that we and the taxi were leaving separately.

That's why I was quick off the mark.'

'You were, very.'

With no more said they reached the taxi, parked outside the lighted windows of a dress-shop. Dixon opened a rear door for Christine, then said to the driver: 'Our friend isn't coming. We'll make a start, if you're ready.'

'Right, sir. Just by the Com Exchange, isn't it?'

'No, it's further than the Corn Exchange.' He named the small town where the Welches lived.

'Oh, can't make it there, I'm sorry, sir.'

'It's all right, I know the way.'

' So do I, but they told me at the garage the Com Exchange.'

'Did they really? Well, they told you wrong, then. We're not going to the Corn Exchange.'

'Not enough petrol.'

'Bateson's at the foot of College Road doesn't shut till twelve.' He peered at the dashboard. 'Ten to. We'll do it on our heads.'

'Not allowed to draw petrol except at our own garage.'

'We are tonight. I'll write to the company explaining. It's their fault for telling you you were only going to the Com Exchange. Now let's go, or you'll find yourself eight miles out without any petrol to get you back.'

He got in beside Christine and the car started.

'THAT was all very efficient,' Christine said. 'You're getting good at this sort of thing, aren't you? First the table, then the /Evening Post /thing, and now this.'

'I didn't use to be. By the way, I hope you don't object too much to the way I got hold of this taxi.'

'I've got into it, haven't I?'

' Yes, I know, but I should have thought the method would strike you as unethical'

'It does, at least it would in the ordinary way, but it was more important for us to get a taxi than for them, wasn't it?'

'I'm glad you look at it like that.' He brooded on her use of the word 'important* for a moment, then realized that he didn't much care for her easy acquiescence in his piratical treatment of the Barclays' taxi. Even he now felt it had been a bit thick, and she presumably hadn't his excuse for wanting a taxi very badly. Like both the pretty women he'd known, and many that he'd only read about, she thought it was no more than fair that one man should cheat and another be cheated to serve her convenience. She ought to have objected, refused to go with him, insisted on returning and handing the taxi over to the Barclays, walked back, revolted by his unscrupu-lousness, into the dance. Yes, he'd have liked that, wouldn't he? Ay, proper champion that would have been, lad.

His hand flew to his mouth in the darkness to stifle his laughter; to sidetrack it, he began distilling alarm from the thought that he'd have to find something to talk to this girl about all the way back to the Welches'. The only thing he felt at all clear about was the fact that this abduction of her was a blow struck against Bertrand, but it seemed less than prudent to begin there. Why had she consented to ditch her boy-friend in this emphatic way? There were several possible answers.

Perhaps he could start with that. 'Did you manage to get away all right?' he asked.

'Oh yes; nobody seemed to object very much.'

'What did you say to them?'