Chapter XXXV

“What’s it all about, Mr. Wilson?” Warden asked in the intervals of “stepping on it,” while Wilson and Michael held on to their hats. “Or is it still a secret?”

Wilson gave a brief outline of the story, and he set his teeth and drove, if possible, more violently. “The swine!” he said. “I knew he was no good; but he was Edna’s brother, and she would stick up for him. God, I hope he’s not done anything to her! You might have given me a hint.”

“I would, as soon as I’d been at all sure,” Wilson said. “But until this afternoon I had only the barest of conjectures to go on. I am ashamed to say that I forgot Miss Loring at the moment; but I am quite certain she’s in no danger. What I’m afraid of is that Lockwood may bungle it somehow, and let Loring get away.”

“Well, he hasn’t got away, yet--not along this road,” said Warden, as the lodge gates of the Grange appeared in sight.

“Nor have the police come back,” said Wilson, who was keeping an anxious look-out.

They swung round the corner on two wheels, and shot along the curves of the drive. “We’ll be there in a minute,” Warden said, as they reached the narrow part. Suddenly they heard, not far ahead of them, the sound of a Klaxon pressed furiously and continuously.

“God!” said Warden, slowing slightly in his dismay. “That’s Loring’s horn! He’s off!”

“Stop the car!” Michael cried, taking in the danger all at once. “The curve--look!--and cars from the Grange have the road! He’ll smash us.” They could hear the engine now as well as the horn.

“Turn her into the hedge, quick,” Wilson ordered. “As far as you can, and jump out.” With a grinding of brakes, Warden obeyed. Michael had just got the door open, when the two-seater flashed round the bend, not twenty yards ahead.

What happened then, Michael was never quite certain. The two-seater hesitated for a second, seeing them, then made a frantic effort to swerve past. But the space, even with Warden’s car in the hedge, was insufficient; the two-seater caught the mud-guard, slewed round, and plunged its nose into the fence on the far side. There was a crash, a rearing-up of the car, and the man in it was flung violently backwards into the drive, where he lay still. Wilson and Michael, who had got out at the back of their own car, were pinned by it against the hedge and unable for a minute to extricate themselves; but Warden, who had been standing by the bonnet, after a second’s shocked immobility, ran forward. As he came up, the figure on the ground stirred slightly.

“Look out!” Wilson shouted; but the warning came too late. Even as Warden bent to touch him, Godfrey Loring leaped to his feet, threw him aside, and sprang for the fence. Warden followed; but Loring, with his hands on the fence, dealt him a furious kick in the body, vaulted over, and shot away across the grass. Warden staggered back, then, recovering, made a desperate shot at the fence, and cleared it, but on the other side dropped, writhing and clutching his stomach, just as Wilson and Michael, at last free of the encumbering wreckage, reached the fence.

“Got me--where I strained myself,” he gasped. “All--right. Catch him--brute!”

Michael, with his teeth set, started in pursuit of the flying figure.

“Careful, Michael, he’s probably armed,” said Wilson, who, knowing himself to be no match for his friend as a runner, was contenting himself with bearing to the left so as to cut off Loring’s retreat to the park gates.

Michael heard, but barely took in the warning as he ran. He was measuring with his eye the distance between Loring and a little copse of trees for which he was obviously making. He did not think that the murderer would risk stopping to fire until he had reached that shelter. Once there, of course, he could, if he were a good shot, pick off both Wilson and himself with comparative ease. The thing to do, therefore, was to catch him before he got there, and this Michael, proud of his running powers, did not think ought to be difficult, particularly when pitted against a man who had just had such a violent fall. Besides, wasn’t that blood on that tuft of grass? If he were bleeding he could not last long.

These reflections very nearly proved his undoing; for in his excitement about the tuft he forgot to look to his own ground, stumbled, and put his foot into a rabbit-hole, wrenching his ankle so violently that he nearly fell; and when he recovered himself, Loring, whose powers of endurance seemed remarkable, was barely ten yards from the copse. Michael put on a hopeless spurt, but only to see his enemy reach the trees, whip round, and pull something from his pocket. Instinctively he swerved, and felt the bullet whizz past his cheek. But before Loring could fire again, something sprang on him from behind. There was a sound of cursing, a struggle, a couple of quick reports, and a fall. Michael ran up as fast as he could, to find Loring lying on the ground, a smoking revolver by his hand, and blood pouring from his side; while, above him, Brian Mackenzie, with a face like an avenging fury, was shaking and throttling him as if he meant nothing less than murder.

“Here, stop that!” Michael, seeing Godfrey’s face turn purple, shouted to the explorer. “Can’t you see the man’s shot? You’ll kill him!”

With a gasp of astonishment, Mackenzie let go suddenly, and the Squire gave his head a jerk. “Hell--take--you!” he gasped; and with an expiring flicker of energy made a grab for his revolver. But just as he touched it his fingers collapsed, his eyes glazed, and he lay in a limp heap on the turf. Michael, his professional instincts getting the better of his astonishment, knelt down to examine him.

“Well?” said Wilson, coming up at a leisurely trot. “What about it? Is he dead? And what are you doing, sir?” to Mackenzie.

“No; he’s not dead,” said Michael, looking up. “Only fainted from loss of blood. He cut his head, apparently, when he fell out of the car. And he’s got a wound in the side--only a flesh wound, though it’s bleeding nastily, and a broken leg. Lend me your handkerchief, will you?”

“Good,” said Wilson. “I should have been sorry if he’d cheated the gallows. Did you shoot him?”

“I’m not armed,” said Mackenzie, extending his hands. “Shooting’s too good for him. Strangling’s what he needs.” His fingers twitched suggestively.

“He’d have _been_ strangled,” Michael remarked, “if I hadn’t come up.”

“Of course he would,” said Mackenzie. “That’s what I stayed for, to get my hands on him--the brute! I was coming down to cut him off in the road.”

“Oh! As Mrs. Meston’s champion, I presume,” said Wilson dryly. “What excited you so?”

“He wouldn’t keep his filthy paws off her,” the man said. “He said he’d got her _now_, and could make her marry him--_him!_ I swore I’d kill him first.”

“Oh!” said Wilson again. “Well, you may thank your stars you were prevented. Murder--or even manslaughter--is not a nice charge. Now, you might as well help to patch your friend up for us. And when you’ve done, Michael, you’d better go and have a look at Warden. That was a nasty kick. Will you stay with me, Mr. Mackenzie?”

Michael finished his extempore bandaging, and went down to look at Warden, whom he found lying by the fence, very white and sick, but not apparently badly damaged. While he was attending to him there was again the hoot of a car. “Good lord!” said Michael, “there’ll be another smash!” and ran to the bend, to find the police car proceeding at a somewhat less dangerous pace towards him.

“What’s this?” Colonel Lockwood asked, surveying the wreckage. “Why, it’s the Squire’s car! Where is he?”

“Over there,” said Michael, pointing. “Wilson’s with him. He’s a bit damaged; you’ll have to bring a stretcher or something. You’ve got Potts, I see?” The footman was sitting sullenly in the back of the car between two policemen, one of whom was nursing a damaged hand.

“Fought like a wild beast, sir,” Sergeant Linton explained. “He’s bitten Williamson’s hand near to the bone. And while we were getting hold of him the Squire slipped away.”

“Well, he can’t slip much farther,” said Michael.

It took some little time to clear away the débris and sort out the prisoners. Eventually Warden, leaning heavily on a stick, but professing himself all right, was allowed to go up to the Grange to look after Edna, whose behaviour had earned golden opinions from Colonel Lockwood’s staff; Linton and the two policemen departed with the prisoners; while Wilson, Michael, and Colonel Lockwood returned to the station in the police car. Mackenzie, who had apparently undergone some plain speaking from Wilson on the subject of taking the law into his own hands, accompanied them to have his statement taken down. At the station they were met with the news that Kershaw had fled, but would probably be recaptured in an hour or so.

“Somebody’s tipped him the wink, sir,” the constable said in an injured tone; “can’t think who it can have been.”

“I fancy I’ve an idea,” Wilson said grimly.

“What next?” Colonel Lockwood asked him, with a childlike faith in his face.

“I should think,” the latter said, “we might perhaps release John Loring. You transferred him here this morning, I understand.”