by Sax Rohmer
The Right Hon. Walter Belford became the man of action again. He pulled out his watch.
“Twenty-five minutes since he left the house,” he said. “But he may not have taken the road at once.”
He rang.
“Truman,” he cried to the footman, “the limousine ready — immediately! This way, inspector!”
Off he went through the Circular Study, Sheffield following. At the door Mr. Belford paused — and turned back.
He bent over his writing-table, searching for his own careful enlargement of Séverac Bablon’s photograph.
Séverac Bablon had not taken it with him, nor had he returned to the room.
But it was gone!
“Rome divided! Treason in the camp!” he said, sotto voce. Then, aloud: “This way, inspector!”
The tower of Womsley Old Place is a conspicuous landmark, to be seen from distant points in the surrounding country, and visible for some miles out to sea.
Mr. Belford raced up the many stairs at a speed which belied the story of his silver-grey hair, and which left Inspector Sheffield hopelessly in the rear. When at last the Scotland Yard man dragged weary feet into the little square chamber at the summit, he saw the Home Secretary with his eyes to the lens of a huge telescope, sweeping the country-side for signs of the daring fugitive.
An unclouded moon bathed the landscape in solemn light. To north, east, and west rolled the billows of the Downs, a verdant ocean. On the south the country was wooded, whilst in the south-east might be seen the gleaming expanse of the English Channel, a molten silver floor, its distant edge seemingly upholding the pure blue sky dome. Roads inland showed as white chalk lines, meadows as squares on a chess-board, houses and farmsteads as chess-men.
“If he has made for Eastbourne we have lost him!” muttered Mr. Belford. “If for Newhaven or Lewes we may not be too late. But there is a possibility —— ah! Yes; it is! They are making for Tunbridge Wells — perhaps for London! Quick, inspector! Don’t move the telescope. On the straight road leading to the Norman church tower! Is that the car?”
Sheffield lowered his eye to the glass, and after some little delay got a sight of a long-bodied, waspish, shape, creeping, insect-wise, along a white chalk mark. His eye growing more accustomed to the glass, he made it out for a grey car.
“There’s a chance, sir. It looks about the right cut.”
“This way, inspector! We will take the risk.”
Down the tower stairs they sped, Sheffield stumbling and delaying in the dark and making better going where the light from a window showed the stairs clearly.
“If that is he,” panted the Home Secretary, “the motor is not a powerful one. It is probably one hired for the occasion.”
They came out from the tower into the hall and passed Lady Mary — who glanced away with an odd expression — and Zoe Oppner. Zoe’s pretty face was flushed, and her breast rose and fell quickly. Her eyes were sparkling, but she lowered them as the excited pair ran by.
The chauffeur was ready to start, when Mr. Belford, hatless, leapt on to a footboard of the throbbing car with the agility of a sailor, Sheffield more slowly following suit, for he would have preferred an inside berth.
A man in a blue serge suit touched the inspector’s arm.
“What shall we do, sir?”
“Wait here.”
The limousine was off.
“Left! left!” directed Mr. Belford, and the man swung sharply round the curve and into the lane bordering the gardens of Womsley Old Place.
“Right!”
They leapt about again, and were humming along a chalky white road.
“Left! Straight ahead! Make for the church! Open her out!”
The pursuit had commenced!
Some dormant trait in the blood of His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department had risen above the surface of suave, polished courtesy which ordinarily passed for the character of the Right Hon. Walter Belford. The veneer was off, and this was a primitive Belford, kin of the Roger de Belfourd who had established the fortunes of the house. The eyes behind the pince-nez were hard and bright; the fine nostrils quivered with the joy of the chase; and the long, lean neck, protruding from the characteristically low collar, was strung up to whipcord tension.
“Let her go!” he shouted, his silvern hair streaming out grotesquely. “Cut through Church Lane!”
“It’s an awful road, sir!” The chauffeur’s voice was blown back in his teeth.
“Damn the road!” said the Right Hon. Walter Belford.
So, suddenly the powerful machine, spurning the solid earth like some huge, infuriated brute, leapt sideways, two tyres thrashing empty air, and went howling through an arch of verdure, between hedges which seemed to shrink to right and left from its devastating course.
The man was understood to say something about “Overweighted on her head.”
“Scissors!” muttered Inspector Sheffield, wedging his bulk firmly against the front window and clutching at anything that offered. “I hope there are no police traps on this road!”
“He delayed for something!” yelled Belford through trumpeted hands. “We shall catch him by Grimsdyke Farm!”
Sheffield wondered what that vastly daring man had delayed for. Belford, with the fact of the missing photograph fresh in his mind, thought he knew.
The old Norman church tower came rushing now to meet them; looked down upon them, each venerable, lichened stone a mockery of this snorting, ephemeral thing of the Speed Age; and dropped behind to join the other vague memories which represented six miles of Sussex.
“Straight ahead now! Grimsdyke!”
Down swept the white road into a great bowl. Down shrieked the quivering limousine, and Inspector Sheffield crouched back with an uncomfortable sinking in the pit of the stomach, such as he had not known since he had adventured his weighty person on a “joy-ride” at an exhibition.
From the time they had left Womsley Old Place the speed had been consistently high, but now it rose to something enormous; increasing with every ten yards of the slope, it became terrific. The bottom was reached, and the climb began; but for some time little diminution was perceptible in their headlong progress. Then it began to tell, and presently they were mounting the long acclivity at what seemed a tortoise pace after the breathless drop into the valley.
The car rose to the brow, and Mr. Belford mounted recklessly beside the chauffeur, peering ahead under arched palms over the moon-bathed country-side.
“There they are! There they are! We shall overtake them at the old farm!”
His excitement was intensely contagious. Sheffield, who had been wedged upon the footboard, rose unsteadily, and, supporting himself with difficulty, looked along the gleaming ribbon of road.
There they were! The grey car was clearly discernible now, and even at that distance he could estimate something of her progress. He exulted to note that capture was becoming merely a question of minutes!
Then came a doubt. Suppose it should prove to be the wrong car!
Nearer they drew, and nearer.
The fugitives topped a slope, and against the blue sky was silhouetted a figure which stood upright in the car — the figure of a big man with raised arms and out-turned elbows. He was peering back, just as Belford was peering forward.
“Look at his bowler hat!” yelled Sheffield. “Why, it might be me!”
“It might!” shouted Mr. Belford; “but it isn’t! It’s Séverac Bablon!”
A wood dipped down to the roadside, and its shadows ate up their quarry; a breathless, nervous interval, and its glooms enveloped Mr. Belford’s party in turn. From out of the darkness the road ahead was clearly visible. Deserted farm buildings lay scattered in their path where the trees ended.
The trees slipped behind, and the old farm rose in front.
At the gate of the yard stood the grey car — empty!
“Pull up! Pull up!” cried Mr. Belford.
But long before the car beca
me stationary he had precipitated himself into the road.
Sheffield dropped heavily behind him, and grasped him by the arm.
“One moment, sir!” he said.
His voice was calm again. He was quite in his element now. A criminal had to be apprehended, and the circumstances, though difficult, were not unfamiliar. But strategy was called for; there must be no hot-headed blundering.
“Yes? What is it?” demanded the Home Secretary excitedly.
“It’s this, sir: he’ll give us the slip yet, if we don’t go slow! Now, you take charge of the grey car. That’s your post, sir. Here — have my revolver. Step out into the lane there, and see nobody rushes the car!”
“Good — I agree!” cried Mr. Belford, and took the revolver.
“You, young fellow,” continued the inspector, addressing the chauffeur, “may know something of the ins and outs of this place. Do you know if there’s a back door to the main building?”
“There is — yes — down behind that barn.”
“Then pull out a big spanner, or anything handy, and go round there. When you reach the door, whistle. Stop there unless you hear my whistle inside or till I come through and join you. If he’s not in the main building we can start on the outhouses. But his escape is cut off all the time by Mr. Belford — see?”
“Quite right, inspector! Quite right!” cried Mr. Belford. “Go ahead! I will get to the car! Go ahead!”
Off ran the agile politician to his appointed post; and the chauffeur, armed with a heavy spanner, disappeared in the shadow of the barn. Sheffield, taking from his breast-pocket an electric torch, strode up to the doorless entrance of the abandoned farm, and waited.
CHAPTER XXVI
GRIMSDYKE
Not a sound disturbed the silence of the deserted place, save when the slight breeze sighed through the trees of the adjoining coppice, and swayed some invisible shutter which creaked upon its rusty hinges.
An owl hooted, and the detective was on the alert in a moment. It was a well-known signal. Was the owl a feathered one or a human mimic?
No other sound followed, until the breeze came again, whispered in the coppice, and shook the shutter.
Then the chauffeur’s whistle came, faintly, and with something tremulous in its note; for the adventure, though it offered little novelty to the experience of the Scotland Yard man, was dangerously unique from the mechanic’s point of view. But where the Right Hon. Walter Belford led it was impolitic, if not impossible, to decline to follow. Yet, the whistle spoke of a man not over-confident. “Séverac Bablon” was a disturbing name!
Sheffield pressed the knob of the torch and stepped into the bare and dirty room beyond.
The beam of the torch swept the four walls, with faded paper peeling in strips from the damp plaster; showed a grate full of rubbish, a battered pail, and a bare floor littered with debris of all sorts, great cavities gaping between many of the planks. A cupboard was searched, and proved to contain a number of empty cans and bottles — nothing else.
Into the next room went the investigator, to meet with no better fortune. The third was a big kitchen, empty; the fourth a paved scullery, also empty — with the chauffeur at the door, holding his spanner in readiness for sudden assault.
“Upstairs!” said Sheffield shortly.
Up the creaking stairs they passed, their footsteps filling the place with ghostly echoes.
A square landing offered four doors, all closed, to their consideration.
Sheffield paused, and listened.
The owl had hooted again.
He directed the ray of the torch upon the door on the immediate right of the stairhead.
“We’re short-handed for this!” he muttered; “but it has to be risked now. Stay where you are and be on the alert. Watch those other doors.” He tried the handle.
The door was locked.
To the next one he passed without hesitation. It yielded to his hand, and he flashed the light about a bare room, with half of the ceiling sloping down to the window. In the corner beyond this window a second door was partly concealed by the recess. The inspector stepped across the floor and threw the door open.
Then events moved rapidly.
Someone literally shot into the room behind him, falling with a crash that shook the place like thunder. Bang! sounded through the house, and a key turned in a lock!
Sheffield spun round like an unwieldy top, and saw the chauffeur struggling to his feet and rubbing his head vigorously.
The detective made no outcry, nor did he waste energy by trying a door he knew to be locked. He stood, keenly alert, and listened.
Footsteps rapidly receded down the stairs.
“Who did it? How did he get behind me?” muttered the dazed chauffeur.
“Out of one of the other rooms! I told you to watch them!”
Inspector Sheffield was angry, but he had not lost his presence of mind.
“We must get out — quick! The window!”
He leapt to the low window, throwing it open.
“Too far to drop! We’ve got to smash the door! Perhaps they’ve left the key in the lock! Set to on the panel with that bit of iron of yours!”
The man began a vigorous assault upon the woodwork. It was old, but very tough, and yielded tardily to the blows of the instrument. Then a big crack appeared as the result of a stroke shrewdly planted.
“Stand away!” directed Sheffield; and leaning back upon his left foot, he dashed his right upon the broken panel, shattering it effectually.
At the moment that the chauffeur thrust his hand through the jagged aperture to seek for the key, thud! thud! thud! came from the lane below.
“That’s the car!” cried the inspector. “My God! what have they done to Mr. Belford?”
The other paused and listened intently.
“It’s the grey car,” he said. “Why didn’t they take the guv’nor’s?”
“Open the door!” cried Sheffield impatiently. “Is the key there?”
“Yes,” was the reply; “here we are!” And the door was opened.
Sheffield started down the stairs with noisy clatter, and, the chauffeur a good second, raced through the rooms below and out into the yard.
“Mr. Belford! Mr. Belford!” he cried.
But no answer came, only a whisper from the coppice, followed by the squeak of the crazy shutter.
They ran out to where they had left Belford on guard over the grey car; but no sign of him remained, nor evidence of a struggle. The hum of the retreating motor grew faint in the distance.
“Ah!” cried Sheffield, and started running towards Mr. Belford’s limousine on the edge of the coppice. “Quick! don’t you see? He’s kidnapped! In you go! This just about sees me out at Scotland Yard if we don’t overtake them!”
“They’ve gone back the way we’ve just come!” said the chauffeur, hurling himself on board. “I can’t make out where they’re going — and I can’t make out why they took the worst car! It’s an old crock, hired from Lewes. We can run it down inside five minutes!”
“Thank God for that!” said Sheffield, as, for the second time that night, he set out across moonlit Sussex on the front of the big car, in pursuit of the most elusive man who ever had baffled the Criminal Investigation Department.
Visions of degradation to the ranks from which he so laboriously had risen occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else; for to have allowed the notorious Séverac Bablon to kidnap the Home Secretary under his very eyes was a blunder which he knew full well could not be condoned.
Even the breathless drop into the great bowl on the Downs did not serve to dispel his gloomy dreams. Then:
“There they are! And, as I live, making straight for Womsley!” cried the chauffeur.
Sheffield stood up unsteadily on his insecure perch, and there was the mysterious grey car, which now was become a veritable nightmare, mounting the hill in front.
One minute passed, and Sheffield was straining his eyes to catch a gli
mpse of the occupants. But no one was visible. Two minutes passed, and the inspector began to think that his eyesight was failing, or that a worse thing portended. For, as far as he could make out, only one man occupied the car — the man who drove her!
“What does it mean?” muttered the detective, clutching at the shoulder of the chauffeur to support himself. “It must be Séverac Bablon! But — where’s Mr. Belford?”
Three minutes passed, and the brilliant moonlight set at rest all doubts respecting the identity of the man who drove the car.
His silvern hair flowed out, gleaming on his shoulders, as he bent forward over the driving-wheel.
It was the Right Hon. Walter Belford!
“What in the name of murder does it mean?” cried Sheffield. “Has he gone mad? Mr. Belford! Mr. Belford! Hoy! ... Hoy! ... hoy! Mr. Belford!”
But although he must have heard the cry, Mr. Belford, immovable at the wheel, drove madly ahead!
“What shall I do?” asked the chauffeur in an awed voice.
“Do?” rapped Sheffield savagely. “Pass him and block the road! He’s stark, raving mad!”
So, along that white road, under the placid moon, was enacted the strangest incident of this entirely bizarre adventure; for Mr. Belford, in the hired motor, was pursued and overtaken by his own car, which passed him, forged ahead, turned across the road, and blocked it.
For one moment the Home Secretary, racing down upon them, seemed to contemplate leaving the path for the grassland, and thus proceeding on his way; but the chauffeur ran out to meet him, holding up his arms and crying:
“Stop, sir! Stop!”
Mr. Belford stopped the car and fixed his eyes upon the man with a look of real amazement.
“You?” he said, and turned to Sheffield.
“Who else?” rapped the inspector irritably. “What on earth are you doing, sir? Where’s the quarry — where’s Séverac Bablon?”
