“Yesterday ’e got the wind up proper and told the old bloke that ’e was going to walk out on ’im—at least, I think ’e told ’im; I know ’e meant to. I don’t know what you think, Inspector, but doesn’t it strike you as being queer that when ’e came back from that interview someone followed ’im into ’is room at the hotel and shot ’im with a gun that had a silencer?”
Winn did not reply directly to the question. Instead he asked another.
Nifty hesitated.
“Suppose I do tell you ’is name,” he said, “what then?”
“You’ll have to trust us to see that any reward that’s going comes your way.”
“Just my luck,” said Nifty. “Still, since I’ve gone so far I’ll go the whole hog.”
And leaning forward he mentioned clearly and unmistakably the last name in the world Inspector Winn expected to hear.
“Sir Leo Thyn?” Winn was incredulous. “You’re off your head.”
Nifty waited for the storm to subside. Then he pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket.
“Take a look at that,” he said.
The inspector glanced at the scribbled words.
DEAR MAJOR DEANE,
I am now setting out for the Arcadian. If you will meet me there a little before five o’clock I shall be very pleased. Yours faithfully,
LEO THYN.
“That came for Johnny yesterday,” said Nifty. “He threw it away, and I picked it up. However,” he said, a curiously malicious light creeping into his narrow eyes, “if you don’t believe me, why not have a word or two with Sir Leo, all friendly like? He’s staying at the Arcadian. Ring him up.”
Inspector Winn did not seem to have heard this suggestion, but after a moment or two of consideration he drew the telephone towards him and had a few words with Sergeant McCabe downstairs.
As he hung up the receiver after issuing his instructions he turned to Nifty.
“Well, there you are, my lad,” he said. “And if you’re trying to make fools of us you know what’s coming to you.”
It was nearly ten minutes later when Sergeant McCabe came hurrying into the office. He murmured a few words to his superior, and Nifty had the satisfaction of seeing an expression of blank incredulity spread over the inspector’s face.
“Gone?” said Winn. “Gone? What do you mean—gone?”
“Well, he’s hopped it, sir. Left for the Continent in a hurry. We might catch him at Dover. Shall I try?”
Inspector Winn did not answer immediately. Blank astonishment, disbelief, and alarm were all visible in his expression.
“But why did Lionel Birch bunk?” he demanded of the room at large. “Why was his room dismantled, and where in the name of good fortune is he now?”
There was a long pause, during which Nifty Martin stirred happily and smiled at the tips of his impossible shoes.
“Go on,” he said, “you can search me.”
CHAPTER XIV
Journey By Night
AN HOUR BEFORE DAWN David Blest found himself driving down the long straight road between Kraven and Witchingham. The road is one of the loneliest in England, running as it does through the wooded estates of Witchingham Parva and Kraven Common.
It was an eerie place even in daytime, with its high overhanging trees and steep banks on either side of the road.
He had gone some four miles down the famous ten-mile stretch when for the first time certain misgivings assailed him. It was odd, he reflected, that there was no other road to Witchingham, and yet at this time of night it was completely and utterly deserted.
Suddenly an alarming idea occurred to him. In his anxiety about Judy he had not considered his own position too carefully, but now it came home to him that it was very extraordinary that Colonel Cream should send him out on a night journey which would take him across this lonely strip of road, after warning him not to communicate with Inspector Winn.
David slowed the car down and cursed himself for a fool. He pulled himself together, however. After all, why should he expect a trap? David had a great faith in the inviolability of the law, and there were few criminals, in his opinion, who would risk a deliberate and planned attack on a Scotland Yard man. The police were notoriously hard on such cases, and very few attacks on policemen went unavenged.
All the same, he had made up his mind not to stop for anyone, and whipping up the car to its full speed he shot down the tunnel of trees at a great rate.
He was just reproaching himself for being unnecessarily jumpy when the unexpected occurred. Giant headlights were switched on at the side of the road, and in their glare he made out the figure of a man gesticulating wildly to him to stop.
David ignored him, put his foot hard down on the accelerator and, keeping his eyes on the near side edge of the road, roared past.
It was a tricky business, for the light was straight in his eyes and well-nigh blinding. However, he kept the old car on the road and thought he had got clear, but a moment later his car seemed to gather up all her wheels and take a flying leap at the ditch, while the shrill ping of a revolver bullet was drowned in the much larger explosion made by the bursting of his back tire.
All David’s efforts to right the car were unavailing. She charged the soft grass-grown bank, churned into the earth, coughed, and stood still.
David whipped out his gun and waited. There were footsteps on the road; four or five men running, he judged, and he sat there waiting until they should come.
His vigil was not long drawn out. The first thing he knew was the splatter of a revolver bullet across the window. He fired back and thought he heard a gasp of pain, but before he could fire again he was seized from behind by someone who had come up noiselessly on the other side of the car and, taking advantage of the door, which had been burst open in the crash, had crept in upon him.
He struggled vigorously, but his efforts were of no avail, for the man behind him had thrust a handkerchief, sweet and sickly with chloroform, across his mouth and nostrils.
Holding his breath, the inspector tried to turn his gun upon his assailant, but at the same moment the other door of the car was wrenched open, and his gun was knocked from his hand, while the anæsthetic slowly did its work.
All David’s efforts to pull himself together and throw off the fumes were impossible. His efforts at resistance grew weaker and weaker, and he sank into oblivion, his last conscious thought one of fury at himself for falling into the trap so neatly laid for him.
When he came to himself he was lying in an uncomfortable heap on the bottom of a jolting car. He felt sick and dizzy, and as the events of the past hour or so returned to him his exasperation became unbearable.
Escape was out of the question. At first he could not understand what had happened to him, but gradually the realization of his plight was borne in upon him. An old and musty-smelling sack had been forced over his head and drawn down until it held his arms as close to his sides as if he had been wearing a straitjacket.
His wrists were roped to his thighs and his ankles bound.
David felt bitterly angry. He could hardly breathe, and the smell of the sack was intolerable.
He listened intently. He could feel that there were other people in the back of the car besides himself, but no one spoke, and he had no way of telling how many there were.
As far as he could tell, he was riding in a six-cylinder car which was travelling at a fair pace. Accompanying it were two motorcycles. He could hear the throb of their powerful engines on either side of his own vehicle.
At first his heart rose at the hope that they might belong to members of the Mobile Police, who had somehow got on his track, but after a time he abandoned this idea. It had evidently been a considerable crowd who had set upon him, and the motorcyclists were, no doubt, merely members of the gang for whom there had been no room in the car.
He stirred, and instantly a heavy boot caught him in the ribs so savagely that a grunt of pain escaped him. Still no one spoke. The silence of
that long, flying journey was uncanny, and David was disquieted. He had no means of protecting himself, no means of helping Judy. There was nothing for it but to wait and see what would happen.
Lying there, he wondered if this was to be the end of everything: this ignominious finish, with his head in a sack.
On second thoughts he was inclined to think that if they intended to kill him they would have done it then and there and would not have troubled to cart him about the country in this silent, grim fashion.
His wrists and legs were numbed by the tightness of his bonds. The air inside the sack was fœtid and stifling. He felt himself slipping into unconsciousness again, and it was while he was fighting this new attack that the car came to a sudden standstill.
David heard the motorcycle engines stop also. Then he felt himself seized roughly by the shoulders and dragged out onto grass.
Still there was no sound from any of his captors. Once he thought he heard a man swear under his breath, but the sound was cut off instantly, as though someone had laid a hand over his mouth.
In spite of himself David approved. There were brains in this business, if nothing else. If ever he got out of this predicament alive he knew that he would not have anything, any impression, any half memory, to help him recognize his captors if ever he met them again.
The fresh air slowly filtering through the matted fibres of the sack revived him a little, but he lay limp, although every sense was alert, and waited.
He thought he detected a muttered conference going on some distance away from him, but although he listened earnestly he could catch no separate word.
Presently the muttering ceased. Once again he was seized by the shoulders, and this time someone else took his feet. There was a stumbling journey of perhaps fifty or sixty yards, and then he was thrown down on the hard earth, his head coming in violent contact with a wooden wall.
Stirring his feet cautiously, he detected another strip of wall and realized that he was lying in a corner of some building.
He waited anxiously for the next move. All about him was ominously quiet. He thought he heard softly moving footsteps going away from him. Then all was silent, until suddenly, from some little distance off, came the sound of a petrol engine.
He recognized it as that of the car in which he had come. He heard her start up and drive slowly off. Listening intently, he heard first one motorcycle and then the other follow her.
The sound of the three engines grew fainter and fainter. Finally they died away altogether.
David stirred. He struggled and tried to sit up. But there was no movement around him, and it was borne in upon him that he was alone.
He spoke, and the sound of his own voice was terrifying in the stillness. He tried to shout, but only the muffled echoes of his own voice answered him.
How long he stayed there he never knew. He felt it must be several hours. Suddenly, far away in the distance he heard a motorcycle engine. He summoned all his strength and shouted. The engine came nearer, and he paused, a cry stifled on his lips. It was either the same machine or one exactly like the first of the two machines which had accompanied his captors.
A thrill of fear went through him. It was something more than physical alarm. There was something positively uncanny and terrifying in the thought of that one lonely rider coming back through the night towards the helpless man who lay bound and stricken in the darkness.
The engine stopped. David strained his ears for footsteps but heard none. And then at his very side there was a movement.
An exclamation escaped him, but he mastered the impulse to cry out.
The next moment the bonds which bound his legs were cut through. Then his wrists were freed. A knife cut through the sacking, and a rush of sweet, clean air came to his nostrils as the ragged hessian dropped to the ground.
“Stand up,” said a husky voice. “Put your hands above your head.”
David had no choice but to obey. He was far too sick and weak to risk a fight at this stage in the proceedings. His wrists and ankles were tingling unbearably as the blood rushed back to them, and the newcomer pressed a gun into his ribs.
He found he was in a barn. It was only just beginning to get light, and the corner in which he stood was still well in the shadow.
“Walk straight on till I tell you to stop,” said the voice at his side.
David made out a lank figure in dungarees, the lower part of whose face was completely covered by a white handkerchief, and whose broad flat cap was pulled down well over his forehead and eyes.
With his hands above his head and the stranger’s gun in his ribs David marched out into a lonely country road. A powerful motorcycle stood just outside a farm gate. There was not a soul in sight, nor any signs of human habitation. The barn itself appeared to be ruinous and disused.
“Get on the bike,” the newcomer commanded. “I’m coming with you. Try and get away from me and I’ll shoot.”
The grim determination in the tone convinced David that this was no idle threat. He did as he was told, and two minutes later found himself wobbling unsteadily along a dusty flint road, with his captor, like some old man of the sea, perched on the pillion behind him.
For the first few miles David obeyed instructions implicitly. He knew his only chance was to put the stranger off his guard and at the same time conserve his own strength.
It was still very early, just after five, he guessed. The country was unfamiliar to him, and the road a lonely track along what appeared to be salt marshes and poorly cultivated farm land.
Suddenly David saw his chance. They were nearing a little humpbacked bridge, much steeper than usual. Just before they reached it he put on a spurt and took it at speed.
The jolt very nearly unseated him, and he thought for a second that he had lost his passenger, but he was unprepared for the tenacity of the man. Two extremely powerful arms seized him round the waist, the bike wobbled off the road, and David and his captor came off together.
“That’s right, young man,” said a voice behind him as he struggled to his feet. “It was about time you and I had a bit of a talk.”
David swung round. The clear light of dawn fell upon his captor’s face, from which the handkerchief had disappeared.
David stared, too surprised even to speak. Standing in front of him, a little dishevelled from his fall but otherwise very much the same as he had looked on their first meeting, was none other than the odd seafaring person whom he had last met coming out of Judy’s room in the Hotel Arcadian in the company of ex-Sergeant Bloomer.
For some seconds David stood quite still, trying vainly to collect his scattered wits. The whole thing was incredible, a nightmare situation in which the very last eventuality seemed to arise.
Who this remarkable old man was, whether he were friend or foe, or what he could possibly have to do with Bloomer, were all questions which raced through David’s mind. But a new problem soon claimed all his attention.
The shock of surprise had loosened his iron hold upon himself, that hold which alone had made him capable of overcoming his weakness sufficiently to master the motorcycle. The violent fall to the ground had not helped matters, and now he found to his horror that the world was going black about him.
The fields and hedges, which had been growing momentarily more and more distinct as the dawn advanced, now became blurred again as they seemed to rush past him in an endless stream. He strove vigorously to pull himself together, using every ounce of strength he possessed to combat the deadly nausea and inertia which threatened to overcome him.
But there is no physique in the world which is capable of throwing off the after effects of so powerful an anæsthetic, and he reeled.
The strange old man ran forward to seize his arm, but David saw the earth rise up to meet him and the next moment lay face downward on the thick, dew-soaked grass at the side of the road.
“Where is Judy? Where is Judy Wellington?”
The words, uttered with an impassioned eagernes
s, came to him through the mists. At first they seemed to him to be the echoes of his own brain, but gradually he became aware that it was not mere fancy.
He was aware of two fierce grey eyes peering into his own and discovered that he was lying upon his back on the grass and that his erstwhile captor and rescuer was bending over him.
“Where is Judy?”
There was no mistaking the urgency of the question.
“Where is she? You know. You must know.”
David closed his lips tightly, and as though he understood the reason for the young man’s silence the older man went on.
“I’m her friend, I tell you, and I must know. Where is she? Where is Judy? She’s in danger, and I’ve got to find her. You’ve got to help me find her. The name of the town! What’s the name of the town?”
Had David not been temporarily bereft of his critical faculties he could hardly have failed to realize that the man was telling the truth, but for David the world had ceased to exist for the time being. He remembered Judy, Judy in danger. He must get to her.
And then the awful darkness descended upon him once more, and he was gliding along in space at a tremendous rate with no power of guiding himself and no power of turning back.
His next impression was that he was being lifted up none too gently and laid upon something hard which rolled and swayed beneath him. There was a noise too, a familiar mechanical noise, a violent rattling and rumbling which was oddly soothing.
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again he discovered that he lay on a pile of sacks in the back of a lorry. He sat up. His head was splitting, but the weakness had disappeared. He shivered. The day had broken, and the early morning sun was already gilding the tops of the hedges.
He looked about him. The old man had disappeared.
He shouted to the driver, and when a red, astonished face appeared at the little window in the back of the cab, he beckoned to the man to stop. David swung himself to the ground. He still felt shaky, but no longer giddy, and although his head hurt intolerably his brain was clear.
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