The Camelot Caper Read Online Free PDF

predicament would sound as absurd to an outsider as the dangers of Althea and her fictional sisters usually sounded to her. It was difficult to describe peril unless it consisted of something as concrete as a bullet or a bloody knife. But she had learned that danger could be implicit in a look, and that the movement of an arm could convey a threat.
    She sighed, and closed the book on poor Althea and her pounding heart. Once again she half turned, to scan the road behind. But thistime the road was not innocuous. How long had the car been there? It was an open car, a convertible, and it was close—dangerously close—to the bus. She could make out the features of the two men quite clearly. The brown mustache was unmistakable.
    For several seconds Jess was too paralyzed to move. Pounding hearts indeed, she thought; hers was banging around like a loose pebble in a box. Could they see her? She thought not. Thanks to the fat lady’s bundles she was jammed into the corner, where a stretch of blank wall separated the back window from the one on the side. This was not one of the new all-glass sight-seeing buses, and she had to look sideways as well as back to see out the window. It was pure reflex that made her shrink back, with a little gasp of terror.
    The fat lady leaned over and put a firm hand to her arm.
    â€œNow then, love, what’s the matter?”
    â€œThe matter?” Jess squeaked.
    â€œWhy, child, you’re as pale as a ghost. Don’t be afraid. This isn’t the States, where the gangsters and hippies are shooting people down in cold blood all over the streets; no doubt they’ll have followed you from home, those two backthere, but you’re in England now, don’t you fear; we don’t let such things happen here.”
    â€œHow did you know?”
    â€œHaven’t I watched you, nervous as a cat, peering out that window the whole time and not being able to read your little book? I’ll tell you what we’ll do; you’ll just get off the bus with me and we’ll fetch Thomas Babbitt. I knew you were an American, of course. My niece married one, naturally he was a man, but I know what it’s like over there.”
    Out of this morass of inconsequentiality and shrewd analysis, Jessica’s reeling brain focused on one point.
    â€œWho,” she asked feebly, “is Thomas Babbitt?”
    â€œThe constable, of course. He’ll get rid of those two. He’s my sister’s boy. Mrs. Hodge, that’s my name, Mrs. Edward Hodge.”
    â€œHow do you do. But, Mrs. Hodge—you’re very kind, but…Those two back there. I’m afraid one constable wouldn’t be—”
    â€œArmed, are they?” Mrs. Hodge had pale-blue eyes, just the color of the glass eyes of a doll Jess had once owned. They widened with delighted horror. “With guns? Pistols?”
    Jess got a grip on herself.
    â€œI don’t know. They may be. But I can’t riskyour getting hurt, you or anyone else. They may not even wait till I get off. They may stop the bus. They can’t be sure I’m on this one, you see.”
    Mrs. Hodge pressed her lips tightly together and nodded till the blue flowers on what was surely her “Sunday hat”—as opposed to her “other hat”—wobbled insanely.
    â€œThere, I knew it, a nice girl like you wouldn’t be involved in anything criminal. That Bonnie and Clyde, now, I thought of that at first: gangsters rubbing out the one that double-crosses them, eh? But it’s not that. No, you don’t need to tell me; it’ll be—” She glanced at the little boy, who was staring in fascination, and lowered her voice. “It’ll be the white slave trade. Well!” She nodded again, and the flowers danced. “They can’t do that sort of thing, not in England.”
    Kindness and sympathy, however muddle-headed, had the wrong effect on Jess, who suddenly felt she might