LORD LABRADOR.
The Roman causeway ran into the macadam high road from Harthborough to
Timsdale-Horton almost on the level, with still a slight fall towards
Harthborough, the smoke of whose chimneys was already visible.
Half a mile ahead of them was a knot of men, gathered about what might
have been a wheelbarrow. A quarter of a mile further,
"Three men," said Dick.
"Motor-cycle and side-car," said Amaryllis. "Is it another picket?"
Instead of answering, Dick replied with a command:
"Hold tight. Don't turn to look at 'em. You're talking to me by the yard
as we go by. We go right through. Shan't give 'em an inch."
The car darted forward. The road ran between stone dykes, bordering
pasture and arable enclosures. The pace, close upon fifty miles an hour,
took them up to and past the suspected group so swiftly that it was
impossible to note the faces of the men who formed it while their
movements of recoil and surprise might have been due to the unusual
speed alone.
But a little later, Amaryllis, turning in her seat, thought she saw a
small cloud of dust start up from the road; and Dick, on the assumption
of a pursuit almost as swift as his flight, found himself involved in
the solution of complex chances.
The road he followed, as he had been able to determine from the higher
ground, led directly to the railway station in the centre of
Harthborough. It was now five minutes past five o'clock--ten minutes
before the train's scheduled time of departure; which, allowing two
minutes for reaching the station, would mean eight minutes to spend on
the platform, even if the train were up to time.
Eight minutes for the men with the side-car to reach the station and----
And what?
Even the intoxicated Melchard, should it come to gun-play on platform or
in railway carriage, would be no protection to Amaryllis. If the picket
had been able to distinguish their leader in his car as it flashed by
them, they must have guessed him a prisoner, and, as such, the probable
King's evidence to hang them.
For his satellites, Melchard was safer dead than captive.
Just ahead the road branched. Resolved to shorten his time of waiting,
and hoping to mislead the chase, Dick took the right line of the fork,
which bent to hide him, if only for a moment, from the side-car.
"The station's down the other road," said Amaryllis.
"Yes," said Dick. "Don't want more than three minutes there before the
train pulls out."
He slowed suddenly, having seen his expected by-road a little way ahead.
"I'm turning back to the left here," he explained. "Look back as I
swing, and see if they're in sight."
"Not a sign," said Amaryllis.
But as she spoke they heard the detonations of a back-fire, and
pictured, though they could not see, Melchard's avengers plunging away
southward, past the end of the lane into which Dick had turned.
This lane between two rows of blunt cottage-fronts soon proved itself
not merely a refuge, but an avenue.
At eleven minutes past five Dick Bellamy stopped Melchard's car outside
the booking-office of somnolent Harthborough's dead-alive station--the
junction of the single-line track to Whitebay and its bathing machines
with the double-track branch of the G.N.R. from York to Caterscliff.
A hopeless porter languished against the hot bricks of the doorway. Dick
came round between him and Melchard, peering down upon that sordid wreck
of smartness. He turned to Amaryllis, who had followed him.
"Pore old guv'nor!" he said tenderly; and Amaryllis with difficulty
restrained her surprise at his change from the local dialect to that of
the London cab-rank. "They 'aven't arf filled 'im up proper this time."
Then, to the porter, despondently interested in this queer company, "Hi,
chum! Give us a 'and," he said, pulling from his pocket a confusion of
silver, and crumpled Treasury notes. "Is the London trine up yet?"
"Signalled, she be," said the porter, peering at Melchard.
"Keep yer eyes off wot's no blinkin' good to 'em" said Dick. Then,
lowering his voice to oily confidence, he went on: "It's young Lord
Labrador--Marquis of Toronto's 'opeful. Put 'im through the mill, they
'ave, at yer three-legged race meetin' at Timsdale-'Orton. Made me larf
shockin', it did. 'E's got to meet 'is lovin' pa, ten o'clock a.m.
ter-morrer mornin', an' I said as I'd see 'im through, and get 'm a wash
an' brush up. I train a bit for 'im--the young un, yer know."
"Well, 'tain't noah business o' mine," said the porter.
"'Ow much to make it yourn, sonny?"
"Ah doan't rightly knaw."
"Won't be less'n a dollar, mate--see?"
The porter saw.
Dick thrust notes into his hand.
"Get us three firsts to King's Crawss, and 'ave a label ready to smudge
on the winder, w'ile me an' my girl gets 'im through to the platform,
nice and cushy."
Supported on each side, with flaccid legs just able to move in turn,
Melchard was guided to a bench some way down the platform, and seated
between two bolstering forms to which the contact was disgusting.
Fortunately they had the up-platform to themselves.
The train was late, and the long minutes held each more of anxiety than
the last.
The porter came with the tickets.
"'Eere's 'opeless 'Arry," said Dick, going to meet him.
"Wi't'yoong spark in thot trim," said the porter, pocketing a tip of
weight to gratify without astounding, "Ah'd'a' pushed onto Lunnon wi'
'im in t'car."
"Not if you'd borrered it, Mr. 'Opeless. She belongs to a Mr. Mills o'
Melborough--Na-ow! _Melchard_ o' Millsborough. 'E's one o' them there
painful dentisters."
A sound like a smothered sneeze, followed by a syncopated gurgle, coming
from behind him, warned Dick to tone down the comic relief.
"You get the car run into cover, and keep an eye on 'er till that there
Pluck-'em-W'ile-yer-Wait comes a sorrowing arter 'er. Tell 'im my
address is No. 5, John Street, London, and I'll settle for the bit o'
damage. There's no need to bring 'is young lordship in. There's plenty
o' wailin' an' gnashin' comin' to 'im, any'ow."
In a sad-coloured notebook, with a stump of dirty pencil, the porter
solemnly noted that classic address.
"An' that's more trouble for _you_, so 'ere's a few more bits o' wot we
takes it for."
Four minutes late, the train rumbled in.
With less difficulty than it had taken to extract him from the car, Dick
and the porter got Melchard into the corner of a first-class compartment
of the last carriage on the train--behind the guard's van even, being
the London "slip," the porter told them as he slapped his "engaged"
label on the window.
The guard was on the point of waving his flag when the staccato rush of
a motor-cycle sounded hideously outside the little station.
"Get in," said Dick to Amaryllis.
The guard called to the porter:
"Can't keep 'er. Five minutes behind already," and let his green signal
flutter.
Dick followed Amaryllis and closed the door.
And even as the engine made its first slow movement, there came a rush
of heavy feet on the wooden flooring of the booking-office, and two men
in motor-cycling rig made a determined dash at the train.
The station-master, eager for unpleasing duty, emerged shouting:
"Stand back!"
But the porter would not see nor hear him, and opened the door of the
compartment immediately in front of that which his label had reserved.
The runners scrambled in.
Dick had been careful not to show his face until the door--the next, it
seemed--was banged shut. But a rapid glance at that very moment showed
him that it was indeed from the next compartment that came the
half-crown which the porter caught as it fell.
Dick settled back into his seat with the consciousness that the
partition against which he leaned was poor protection from a
revolver-bullet.