S. Gedge Antiques, buying spectacles on nose, knotted cudgel in hand, was impatiently waiting. “The parcel is claimed by the lady who brought it,” June heard Green Corduroy announce.
She waited for no more. Following close behind Crusty Sides, who also moved up to the counter, she slipped quietly through an adjacent door to the main line platform before Uncle Si grew fully alive to the situation.
Clasping the parcel to her bosom, she glided swiftly down the platform, and out by the booking hall, travelling as fast as her legs would take her, without breaking into a run, which would have looked like guilt, and might have attracted public notice. She did not dare to glance back, for she was possessed by a fear that the old man and his stick were at her heels.
Once clear of the station itself, she yielded to the need of putting as much distance between Uncle Si and herself as a start so short would permit. There was now hope of throwing him off the track. Thus, as soon as she reached the Victoria Street corner, she scrambled on to a bus that was in the act of moving away.
One seat only was vacant and, as in a state of imminent collapse she sank down upon it, she ventured for the first time to look behind her. She quite expected to find Uncle Si at her elbow already, but with a gasp of relief she learned that the old man was nowhere in sight.
XXXV
June did not know in which direction the bus was going. And when the conductor came for her fare, which he did as soon as the vehicle began to move, she was quite at a loss for a destination. There was nothing for it but to draw a bow at a venture. She asked for Oxford Circus, the only nodal point of the metropolis, besides Charing Cross, with which she was familiar. By a rare piece of luck, Oxford Circus was included in its route, and what remained of the shilling the girl at the teashop had given her was sufficient to get her there, and leave four pence in hand.
Alighting at Oxford Circus, she stood under a lamp to consider what she should do now. There was nowhere she could go, there was not one friend to whom she could turn. Battered and spent in body and spirit by all that had happened to her during the last few hours she was now in a flux of terror to which she dare not yield.
At first she thought of seeking advice of a policeman, but it would have been extremely difficult just then to tell her strange story. Its complications were many and fantastic; besides, and she trembled at the idea, it was by no means clear that she would be able to establish her claim to the Van Roon in the eye of the law.
Still, something would have to be done. She must find a home of some kind not only for her treasure, but for herself. Feeling desperately in need of help, she decided as a preliminary measure to spend three of her four remaining pence on a cup of tea. She had a vague hope that in that magic beverage inspiration might lurk.