Touch and Go Read Free Page B

more affectionate voice than she had ever used to Mr. Bertrand Darnac. And with that The Bomb spluttered, slowed down, and stopped dead. The most horrible suspicion assailed Sarah. Bertrand had sworn that the tank was full. It now appeared probable that he had been thinking about last week. It was a waste of time looking for a spare can. You drove The Bomb on luck, not on good management.
    Five minutes later Sarah was convinced that her luck was out. The Bomb was dead to the world, and no motorist ever stopped for you now, because if they did, you would probably turn out to be a bandit. The days were gone by when any young woman could stop any passing car however lordly. No, the only chance was a house, and it didn’t seem to be a very good chance. It wasn’t a housey road. It was dark, and straight, and overshadowed by trees.
    Sarah took out her torch and flashed it about. On this side of the road the trees bordered an open common—two or three of them, and then a gap, and half a dozen more and some gorse bushes. “Blasted heath!” said Sarah viciously, and turned the torch across the road. Here the trees were much bigger. They bulged up against the sky and hung low down over the grass verge. She went across to have a nearer look, and found that under the drooping branches, all black and shadowy, there ran a high stone wall. “Somebody’s park. That means a house, and that sort of house means a garage, and a garage means petrol.” Pleasant visions of an obliging young chauffeur rose before her. Chauffeurs were always very obliging to Sarah.
    Well, well, the next thing was to find a gate. It might quite easily be a quarter of a mile away. It was a good two miles from the Manifolds’ main gate to the one that came out on the Godswick corner.
    Sarah set off up the road, and almost at once she came upon a gate. The trees receded and two ghostly pillars loomed up. There didn’t seem to be a lodge, and the gate stood open. She began to walk up what was evidently not a main drive. It had not been swept for some time. She trod on dry leaves and snapping twigs. The trees closed in above her, shutting out the sky. It was awfully early in the year for the leaves to be so dry. Could there possibly be so many in October, or had this blighted park lain unswept since goodness knows when—a year—two—three—ten—or twenty? The idea that she might be walking briskly up to a house that hadn’t been lived in for years was an extremely daunting one. “On the other hand, it may be full of the most delightful people who are going to be my friends for life. If you’ve got umpteen drives, and you haven’t got umpteen gardeners, the leaves just have to lie. Forward, Sarah my child!”
    The drive came out on a flat place where the bulk of a big house just showed against the sky. There was a little light in the sky, but there was none at all in the house.
    Sarah switched out her torch, because it made her feel conspicuous. The place was very lonely and the house was very dead. A star looked over the edge of a chimney-stack, and no smoke blurred it. Sarah shivered. She hated a house that wasn’t anybody’s home any more.… And a complete wash-out as far as petrol was concerned.… On the other hand, there might be someone living in the stables, or there might be a caretaker lurking in a kitchen wing.
    She began to walk round the house in the direction in which she supposed the back premises would lie, and she hadn’t gone twenty yards before a light flashed high up above her head. She had been looking up at the house. The light flashed and was gone. She was left with the startled impression of a long narrow window and a spark that broke the blankness of its panes. She stood still and continued to look up.
    Then all at once the light showed again. It was lower down, and it was nearer the front of the house. It stayed a little longer, and it was not so