The Adventures of Hiram Holliday Read Online Free PDF Page B

but he knew that it was regal. She said: 'I am ... we are Austrians.'
    'Ah ...' said Holliday. And then the absurdity, the utter impossibility of the adventure flooded him. This was the heart of London....
    'But, my dear lady ...' he said,' I cannot believe it. Here in
LondonNo one would dare. No, it's too absurd'
    The boy suddenly began to cry: ' Tante Heidi. ... Ich habe
Angst'
    The girl took his chin in her fingers and raised his head up high.
    ‘ Nie Angst haben, Peter!’ she said.
    Hiram did not understand what she said, but the fierce pride in her voice reached him. She turned to him.
    'Yes. They would dare. Because London is in the grip of fear. And they know it. They can do what they want in this crisis. The world is in the hands of evil.'
    'What do they want? Why?' asked Hiram, although already he thought he knew.
    'They want the child. For a hostage. You have already said the word. For blackmail. They will blackmail the world for money and power. I took him away after the Anschluss before they came. They have not found us - until now. If I can go to
    Parisat once ... to Paris ...' she stopped and laid her hand on Hiram's arm and shook her head'How can I?
    I know them. I know them. They will watch the airplanes and the trains. There-will be an opportunity. See, they are following now. There are many of them here. ...'
    Hiram looked back. A cab was keeping a steady pace behind them at a hundred yards. His eyes behind the spectacles were sparkling. Those endless mind trips he had taken over the map of Europe. He spread England and the Continent before his mind like a panorama.
    'I will get you there,' he said, as calmly and matter-of-fact as though he were offering to see her home. 'There is a third gateway to Paris which they will not think of because very few people ever do.'
    The girl stared at him, at the round face and the slightly corpulent body. And then she saw the eyes behind the lenses and knew that they denied all that she seemed to see.
    He smiled at her. 'No one will touch the boy. Or you. I have thought of something. But he must be brave and clever, and do exactly as you will tell him. And you, too, must keep your nerve, even if things look bad.' He leaned forward, and in a low voice said to the driver: 'Paddington. And open up if you can.'
    'Where are we going ?' asked the girl.
    'Where there are people and confusion,' said Hiram Holliday, his heart singing inside him with excitement. And as the cab turned and headed for Paddington .Station he told her what he wanted done, and watched her with admiration as she drilled the little boy called Peter.
    The clock had been turned back twenty-four years at Paddington Station. So - with one exception - Hiram Hqlli-day decided it must have looked in 1914 when England had last mobilized for war. The old railway station with its bowed series of roofs and long platforms was a jam, a crush and a bedlam of noise and steam and smoke, and rows of compart mented trains, and men in uniform, sailors, and Territorials, and hundreds of reservists in mufti answering the call, and excited citizens trying to get out of London. The one exception was that, forming the bulk of the fantastic throng, were hundreds upon hundreds of children, their clamour rising sharply above the shrilling of whistles of the guards, the panting of the green-painted locomotives, and the staccato shrieks of the engine whistles.
    They were of all ages and sizes, in groups of from ten to a hundred, herded and chaperoned by efficient-looking females, hawk-faced women who bustled about them with lists in their hands, checking, assisted by men with arm-bands. London was evacuating its children to the country. That was what Hiram Holliday had remembered.
    Some were simply clustere d around the women in charge of them, others were centred ar ound standards bearing the name of their school. Still others had as a c entre a sign bearing the names of towns - Exeter ... Lyme Regis ... Torquay ... Newton Abbot,