Since he had found Jennifer it had become imperative that he should escape. He was not fighting for his own freedom now, but for hers.
He did not know how she had come to be in such an amazing situation, nor did he waste time to consider it. The fact that she was lying before him, obviously in danger, was enough.
A short figure in glistening gold-rimmed pince-nez came up. His bland, soft voice sent a chill down Robin’s spine.
“We are ready if you will give the word.”
Robin’s throat was dry. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. It had come, then. In another instant his chance of saving the girl would be gone for ever.
Instinct told him to play for time. He glanced at the lights as though to make sure that the great arc lamps set at equal distances all round the table were in their right positions for his purpose.
How long, he wondered feverishly, how long before they began to realize that something was wrong?
Then it was that the impulse to look up into the roof seized him, and he glanced up to catch sight of something so startling that the expression on his face would have betrayed him had it not been for his mask.
As in many operating theatres, the main portion of the roof of the room was composed of glass, and Robin, looking up, caught sight of a face pressed against one of the panes.
He stared at it, fascinated, and it seemed to him that the eyes looked straight into his own.
Then it was that recognition came to him, and his heart turned over. He had seen those great dark eyes, that plaintive scarlet mouth before. It was Madame Julie who was peering down with such strained intensity at the slim figure lying so helpless and so pathetic upon the sinister table.
Even as he looked at her he heard smothered exclamations from the two at his side. They had followed the direction of his glance and caught sight of the woman peering down upon them.
Robin was aware of a tremor in the group in the big theatre. Excited whispering broke out.
It all happened very quickly. Robin stood protectingly over the girl, still staring up into the roof.
The next moment he saw the flash of a white hand, the gleam of a revolver barrel, and an instant later a shot rang out and one of the great arc lamps smashed into a thousand pieces.
The effect was instantaneous. There was a spurt of flame and the room was plunged into darkness as the wire fused and the lights all over the theatre went out.
“The emergency lighting!”
Robin heard a strangled voice at his side which he scarcely recognized as belonging to the small figure in the gold pince-nez.
A nurse bustled through the gloom. There was the click of a switch, and once again the room was flooded with light from a second apparatus above the table.
Robin became galvanized into action. He swung round, seized the heavy sterilizing basin from the tray at his elbow, and hurled it at the lamp.
It happened so suddenly that the crash occurred and the darkness returned before two thirds of the people in the room realized that this apparently lunatic act was committed by the young surgeon whom Dr. Crupiner had procured to attempt the work he dared not face himself.
As the darkness descended once again, Robin gathered up the still, light form of his love and made a dash for the door.
He reached it and burst through, slamming it behind him.
The lights in the corridor were still on and, carrying Jennifer over his shoulder, he turned the key in the lock.
Already hammer blows from within were splintering the wood. He had no time to lose.
He sped on down the corridor, very bare and dazzling with its white walls and brilliant lights after the darkness of the theatre.
In spite of her slenderness the girl was heavy on his shoulders, for she hung limply. Nevertheless, he was grateful for her unconsciousness and dreaded lest she recover before he had time to get her out of the building.
He was halfway down the staircase when one of the things he most dreaded occurred.
A man in the black coat of an upper servant paused at the foot of the stairs and glanced up. His first expression of astonishment was soon superseded by one of suspicion, and the next moment he came charging up towards the boy and his precious burden.
Robin’s right arm was free. His left clutched the girl. He steadied himself halfway down the staircase and waited for the onslaught.
It came, and Robin had the satisfaction of feeling his right fist crash into the heavy face speeding up to meet him.
It was a tremendous blow which caught the man squarely on the point of the jaw, lifted him bodily from his feet, and hurled him down the flight of stairs onto the stone flags below.
He rolled over and over and lay for a moment twitching convulsively.
Robin sped on. The noise of the man’s fall had been considerable, and from other parts of the house he could hear doors opening and the murmuring of excited voices.
Far above him he could hear the hammer blows on the door of the operating theatre. At any moment now the whole pack would be on his heels, wresting the girl from him, dragging her back to the terrible fate from which he had snatched her only just in time.
His mind went back for an instant to the real surgeon he had left tied with what hasty bonds he could improvise in the robing room. Sooner or later he too must get free and join the howling mob which pursued the fugitives.
Gaining the ground floor, he stood for a moment irresolute, not knowing which direction to take. From the left he heard the sound of footsteps pattering towards him on the stones. He must turn to the right, then: it was his only chance.
Holding the girl more tightly to him, he charged down the corridor.
A woman barred his path just as he reached the main hall, but before she could recover from her horrified astonishment at seeing such an extraordinary figure, for Robin still wore his mask and surgeon’s overall, he had thrust her out of his path and had gained the great front door.
To his relief it was unlocked, and he swung it open and felt the cool night air upon his face.
He had just slammed it behind him when a revolver shot splintered the solid wood above his head, and he realized that one of his pursuers at least was armed and did not hesitate to shoot.
A wide flight of stone steps led to the gravel drive, and he sped down these, the fainting girl hanging over his shoulder.
His feet had just touched the gravel when a figure rose up out of the darkness before him. It was a woman, and he was just about to brush her out of his path, as he had done the other, when something familiar about her form and bearing stayed his hand.
It was Madame Julie. He saw her bewildered expression, saw the gleam of fear in her dark eyes. Then with an impulsive gesture he wrenched the mask from his face and heard her quick intake of breath as she recognized him.
“You! Quick, before it is too late!”
Already the commotion in the house behind them could be heard all over the grounds. Any second now the great door must burst open and they must be recaptured.
Madame Julie seized Robin’s hand, and he followed her blindly. There are moments when important decisions have to be made, when one must make up one’s mind whether to trust or whether to fly.
In that instant Robin knew that, whether the woman was his own friend or not, at least she was not Jennifer’s enemy.
She led him swiftly down a narrow path among the thick laurels which bordered the drive. The screening leaves had only just hidden them when the front door of Dr. Crupiner’s mysterious nursing home swung open and a crowd of figures armed with torches and revolvers burst out into the grounds.
Robin heard the woman panting at his side as they sped through the shrubbery.
“This way.” He heard her sob on the words. “There is just one way. If we take it now we have a chance.”
While the grounds around them were alive with angry voices and pursuing beams from the powerful torches, Madame Julie, a dark and mysterious form in her long fur coat, led him swif
tly over the rain-soaked ground to a tiny gate in the high wall which surrounded the place.
“Here,” she said. “Here’s our chance.”
The door gave at her touch, and Robin stepped onto the hard road, just escaping the beam of a torch which had picked up their trail.
The night was very dark, but fine for the time of year. Just before them, a pace or so down the road, Robin caught a glimpse of the dark shape of a big saloon car with its lights out and its engine running quietly and smoothly. Its powerful but subdued purr was very comforting, and for the first time a ray of hope shot through the boy’s heart.
“Here—climb in the back.”
Madame Julie wrenched open the door, and between them they lowered the now half-conscious girl into the corded cushions in the interior.
Robin climbed in after her while Madame Julie went in front and the car began to move.
Their wheels had just begun to turn when from the grounds behind them there was a roar and the scream of a revving engine.
Almost instantly the long, dangerous-looking body of a roadster swung out of the great gates some five hundred yards farther up the road and hesitated as the giant headlights swept round this way and that.
The next instant the fugitives were in the full glare of the blinding lights.
The saloon leapt forward like a springing panther, and its own headlights, two great white beams, stretched out along the narrow road, lighting up the hedges which separated it from the saltings and the sea till they stood out like pale ghosts lining the way.
For the first time Robin noticed that Madame Julie was not driving herself but that there was a fourth person in the car. From where he sat he could just make out the emaciated but still powerful form of a man crouching low over the steering wheel.
He was hatless, and at first Robin thought he was bald, but the faint glow from the cigarette between his lips showed his hair to be grey and very finely clipped.
Madame Julie was leaning back over the seat, peering out of the window behind Robin at their pursuers.
At first the dashboard light in the roadster had been going, but now it was switched out and Robin heard her murmur, a little low sound, half surprise, half bewilderment.
But there was no time to analyze it, for now the chase had begun in real earnest.
The man who bent over the wheel in front of him was driving like a maniac. The engine screamed as though for mercy, but he flogged it and the car roared on through the night with the deadly speed of an express train.
At first it seemed that the roadster must gain upon them, although, so far as Robin could judge, there was little to choose between the two cars.
But suddenly the thought occurred to him that the pursuing car was probably more heavily laden.
Neither Jennifer nor Madame Julie was particularly heavy, and although Robin and the mysterious driver of the car were both big men, the aggregate load of the four of them was probably not so great as that of the five or six men in the car behind.
Still, for some time the space between them did not alter, and in front the road stretched on, straight and very white in the glare of the lights.
A bullet, followed by another, spattered in the road behind them. Madame Julie laid her hand on the driver’s arm.
“They’re firing!”
The man at the wheel nodded, and a low soft laugh escaped him.
“We’ll beat ’em to it yet,” he said. “Right or left?” he added swiftly as a fork in the road appeared.
“Left,” she said heavily. “Left, and then right. And then—the open marsh.”
Robin peered out through the window behind. Jennifer had recovered consciousness and was clinging to him, her soft arms round about his neck.
A reckless and terrible anger against the inhuman brutes who had tortured her rose up in the boy’s breast, and he longed for a weapon with which to fire back at the oncoming car.
Madame Julie seemed to read his thoughts.
“I’ve only one more bullet,” she said softly, “and we may need that—later.”
They turned sharply to the right. The car swung round on two wheels, and their pursuers, in trying to follow at equal speed, skidded badly. Robin saw the reeling headlights and thought for a moment that the car had been upset. A moment later, however, it righted itself and came on.
The delay gave them a further lead, however, and they continued to gain in spite of the fact that their pace was necessarily slackened by the winding, water-logged lane through which they passed.
Suddenly the ground beneath them became violently uneven, and the headlights picked out a great rolling expanse of salting. The turf was short and springy and comparatively dry, but Robin knew from experience that these marshes are always interspersed with great dykes, and his heart misgave him.
Glancing behind him, he saw that the other car had slowed down almost to a crawl. It was evident that their pursuers fancied they had missed their path and ran into a trap, and were preparing for a showdown.
Madame Julie urged the driver on.
“Pull up just in front of the dyke,” she said. “This is the Echo Way. I’ve known it since I was a child. If we can make it we’re safe.”
There was something eerie, something supernatural about the lonely salt marsh. Far in the distance came the roar of the sea, and now and again the shrill cries of disturbed seabirds rang through the startled night.
Suddenly the car stopped with a crash of brakes, and Robin’s heart shifted uncomfortably. A great dyke lay before them. Over six feet deep and eight feet wide, it was absolutely impassable by any car made.
Madame Julie opened the door near her and emitted a long-drawn-out, wailing cry, high and scarcely human in the ghostly atmosphere. Bewildered, Robin held his breath.
Then the miracle happened. From the right the cry was echoed, thrown back by some trick of acoustics, reproduced faithfully in every detail.
The woman gasped with relief.
“There,” she said, “you heard it. Follow the echo.”
The great car turned and ran along the side of the dyke for some two hundred yards. Then there was a bridge, rough but strong, made out of immensely thick planks.
The car passed over safely, and they raced on to the next dyke.
Here the performance was repeated. Again Madame Julie called, again the echo led her unerringly to the next bridge. The marsh seemed interminable.
Four times this strange ritual was carried out, and four times the dykes were surmounted.
Then, as they climbed up onto high ground, at a touch from the woman the driver pulled up, and the four looked back across the treacherous marsh.
Far in the distance they could see the giant headlights of the pursuing car streaming out across the ground like signals of distress. They were not moving.
Madame Julie sighed.
“I think,” she said, “the mud has caught them. Near the dykes it is very treacherous. Not so dangerous, of course, as the quick patches which surround the coast, but quite strong enough to hold a car there until it is dragged out by a tractor.”
She stopped abruptly. As they watched, a new phenomenon occurred. Far away, and just behind the headlights of the stricken pursuing car, another pair of powerful lamps had appeared.
The newcomer appeared to be working its way carefully across the grass to the roadster. It was very dramatic, the great beams of light cutting through the darkness.
“What is it?”
Robin hardly recognized his own voice.
“More of them?”
Almost in answer to his question, a volley of revolver shots came faintly through the gloom. The stranger in their midst sprang back to his place at the wheel.
“The police van,” he said in a curiously sharp, dry voice. “Get in. We’re not away yet.”
Once more they sped on, striking a lane some five hundred yards farther on. Madame Julie seemed to know her way, and directed them with never-faltering skill through winding country ro
ads until they pulled up at last before a cottage half hidden in a copse of giant elms.
At the sound of the car the door was thrown open and a woman appeared on the threshold. Robin caught a glimpse of her squat figure silhouetted against the yellow light within.
“Mary!”
Madame Julie’s voice cut through the night.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been waiting.”
Robin climbed out of the car and carried Jennifer, who was still very weak, in his arms. He followed Madame Julie into the house while the driver of the car took it further into the shadow of the protecting trees.
CHAPTER 20
In the Cottage
“SET the poor young lady on this couch, sir. Poor lamb, a drop of hot milk will do her good.”
The old woman Madame Julie had addressed as Mary hovered round the boy, and as soon as he set Jennifer down upon the old patchwork-covered couch, she bent over the girl with motherly concern.
Robin’s chief thought was Jennifer, and it was not until he had convinced himself that, although weak and frightened, she was almost herself again that he looked about him.
Then he discovered himself to be in the main living room and kitchen of an old-fashioned cottage. The brick floor was covered with a rag carpet, the uneven walls plastered with a faded paper. There was a bright fire in the stove, and the brasses and china dogs on the mantelpiece shone with cleanliness.
It was a homely and a comforting room, and after his recent experiences Robin felt that he had never seen anything more friendly in his life.
Jennifer clung to his hand. Her face was very pale at first, but as she sipped the hot milk the colour gradually came back into her cheeks and some of the terror died out of her eyes.
Madame Julie stood by the cottage doorway waiting for the man who had driven them to return. As she stood there, there was a strained expression on her keen, still beautiful face. Her dark eyes were lowered, and her head was bent a little. She was listening, listening, Robin knew instinctively, for the sound of a car on the desolate muddy road.
But although she stood there for some time, there was no sound above the roar of the wind in the trees and the fire hissing in the stove behind her.
The Man of Dangerous Secrets Page 17
