How Eames Spent the Evening
Eames stood behind the window of the passage into the bar parlour,
making sure that there was no light behind him to show a silhouette.
Yes, there was no doubt, it was Brinkman who had stepped out into the
twilight of the street; Brinkman with a despatch-box in his hand;
Brinkman on the run. He waited until the street corner hid the
fugitive from view, then crammed on his soft hat and followed. He was
not an expert at this sort of game, but fortunately there was not much
to be done. Brinkman would obviously make for the garage, and when he
had passed through the open doors of it, it would be easy for him,
Eames, to slink up behind and post himself outside the gateway to
prevent a sudden rush. Hang it all, though, why hadn’t the man gone
out by the back lane?
And then he saw that he had counted on his luck too soon. Brinkman had
reached the turning, and had not made for the garage after all. He had
turned his back on it, and was starting out on the Pullford Road, the
road toward the gorge and the Long Pool. This was outside all their
calculations; what on earth could the man be up to? Not only was he
deserting his car, he was deserting the garage, and with it all the
available petrol-power of Chilthorpe. He could not be walking to
Pullford, a distance of twenty miles more or less. He could hardly
even be walking to Lowgill Junction, eight miles off, though that
would, of course, bring him onto the main line. Chilthorpe Station
would be hopeless at this time of night; no strand remained to connect
it with civilization. No, if Brinkman took this road, he must be
taking it only to return along it.
And yet, was it safe to reckon on that? Was it safe to make straight
for the garage, and warn Leyland of what was happening? If he did
that, he must let Brinkman out of his sight; and his orders were not
to let Brinkman out of his sight. Eames was in the habit of obeying
orders, and he obeyed. It would need cautious going, for, if Brinkman
turned in his tracks, it was not unlikely that he would walk straight
into the arms of his pursuer. Very cautiously then, flattening himself
in doorways or hiding behind clumps of broom and furze on the
roadside, Eames stalked his man at a distance of some thirty yards. It
was difficult work in the half-darkness, but those sudden, revealing
flashes of lightning made it unsafe to go nearer. They had left the
last of the houses, and were now reaching the forked roads a little
way up the hill. If Brinkman took the lower road, it must be Lowgill
Junction he was making for; that would make easy work for his
pursuers, who could ride him down in a fast motor. Surely it could not
be that; surely he could not be turning his back on the motor and the
thousand pounds!
No, he was not making for Lowgill. He took the hill turning instead;
that led either to the railway station or across the moors to
Pullford. In either case every step was taking the hunted man farther
away from help. “If he goes as far as the first milestone,” Eames said
to himself, “I’ll defy my orders and cut back to the garage, so that
they can get the car out and follow him. Confound it all, what’s the
man doing now?”
Brinkman had left the high road, and was making his way deliberately
down the field-path that led to the gorge. This was worse than ever;
the path was steep, and Eames, although he carried an electric torch
which Bredon had lent him, did not dare to use it for fear of
betraying himself. He could not guess the significance of this last
move. There was no road Brinkman could be making for, unless he
returned to this same road at the other end of the gorge, a few
hundred yards higher up. Was it safe to wait at the beginning of the
path? Was it safe to follow along the road, flanking his movements
from above? Once more Eames had to fall back upon his orders. There
was only one way of keeping his man in sight, and that was to stick to
his heels. It would mean, probably, some nasty stumbles in the
half-darkness, but it was too late to consider that. At least, the
fir-trees and the bracken made it easier to follow unseen. And the
fir-trees kept off a little of the rain, which was now driving
fiercely upon his overcoat, and clogging the knees of his trousers
with damp. Never mind, he had his orders.
Any kind of scenery achieves dignity in a thunder-storm; but rocky
scenery in particular is ennobled by the combination. Under those
quivering flashes, the two sides of the valley with the river running
in between looked like the wings of a gigantic butterfly shaking off
the pitiless dew that was falling on them. The opening of the gorge
itself, with the slant of the shadows as the lightning’s glare failed
to reach its depths, was like an illustration to the “Inferno.” The
rain on the hillside turned to diamond drops as it reflected the
flashes; “the fire ran along the ground,” thought Eames to himself. It
was a sight to make a man forget his present occupations, if those
occupations had been less pressing and less sinister.
Brinkman himself either did not carry a torch or did not use it. His
pace was leisurely on the whole, though he seemed to quicken his step
a little when the church clock struck half-past eight. By that time he
was already at the opening of the gorge. This took him out of sight,
and Eames, secure in the cover which the dark tufts of fern afforded,
ran forward over the spongy grass to creep up nearer to him. The gorge
itself, ominous at all times, was particularly formidable under such
skies as these. The half-light enabled one to see the path, but (to a
man unaccustomed to his surroundings) suggested the ever-present
possibility of losing one’s foothold; and when the lightning came, it
revealed the angry torrent beneath with unpleasant vividness.
Fortunately the noise of the elements deadened the sound of feet on
the hard rock. Eames hesitated for one moment, and then followed along
the narrow path that led up the gorge.
He could just see the dim figure that went before him as it reached
the wider foothold at the middle of the gorge, where Brinkman and
Bredon had interrupted their conversation to comment on the shape of
the rocks, Then it halted, and Eames halted too; he was now less than
twenty yards behind, and he was at the last turn in the rock which
could promise him any shelter from observation. He did well to halt,
for while he stood there a huge tree of lightning seemed to flash out
from the opposite side of the valley, and, for an interval which could
be counted in seconds, the whole landscape lay open to view as if in
hard daylight.
Eames’s eyes were riveted upon a single spot; he had thoughts for
nothing but the sudden and inexplicable behaviour of Brinkman. In that
flash, he saw the little man leaping up in the air, his right hand
outstretched at full arm’s length, as if to reach the top, or
something behind the top, of that very ledge which in the morning he
had compared to the rack in a railway carriage. Indeed, Brinkman
himself looked not unlike some juvenile traveller who just cannot
reach the parcel he wants to bring down, and must needs jump for it.
What was the object of Brinkman’s manœuvre did not appear, nor even
whether he was trying to take something down from the ledge or to put
something onto it. But the grotesque attitude, momentarily revealed in
that single spotlight of the thunder-storm, was perfectly
unmistakable.
The prolonged glare left Eames momentarily blinded, like one who has
just passed a car with very powerful headlights. When he saw clearly
again, the dark figure under the ledge was gone. Could Brinkman have
taken alarm? He had looked backward after his absurd leap, like a man
who felt he was pursued. In any case, Eames must press forward now, or
he would lose his quarry altogether. . . . By the time he had reached
the ledge a new flash came and showed him, at the very end of the
gorge, Brinkman running as if for his life. There was no more sense in
concealment; he must mend his own pace too; and that was impossible,
on this narrow shelf of rock, unless he lit his torch. Lighting it, he
took one look at the ledge toward which Brinkman had been jumping,
and, by reason of his superior height, saw without difficulty an
envelope which looked as if it must be the explanation of Brinkman’s
gesture. He reached it with little trouble, put it in his pocket, and
ran. As he ran he heard the hum of a motor engine on the road above
him.
The scramble up the bank at the further end of the gorge was less
formidable than he had feared, for he kept his torch alight, and he
made a pace very creditable for his years. But even as he breasted the
level of the roadway, he saw a car climbing the hill, doubtless
carrying Brinkman with it. He cried to the driver to stop, but a
volley of thunder drowned his utterance. He turned impotently, and
began running down the hill: in ten minutes or so, at this pace, he
should be at the garage. But as he ran he took the envelope out of his
pocket and scanned its superscription by the light of his torch. It
read: “To His Lordship the Bishop of Pullford. Private and
Confidential.” He thrust it away, wondering; but a short-winded man
running has no taste for puzzles. Would it be any use turning in to
the _Load of Mischief_, and letting somebody else carry his message
the rest of the way? Hardly; and a double set of explanations would be
a waste of precious time.
He reached the garage panting too heavily for speech, and, in answer
to a challenge in Leyland’s voice, turned his own torch on himself for
identification. Then, leaning wearily against the front of the lorry,
he blurted out his explanations. “He’s gone—motor-car—toward
Pullford—couldn’t stop him—better follow him up—didn’t look a fast
car—lost him at the gorge—take me with you, and I’ll explain.”
“Yes, but curse it all, has he made for Pullford or for Lowgill? We
must try Lowgill; we can telegraph from there, anyhow, and have him
stopped. Hullo, who next?”
Angela had rushed in, hatless, to announce Breton’s cryptic
observation about the car. She knew his mysterious moods, and felt
that it was best to make straight for Leyland, especially as her car
was the only fast one in the township. “Right you are,” she said, when
the situation had been outlined to her; “I’ll drive you both into
Lowgill; jump up.”
“Mr. Pulteney,” said Leyland, “do you mind going to the stables at the
back of the inn to find my man who’s waiting there? Tell him what’s
happened, say he’s to get onto the telephone, break into the
post-office if necessary, and warn Pullford and Lowgill. He may just
have time to head the man off. Oh, by the way, he won’t know who you
are, may take you for Brinkman. Say, ‘Here we are again,’ loudly—do
you mind?—when you’re outside the stable.”
“It will be a novel experience,” said Mr. Pulteney.