Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

His head was aching terribly. He tried to move his hands and found movement restricted. He did not realise why for a long time.

The car was moving with great rapidity, far beyond the legalised speed limit. There were no lights. By the whir of the wheels he guessed he was on a newly made road. It was queer that this fact should have appeared so important to him. He could remember nothing, knew nothing, except that he was lying curled up on the floor of a motor-car which was moving rapidly and smoothly. Then he stopped thinking again for a long time and was glad of the unconsciousness which obliterated this throbbing head of his.

The car was now bumping over an uneven surface. It was that which roused him to consciousness. He blinked up, tried to raise himself, felt gingerly along his wrists and recognised the shape of the handcuffs--his own; he always carried an unauthorised pair in his coat pocket. Unauthorised, because they were not of the regulation type--they were American handcuffs which were so much easier to put on--a tap on the wrist and the D swung round and was fast.

Somebody had handcuffed him. Somebody had tied his legs together with a silk scarf. He could feel it, but he could not reach the knot. And then he remembered the woman and the car and the drunken chauffeur who was not there.

The car was bumping painfully. It seemed to be passing over a ploughed field or, at best, a cart track. It was the latter, he found when the car stopped.

A little while later the door was pulled open; he saw the outlines of the "woman" and knew exactly who "she" was.

There was a little cottage a few yards away; one of those monstrous little boxes of red brick and tiling that disfigure the countryside since the war. His coat collar was gripped and he was jerked out into the road, falling on his knees.

"Get up, you----," hissed a voice, and what followed was not ladylike.

He was half-dragged and half-pushed towards the cottage; the door was flung open and he was thrust into a dark interior. It smelt of drying mortar and plaster and new wood. He guessed it was unfurnished. He waited awhile. The door was locked on the inside and he was again urged forward into a room so completely dark that he knew the window was shuttered. He fell on the floor. It was amazing that he walked at all with his legs bound, as they were, with the silk scarf.

As he lay there, a match spluttered, there was a tinkle of an oil lamp chimney being taken off, and presently the room was illuminated by the soft glow of a kerosene lamp. The only articles of furniture in the room were two sofas, a chair, and a kitchen table. Wooden shutters covered the window, as he had suspected. There were neither hangings nor curtains of any description, and the table was innocent of cloth.

His captor pulled the chair forward, sat down, his hands on his knees, and surveyed him.

Surefoot would never have recognised this yellow-faced old woman with a grey wig and a long fur coat. The wig was now a little askew--it gave him a comical but terrible appearance. He was sensitive to ridicule, took off the wig and hat with one movement and appeared even more grotesque with his bald head and his yellow face.

"Got you," said Binny huskily.

He was grinning, but there was no merriment in that smile.

"Mr. Surefoot Smith is not so sure on his feet after all."

The jest seemed to amuse him, and then, as though conscious of the attitude which the situation demanded, he assumed that affected mincing tone which had belonged to Mr. Washington Wirth.

"I built this little place a couple of years ago. I thought it might be useful, but I haven't been here for a long time. I am leaving the country. Perhaps you would like to buy it, Mr. Smith? It's an excellent retreat for a professional gentleman who wishes to be quiet, and you are going to be very quiet!"

From his pocket he took an automatic pistol and laid it on the table beside him, and, stooping down, he lifted Surefoot and sat him in a corner of the room. Bending down, he unfastened the sagging silk scarf about his ankles and jerked off the detective's shoes, throwing them into another corner of the room. He hesitated a second, then loosened Surefoot's collar.

"You are not hurt, my dear Mr. Smith," he remarked. "A rubber truncheon applied to the back of the neck does not kill. It is, I admit, very uncomfortable. There was once a copper in Cincinnati who tried that treatment on me. It was two months before I was well enough to shoot him. You didn't know of my little retreat?"

Surefoot's mouth was dry, his head was whizzing, but he was entirely without fear, though he realised his case was a desperate one.

"Oh yes, I did, Binny," he said. "This place is about a hundred yards from the Bath Road near Taplow. You bought the ground four years ago, and paid a hundred and fifty pounds for it."

For a second Binny was thrown off his balance.

"This house was searched last week by my police officers, and is now under the observation of the Buckinghamshire police. You have got another cottage of a similar character in Wiltshire."

"Oh, indeed?"

Binny was completely taken aback. He was rattled too. Surefoot saw this and pushed home his advantage.

"What's the good of being a fool? We have got no evidence against you for murder. The only evidence is that you have forged Hervey Lyne's cheques. The worst that can happen to you is a seven stretch."

Again he put his finger upon the one great doubt which obsessed the man.

"You may get an extra year for this," said Surefoot, "but what's a year? Get me some water. There's a kitchen just behind this room. Let the tap run: the water was rusty when I was here last week. There's a tin cup on the dresser."

The instinct to obey is stronger than the instinct to command. Binny went out and returned with the tin cup and put it to the detective's lips.

"Now take these handcuffs off and we'll have a little talk. Why didn't you bring Mike Hennessey here instead of----" He realised his colossal error as soon as the words were spoken.

Binny stepped back with a snarl.

"Don't want me for murder, eh? You double-crossing busy! I will show you what I want you for."

His hand moved towards the gun on the table.

Binny took up the pistol and examined it carefully.

"I have always wanted to tell you where you get off, Smith----" he began.

"Your wish has come true," said Surefoot coolly. "But you'd better work fast."

"I'll work fast enough," said the other grimly.

He slipped the gun into his pocket, picked up the scarf, and retied his prisoner's ankles.

He then took off his fur coat and relieved himself of his woman's garments. From a theatre trunk he retrieved an old suit, which he put on.

Surefoot Smith watched him interestedly.

"I gather you have some hard work to do?" he said.

"Pretty hard," said the other, and added significantly: "The ground here is fairly soft. You don't get down to clay till you have dug six feet."

If he expected to terrify his captive he was disappointed.

"Why not let me do it?" said Smith. "You are fat and out of condition. Digging my own grave is a hobby of mine."

For a second Binny seemed to be considering this suggestion.

"No, I'll do it," he said, "fat or not fat."

"Why bother?" Surefoot's voice was almost airy. "As soon as I am missing they will search here and in Wiltshire. I gather your object is to leave no trace. You are not sure now whether we could convict you for murder, are you? If you kill a police officer you are certain to be hanged. Every man in Scotland Yard will turn out to find evidence against you. People who were sleeping in their beds will swear that they saw you cosh me."

He libelled the best police force in the world without shame.

"You might get away with Hennessey," Surefoot went on, "and old Lyne and Tickler, but you could not get away with me. They will come along and search this ground, which, if I remember rightly, is grass-grown, and unless you do a little bit of artistic turfing they will find me and that will be the finish of you."

Binny paused at the door and turned with an ugly grin on his face.

"I used to know a copper who talked like you, but he talked himself into hell, see?"

He went out and closed the door behind him.

Surefoot Smith sat, thinking very hard. He made an effort to break the single link that bound the two cuffs together. It was certainly a painful process, probably impossible. By drawing up his legs and separating them at the knees he could reach the trebly knotted silk scarf. It was difficult, but he succeeded in loosening one knot, and was at work on the second when he heard the man returning along the bare boards of the passage.

Binny was finding his task more difficult than he had anticipated. His face was wet with perspiration. He groped in the trunk, took out a bottle of whisky, and, removing the patent top, took a long drink.

"Is it courage or strength you're looking for?" asked Surefoot.

"You'll see," growled the other, glaring down at the helpless man malignantly.

The butts of two automatics stuck out of his trousers pockets. Surefoot eyed them longingly.

Binny was half-way to the door when a thought struck him, and he turned back and examined the knots of the scarf.

"Oh, you've undone one, have you. We'll see about that."

Again he searched the trunk and found a length of cord. He slipped it round the link of the handcuffs and knotted the cord firmly behind the detective's neck, so that his hands were drawn up almost to his chin.

"You look funny--almost as if you were praying!" remarked Binny. "I shan't keep you long."

He went out of the room on this promise.

Sprawling there helplessly, Surefoot heard the hoot of cars as they passed. He was, he knew, about a hundred yards from the main road, but it was a road along which, day and night, traffic was continually passing.

The possibility that the Buckinghamshire police would search this little cottage was very remote, unless somebody at Scotland Yard had a brain-wave that this was the most likely place to which the prisoner would be taken. But Scotland Yard might not even miss him. He was an erratic man; when he was engaged in an important case he would absent himself from headquarters for days together, leaving his chiefs fuming. The search would not begin until Binny was well out of the country.

He watched the smoky oil lamp burning; the flame had been turned on too high and one side of the glass chimney was smoked.

Binny was out for a getaway; he would leave no traces. Even the murder would not be committed in the house.

Half an hour, an hour passed, and he heard the heavy feet of the man coming for him, and knew that the hour was at hand.