Chapter THIRTY

Security can be very irksome, especially when it is wedded to a lumpy bed in an ill-ventilated room. The sergeant's wife had given her the second best bedroom, which was, by most standards, a comfortable apartment. Mary felt desperately tired when she put out the light, but the moment her head touched the pillow all her weariness and desire for sleep had left her. She lay for half an hour, counting sheep, making up shopping lists, weaving stories, but grew wider and wider awake. At the end of that time she got up, turned on the light, and slipped into her dressing-gown.

She thought the mere act of rising would make her sleepy, but she had been mistaken. She was seized with a longing for her own comfortable quarters at the hotel, and began to dress. She could easily make an excuse to the sergeant's wife, who had gone out for the evening and would not be back till after midnight. There was no telephone in the quarters, but Surefoot Smith had made her free of the station, and she knew she had only to go down-stairs and see the night inspector and he would put her in touch with the detective.

She felt horribly ungrateful, but, so far as she had been concerned, she had come to this safe retreat without any enthusiasm. The danger from Binny was probably exaggerated--Surefoot himself had told her that the man could have no further interest in her now that the hue and cry was out.

Scribbling a note to her hostess--a note which contained more lame excuses for her eccentricity than were necessary--she put on her coat and went down to the charge room.

The inspector to whom she had been introduced had gone out, visiting the patrols. Evidently he had not impressed upon the sergeant in charge the necessity for keeping a watchful eye upon the visitor, and he received her explanation for her return to the hotel with polite interest, until she mentioned the name of Surefoot Smith. Then he became very attentive.

"He's not at the Yard, miss. As a matter of fact, there's been some trouble there. We've had a special warning to look out for him."

She opened her eyes in astonishment.

"Look out for him?" And then, quickly: "Has he disappeared?"

The sergeant did not forget that reticence is the first duty of a constable, and became evasive.

"Is it something to do with Binny?" she insisted.

"Well, yes." He hesitated before he became more communicative. "He's the man wanted for the murder of the old man in Regent's Park. Yes, they've got an idea at the Yard that Binny's got him away somewhere. Rather a queer idea that a murderer can get away an inspector of the C.I.D., but there you are!"

She sensed, without realising, the eternal if gentle rivalry between the uniformed and the ununiformed branches of the Metropolitan Police.

"How could an inspector be lured away? It sounds silly, doesn't it? Personally, I believe it's all bunk, but there you are! We're on the lookout for both of them."

She asked him to get her a cab, and again he was reluctant. Sergeants in charge of station houses have no time to find cabs for visitors; but she was evidently a friend of Surefoot Smith's and he stretched a point in her favour, telephoned to a cab rank, and five minutes later she was driving through the rain to Scotland Yard.

She left just as the squad cars were starting out in search of Surefoot, and she interviewed the Chief Inspector. He offered her very little information and a great deal of fatherly advice about going to bed. He evidently knew nothing whatever of Surefoot's plan to protect her, and was a little embarrassed when she asked if she might stay at Scotland Yard until some news was received.

"I shouldn't worry if I were you, Miss Lane," he said. "We've got police barrages on all the roads for thirty miles round London, and I am very certain that Surefoot will turn up. He's an erratic sort of individual, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him walk in at any moment."

Nevertheless, she was determined to stay, and he had her taken to Surefoot's own room.

It was a quiet room, and now that the first excitement of the night was over she realised how tired she was and how foolish she had been to leave even an uncomfortable bed.

She sat at the table, resting her head on one palm, found herself nodding, and, after a while, passing into that uneasy stage of semi-consciousness which is nearly sleep.

She woke with a jump as the Chief Inspector came in.

"Young lady, you go home," he said. "We've found Surefoot; so far as I can make out, he's not very badly hurt."

He told her briefly what had happened.

"Binny has escaped. Surefoot's theory is that he's breaking north. Have you ever noticed that a fugitive from justice invariably turns north? It's a fact--at least, nearly a fact. Now you go home, Miss Lane, and I'll send an officer round to your hotel in the morning with the latest news."

"Is he coming back to London?" she asked. "Mr. Smith, I mean?"

The Chief smiled.

"If he had half the intelligence he's supposed to have he'd get himself admitted to a nursing home. No. We've formed a sort of headquarters barrage this side of Welwyn. Chief Inspector Roose is in charge, and Surefoot is going across for a consultation. He's all right--your friend Mr. Allenby is with him."

He had a cab called and she drove to her hotel. She must have been half asleep for two hours, she saw as she passed Big Ben and heard two o'clock strike. She was wider awake than she had been at any period of the night.

The hall porter who admitted her was searching for her letters when she stopped him.

"Is there a place where I can hire a car?" she asked.

He looked at her in astonishment.

"Yes, miss. Do you want one tonight?"

She hesitated. The Chief had said that Dick and Surefoot were at Welwyn, but he had not said where. At first she supposed that they had taken up their quarters at the local police station--she was rather hazy as to what a barrage meant. But there would be policemen on the road, stopping cars, and they would direct her to where the two men could be found.

Why she should go at all was not quite clear even to herself. It was a desire to be "in it," to be close to the big events which touched her own life so closely, to see with her own eyes the development of the story in which she had been a character. She could find plenty of excuses; none that she could have stated convincingly.

"Yes, get me a car. Tell them to come round as soon as they can."

He gave her the key of her room and she went upstairs, and presently the porter came up after her, bringing some coffee he had made, for by night he was not only custodian but cook.

Leo Moran had been removed to his own flat, he told her, but mainly he talked, with a certain amount of pride, about the reporters who had been "coming and going" since the discovery of the gassed banker.

She had hardly finished her coffee before the car came, and, dressing herself a little more warmly, she went down and gave the driver instructions.

As the car drew out of the suburbs into the open country, Binny and his flight assumed a new significance. She was not sorry for him. If she was a little frightened, it was not of the man, but at the thought of the vast machinery that her brain had put into motion. The moment she had heard of that scrawled note on the back of the cheque she had solved the mystery of Binny's defalcations, and when she had heard that all the forgeries were dated the seventeenth of the month--the day that the old man invariably paid his tradesmen's bills--she was sure.

And now, because she had remembered the shape and appearance of the key of a kitchen door, because she had added cheques to key, eighteen thousand London policemen were looking for this bald-headed man. That was the frightening thing; not Binny and the menace of him, but the spectacle of these great winding wheels moving to crush a malefactor.

To Mary Lane, Binny was hardly as much an individual as a force. She thought the car was speeding a little dangerously on the wet road. Once she distinctly felt a skid, and gripped the arm-rest tightly.

They could not have been more than a few miles from Welwyn when, rounding a turn, she saw a car come into the road ahead, and went cold, for she realised that, at the speed they were travelling, it was almost impossible to avoid it. Her car swerved and turned giddily; she felt a crash, and was thrown violently to her knees as the machine canted over.

She reached up at the door, and by sheer physical strength flung it open and scrambled out on to the wet road. The chauffeur was already standing by the bonnet, staring at the car stupidly.

"I'm very sorry, miss," he said huskily. "I'll have to telephone for another car from town. Perhaps this gentleman will take you into Welwyn."

The second car, in avoiding which the accident had occurred, was behind them. Mary walked towards it as the driver got down from his seat. His coat collar was turned up, and she could not see his face.

"Had an accident?" he asked gruffly.

The chauffeur came forward.

"Will you drive us into Welwyn?" he asked. "I've smashed my near side front wheel."

"You'd better wait with the car. I'll drive the lady; it's only a couple of miles ahead," said the other. "Go on, miss, jump in; I'll drop you in the town and send back a breakdown gang for the car."

This arrangement apparently suited the chauffeur, and Mary followed the motorist, and, when he opened the door of his car, entered without any misgivings. He walked round the back of the machine, got in by the other door, and sat by her side. She could not see his face; his collar was still turned up. As he started the engine and moved on she thought she heard him laugh, and wondered what there was amusing in the situation.

"It's very good of you to take me," she said. "I'm afraid the accident was our fault."

He did not reply for a moment, but at last:

"Accidents will happen," he said sententiously.

They went two or three hundred yards along the road, and then suddenly the car turned left. She knew roughly the position of Welwyn, knew enough at any rate to realise that they were going away from the town.

"Haven't you made a mistake?" she asked.

"No." His reply was short and gruff, but it aroused in her no more than a sense of resentment.

From the second road they turned into a third, a narrow lane which ran roughly parallel with the main road. It skirted some big estate; high trees banked up one side of the lane, and a wire fence cut the estate from the road. The car slowed, and as they came abreast of a white gate, stopped. The driver turned the machine so that the headlamps searched the gate and revealed its flimsy character. Without hesitation he sent the car jerking forward, crashing one of the lamps and sending the gate into splinters.

Beyond was a fairly smooth gravel road, and up this the car sped.

"Where are we going?"

A cold chill was at the girl's heart; an understanding of her danger set her trembling from head to foot.

Binny did not reply till they had gone a hundred yards. He found an opening between the trees on the right, set the car in that direction, and jolted on for another fifty yards. Then he stopped the machine.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked.

"You're a very nice young lady, a very sweet young lady. Charmed to meet you again in such romantic circumstances."

As she heard that mincing, affected voice she almost swooned. Binny! The horror of her discovery came to her with full force, as he went on:

"Friend of Mr. Allenby's--fiancée, aren't you, young lady? And a friend of my dear friend, Surefoot Smith."

She reached out for the door handle and tried to rise, but he threw her back.

"I've had several ideas about you. The first was that nobody would stop me if they saw me driving with a lady. Then it struck me that I was being optimistic. The second thought that occurred to me, my dear, was that you might be of great assistance to me. And the third thought, my sweet young thing, was that, if the worst came to the worst--they can only hang you once, you know, whatever you do. Not that they will hang me," he went on quickly, "I am too clever for them. Now we'll get out and see where we are."

He leaned over her, pushed open the door, and, catching her by the arm, guided her to the ground.

Just before she had left the hotel the porter had handed her a thick bundle of letters. She had advertised for a maid and had given the hotel as her address; these were some of the replies. She had thrust them into her pocket, and as she stepped from the car she remembered them. She drew one from her pocket and dropped it on the ground.

Binny had retained the lantern he had taken from the policeman, and with the aid of this they found their way through the plantation.

"You and I will find another car."

He chatted pleasantly, and even in her terror she could find time to wonder how he could return to the character of Washington Wirth. It was grotesque, unbelievable, like a bad dream.

"I am a man of infinite resource," he went on, never releasing his grip of her arm. "For hundreds of years they will talk about Binny, just as today they talk about Jack Sheppard. And the wonderful thing about it is that I shall end my life quietly, as a respectable member of society. Possibly be a town councillor or a mayor in a colonial town--a pleasing prospect and a part that I could act!"

It was at this point she dropped her third letter. She must husband her trail; the supply of letters was not inexhaustible. She dropped her fourth as they started to cross the corner of a field.

All the time he kept up his incessant babble.

"You need have no qualms, my dear young lady. No harm will come to you--for the moment. Whilst you are alive, I am alive! You are a hostage--that is the word, isn't it?"

She made no reply. The first feeling of panic had worn off. She could only speculate upon what would happen at the last, when this desperate man was in a corner and she was at his mercy.

Before them loomed against the night sky the outlines of a big house. They came to a lawn surrounded by an iron fence, and, walking parallel with this, they reached on open gateway and a paved yard.

Once or twice there had been a lull in his monologue. He had stopped to listen. It was a very still night; the sound of distant rumbling trains, the whine of motor-cars passing along the highway came to them distinctly. He was apparently satisfied, for he made no comment. Now, as they passed into a tiled yard, he stopped again and listened, turning his head backwards. As he did so he saw the flash of a lamp--only for the fraction of a second, and then it disappeared. It seemed to come from the plantation they had left. He had left his lights burning--was that it? He moved left and right a few paces, and did not see the light again.

The possibility that there were gamekeepers in the wood now occurred to him. It was obviously a covert of some kind; the lower part of the fence was made of wire netting.

He never once released his hold of the girl. She felt the tenseness of the moment and held her breath. Then, without a word, he guided her into the yard, and now she observed that he used his lamp with greater caution. There were stables here; two of the half doors were wide open and hung on broken hinges. There was no need to make any further investigation; the house to which the stables were attached was unoccupied.

They came to what was evidently a kitchen door and found a small, weather-stained notice.

"Keys at Messrs. Thurlow, Welwyn."

There was a long casement window at the back of the house. Binny pushed the barrel of his pistol through two panes, groped for the catch, and, finding it, pulled it open.

"Get in----" he began, and at that moment he was caught in a circle of blinding light.

From somewhere in the yard a powerful lamp was turned on him, and a voice he hated said:

"Don't move, Binny!"

It was Surefoot Smith.

For a second he stood, paralysed, his arm still clasping the girl's. Suddenly he jerked her before him, his arm round her waist.

"If you come anywhere near me I'll shoot," he said, and she felt the cold barrel of a gun glide along her neck.

"What's the good of being silly, Binny?" Surefoot's voice was almost caressing.

They could not see him in the glare of the light that he or somebody held.

"Stand your trial like a man. It's fifty-fifty we've got nothing on you."

"You haven't, eh?" snarled Binny. "That dog doesn't fight, Smith. You take your men and clear them out of this place. Give me an hour, and I'll leave this baby without hurting her. Come any closer and I'll blow her head off--and then you'll have something on me. It won't be fifty-fifty either."

There was a long pause, and the girl heard the low voices of men in conversation.

"All right," said Surefoot at last. "I'll give you an hour, but you'll hand over the girl right away."

Binny laughed harshly.

"Am I a child? I'll leave her when I'm safe. You go back to where you came, and----"

That was all he said. The silent-footed man who had worked round behind him struck swiftly with a rubber truncheon. The girl had only time to swing herself clear before he crumpled and fell.

* * * * *

The chauffeur of the wrecked car had been in luck. Hardly had Binny disappeared before another machine came into the sight, and the chauffeur begged a lift into Welwyn. Less than a mile along the road they ran into a police barrage and he told his story. He gave valuable information, for he had seen the lights of Binny's car turn from the road.

"Practically you were never out of sight, from the moment you left the plantation," said Surefoot. "The broken gate gave him away, and he left the lights of his car burning. It was easy, even without the trail of letters you left. Very scientific, but we didn't see them!"

The arrest and conviction of Binny had a demoralising effect upon Surefoot Smith. On the day this wholesale murderer stood on the trap in Pentonville Prison, Surefoot departed from the rule of a lifetime, refused all beer and drank spirits. As he explained to Dick Allenby:

"If ever there was a day to get soused--that was the day!"

THE END

* * * * *

NOVELS BY

EDGAR WALLACE

The Man at the Carlton
White Face
The India-Rubber Men
Red Aces
Again the Ringer
Again Sanders
The Clue of the Silver Key
The Flying Squad
The Double
Again the Three Just Men
The Forger
The Squeaker
The Feathered Serpent
Terror Keep
The Square Emerald
The Ringer
The Northing Tramp
The Traitor's Gate
The Brigand
The Joker
Sanders
The Black Abbot
The Door with Seven Locks
The Gaunt Stranger
The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder
Penelope of the "Polyantha"
The Day of Uniting
We Shall See
The Yellow Snake
The Four Just Men
The Terrible People
The Green Archer
The Clue of the New Pin
The Crimson Circle
The Angel of Terror
The Law of the Four Just Men
The Strange Countess
The Sinister Man
Double Dan
The Valley of Ghosts

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED LONDON