Chapter XXXVI: More Mystery!

Never, to my dying day, shall I forget that exciting night run.

Scarcely had we started than it began to pour with rain, and in a few brief words I told the chauffeur that I was following the red car, the back-light of which was slowly drawing away from us.

I no longer feared detection by Stonor, for, muffled up in the big coat with astrakan collar, and wearing a pair of very disfiguring goggles with linen flaps, I presented an appearance entirely different to that I had done a quarter of an hour before.

"It's that Limousin, sir," remarked the man as we slipped down the hill almost in silence.

"What--do you know it?" I asked eagerly.

"No. Never seen it before, to my knowledge. Half an hour ago, however, I had a look round it and found that everything was ready for a long run. I asked them in the garage whose the car was, but nobody knew. It came in here this morning, and the owner's driving. It has a London identification plate."

"And from that I could discover the owner, I suppose?" I suggested.

"You might, and you might not," was the man's dubious reply. "If they're on any crooked bit of business, as from what you say they seem to be, then depend upon it that their plates are false ones, in order to mislead the police, providing they're stopped for exceeding the limit."

Suddenly we saw the car before us turn off to the right, then again to the right and up the hill, showing that they had either mistaken the road or had preferred to go by a roundabout route to turning the car on the steep incline of the main street.

"They're making for the Ripley road, after all!" said the young man at my side. "We'll let them get on a bit, so as not to appear that we're following them. And they've got an open exhaust, too. What an infernal row it makes!" he remarked.

True, the noise of the car before us awakened the echoes of the night as it ran through the streets of Guildford, at that hour dark and deserted.

As my chauffeur had predicted, they took the left-hand road, and ten minutes later we were tearing along the level, well-kept highway that runs by Woodlands and Sandhurst to Ripley. The red car, upon which was a whistle as well as a horn, went at a fearful speed. Rounding the corner on entering Ripley village it narrowly escaped collision with a farmer's cart which, without a light and with a sleeping driver, was on its wrong side of the road. But through Ripley we went like a flash, and every attempt to gain upon them was futile.

Shortly afterwards we passed along the edge of the lake opposite the motorists' hotel called The Hut, and then up the hill and across Ockham Common, in the direction of Cobham.

Two cars we passed coming from London, but in the pelting rain all was blurred. Along the dark, wet road the small red back-lamp remained ever before us, slowly drawing away from us sometimes, and at others growing nearer as now and then the chauffeur at my side let her "rip." The car I was on was a splendid one, and owned by a baronet whose name was well-known in the political world. Many a time I had, in years gone by, reported his speeches on platforms and in the House itself. But I had never dreamed that I should experience a night ride in his car following a fugitive criminal.

The chauffeur, whose name was Mills, had thoroughly entered into the spirit of the chase, and was delighted to find that up to the present the pair on the Limousin, by reason of the big body hiding out the view behind, were unaware that another car was behind. While the steady splutter of their open exhaust rendered hearing impossible, we were running smoothly--almost, indeed, noiselessly. At half a mile only the white radiance of our powerful head-lamps betrayed us. With these we could see our road far ahead of us, and so bright were they--some new French invention--that more than one person we met shaded their eyes with their hands, so dazzled were they by the glare.

Half-way between Fairmile and Esher the tiny red light suddenly stopped. The keen eye of the man Mills instantly detected it, and pulling up short, he sprang from the car, and extinguished both our lights. And not an instant too quickly, for in another moment, though we were nearly half a mile behind, our presence there would certainly have been detected. It was a prompt action and one upon which I heartily congratulated the driver. He was a man of resource without a doubt.

The red back-lamp remained stationary; therefore, leaving Mills with the car, I went forward on foot to get closer and reconnoitre. It was as we had surmised. A tyre trouble had occurred, and both men with their overcoats off and one of the headlights set in the muddy roadway, were at work upon the wheel in frenzied haste.

Fearing to approach too near, I retraced my footsteps and reseated myself at Mills' side, watching for the moving of the tiny red light in the distance. It was at a lonely part of the road, half-way across a common, where we had halted, and as we sat there I began to experience the pangs of hunger, remembering that I had had nothing to eat for more than twelve hours.

The period of waiting there in the rain seemed interminable, but at last the car moved forward again, gathering great speed, and quickly we were through Esher and on towards Surbiton. On such a drenching night the police had relaxed their vigilance, otherwise we both would have been trapped for exceeding the limit, for often we must have been travelling over forty miles an hour. Fortunately the road was too wet for skidding, or we might have come to grief on the slippery pavement of Esher.

"It's evident they're going to London," Mills remarked, as we flashed through Surbiton. "We shall have to get up nearer presently."

His surmise proved correct, for presently we passed through Kingston, and afterwards through Richmond and along to Kew. Outside the Star and Garter, beyond Kew Bridge--closed at that hour--Stonor first discovered us, though it was evident that he had no idea that we had followed him from Guildford. The red car, ascending the short hill from the bridge leading to the main road through Chiswick to Hammersmith, was pulled up suddenly, and, next moment, a man in a drab mackintosh emerged from a doorway, where he had evidently been awaiting the pair, and went up to Stonor with some hurried information. What the man said we had, of course, no idea. My first impulse was to pull up at the foot of the bridge, but next moment I told Mills to pass them and go on towards Chiswick, which he did.

As we passed, Stonor--in conversation with the man in the mackintosh--glanced across at us, but in complete ignorance that we were following. Surely his had been a roundabout route from Paris to London. Had he undertaken it in order to evade Whitlock's vigilance at Charing Cross? Did he expect arrest?

The man in the mackintosh had raised his finger in emphasis of his words. He appeared very excited, and all three spoke together quickly. Just as we passed, Stonor was bending down to the clock upon the splash-board in an endeavour to see the time.

"There's some crooked business in progress, I should think, sir," Mills remarked, after we had passed.

"Yes. That man is giving them some important information, it would appear," I said. "Let's go on a bit farther, and then pretend to have a breakdown. They're sure to come up here if they are going to London."

"And if they're not? Why, they'll just turn to the left through Brentford and Hounslow, where they've got the Bath or the Staines road before them--both main roads to the West."

"We must take the risk," I decided. "It will not do for them to suspect that we've followed."

I saw that Mills believed me to be a detective. His own excitement, and the sporting way in which he had kept up the chase, told me how keenly interested he was in its motive.

Then, about a quarter of a mile further up the broad high road, which is paved, and along which run those irritating tram-lines, I said suddenly--

"Let's run to this kerb and break down here."

The man obeyed, drew the waterproof sheet from his knees, and in order to mislead any who suspected us got down and took off the bonnet from the engine--an action always indicative of trouble.

We were beneath a gas-lamp and so completely in view. Mills pretended to potter about with the cylinders, and so realistically did he act that the driver of a car coming from the direction of Hammersmith slowed up and inquired if he could be of any assistance.

"No, thanks," I cried. "Only a broken sparking-plug. Good-night!"

"Good-night!" cried a cheery voice, and the friendly car drew away again, and was soon lost to sight.

For a full ten minutes we had been there, when, of a sudden, we heard the rhythmic roar of an open exhaust, and the red car flashed past us. Our trouble was noted by Stonor and his companion, but we furthermore saw that in the Limousin sat the man in the drab mackintosh.

When they had passed Mills at once readjusted the bonnet, and after the lapse of several minutes we sped on over the wood-paving as fast as he dared go without skidding.

Not before we had passed Young's Corner did we get another sight of the car of the fugitive, and then we followed it up through Kensington, past Hyde Park Corner, up Piccadilly and Shaftesbury Avenue, until I found that we were in a neighbourhood I had already good cause to remember.

We were entering Russell Square. At my orders Mills slowed down. The car we had been following pulled up suddenly at a short distance from the house in Woburn Square, which had once been tenanted by the mysterious Elkington and his wife.

Stonor and the man in the mackintosh descended and hurriedly bade the owner of the Limousin adieu. The red car moved off, and the two men immediately parted.

The man in the mackintosh walked on towards Euston Road, while Stonor, not dreaming that he was being watched, so far off were we, out in Russell Square, crossed quickly to the tenantless house, the door of which opened noiselessly to receive him, and closed again without a sound.

The mysterious Monsieur Smith had sought what he believed to be a safe asylum.

For a few minutes I sat upon the car, my eyes strained towards the abode of the missing pair, the Elkingtons, wondering what I had best do next. I had tracked Stonor to his hiding-place. What was now to be done?

Even while I sat pondering a strange thing happened.

A man ran swiftly down the steps of the house upon which my eyes were fixed, and, evidently escaping from the place, hurried in our direction.

As he approached he passed beneath the light of a street lamp--and I saw his face!