Black August by Dennis Wheatley Page B

you again for some little time?’ Hesitantly Kenyon held out his hand.
    â€˜Bloody fools, aren’t we?’ His Grace of Burminster gave a stiff, unnatural grin. ‘Keep out of it as much as you can, Kenyon—don’t shirk anything, I wouldn’t ask that—but your elder brother went in the War and you are the last of the hatching, so I’d like you to see it through if you possibly can. They may consider us effete, but England wouldn’t be England without a Burminster in the background.’ He squeezed his son’s hand and let it drop.
    By half-past three the great house was empty and deserted, dim from drawn blinds and comfortless now with covers over all the furniture. The removal vans had gone with their freight of pictures and old silver. The Duke was on his way to Windsor, and Juliana Augusta had departed with the staff for Banners.
    Having seen them off Kenyon began to make preparations for his own departure. He rang up Selfridge’s roof garage where he kept his helicopter to give instructions that it should be overhauled and made absolutely ready for an early start the following morning, but he received an unpleasant shock. All private aircraft had been commandeered, and his helicopter with the rest.
    That meant motoring down, so he went through to the garage in the mews at the back of the house, and spent half an hour tinkering with his car. E. C. G. was the next thing, every ounce that he could carry, so he ran her round to the nearest filling station. A long line of cars stretched ahead of him, all bound on the same errand. Many of them were stacked high with the weirdest assortment of luggage. The great exodus from London had begun, and everybody who had any place to go to in the country was making for it.
    In the queue strangers were talking together with unaccustomed freedom and exchanging the wildest rumours. The news of the sailors’ advance on London was now common property. A story was current that the Scottish Commander had been assassinated, another that one of the principal power-stations on the Underground had been wrecked that morning. Certainly trains were only running on two of the lines, and those had curtailed their services. When at last Kenyon reached the cylinders he asked for 5,000 atmospheres, but the man shook his head. One thousand was the limit for any car, irrespective of its size, and the price of gas ten shillings a thousand.
    â€˜But the price is controlled,’ Kenyon protested.
    â€˜Can’t help it,’ said the man, ‘if the rush continues it’ll be a couple of quid termorrer—do I renew your cylinders or not?’
    Kenyon promptly parted with his money and drove away, but the episode made him more thoughtful than ever. Events seemed to be moving now with such terrifying speed. What would London be like in another twenty-four hours with all these people abandoning the sinking ship, and the services breaking down? He began to feel guilty about detaining Veronica for another night, but it had never occurred to him that the troublewould accelerate so rapidly, and the more he thought of Ann the more determined he became not to leave London until he had satisfied himself about her future safety.
    He was neither rake nor saint, but had acquired a reasonable experience of women for his years, and he could remember no one who had aroused his mental interest and physical desire to the same pitch as Ann. Now, in the customary manner of the human male when seized with longing for the companionship of one particular female, he was endowing her with every idealistic and romantic perfection.
    Back at Grosvenor Square he decided that he ought to discuss the increasing gravity of the situation with Veronica at once, but her maid, Lucy, informed him that she had gone out.
    At the sight of Lucy’s trim figure—a pert young hussy he had always thought her—it occurred to him that she and his own man ought to be given the