Read The Adventures of Hiram Holliday for Free Online

Totnes ... Polperro
    ‘ Ah,' said Hiram Holliday, and began to push his way through the throng. It was even better than he had expected. And he noted the presence of the wonderfully efficient London Bobby, helping to maintain what order there was.
    Hiram saw the three Nazi agents appear at a side gate and begin to search the crowd. They were young and powerful and pink-cheeked, three typical bully boys of the New Germany. Hiram noticed with a thrill of genuine pleasure that one of them held his handkerchief to his mouth, and that the handkerchief was red.
    There was no time to lose. Hiram and his companions were by a group of some thirty children clustered around a standard reading 'Penzance.' At a word from the girl, the boy moved from her side, and in an instant had mingled with the other children.
    But the three Nazis had seen them and began to press forward through the crush, and then stopped unbelieving for a moment as they saw Holliday and the two women deliberately move away some twenty yards and stand there, leaving the boy. The man with the smashed mouth, he was tall, and blond, with an eager, greedy face and a scar that extended slantwise down his cheek to his chin, nodded the other two forward, and they closed in again.
    'Now steady!' said Hiram Holliday, and slipped his arm around the girl's waist. With the other hand he gripped the wrist of the trembling nurse.' This may be hard. But no villains in the world can buck this combination.'
    The girl gave a little moan because one of the three already had his hand on one of the boy's arms, and the man with the smashed mouth was reaching for the other, when the thing happened. The woman in charge of the group was as lean and spare as a greyhound. She had the face of a bald-headed eagle, and a voice like a calliope.
    'Here! I say! Stop that!' she shouted. 'What are you doing? How dare you! Leave that child alone. He belongs to me. Help! Police! Kidnappers!' A sailor, with H.M.S. Courageous on his hat-band, passing, stopped and took in the scene, and then suddenly hit the man with the smashed mouth a resounding thump with his shoulder, and said: 'Now then, 'Any, not so fast. What's it all abaht ? The lydy says it ain't your young 'un. Got a German look abaht you, ain't you ?'
    Two enormous blue-helmeted policemen began to move inexorably towards the scene. Hiram relaxed his grip around the girl's waist, but she remained pressed close to him. Three Territorials in khaki had stopped by the group and one said: 'Wot's this abaht Germans ?'
    'Help!' screeched the woman. 'They're trying to steal my child.'
    'Oh, no they ain't,' said the soldier. 'Tyke the other two, boys, I'll tend to this one.' But the three had broken and were thrusting through the crowd headed for the exits, with the Bobbies, the soldiers and the sailors in pursuit. Whistles shrilled frantically....
    'Lovely, wasn't it?' said Hiram Holliday and chuckled. He did not notice that the girl was looking at him with misty eyes. 'Come on. They're moving.'
    A man with an arm-band had taken the group in tow and was steering them into a carriage, eight to a compartment. Hiram noticed that the eagle-faced lady, flushed and triumphant, had Peter by the hand with a firm grip. Hiram and the girl waved to him, and he turned around and laughed back at them. Then Holliday and the girl and the nurse got into the car at the other end and stood in the corridor, Hiram keeping an eye on the platform. A uniformed guard challenged him. Holliday reached into his inner breast pocket and pulled forth the contents of envelopes and bills and folded papers, and said: 'It's all right. I've got all the papers for everyone.' The guard, satisfied, passed on. Far up front, an engine gave three maniacal shrieks, there was a terrific jolt and then the train slowly crawled out of Paddington Station, south-bound into the night, bearing its cargo of children towards safety.
    There remained the retrieving of Peter, which was accomplished more