GRIMSDYKE
Not a sound disturbed the silence of the deserted place, save when the
slight breeze sighed through the trees of the adjoining coppice, and
swayed some invisible shutter which creaked upon its rusty hinges.
An owl hooted, and the detective was on the alert in a moment. It was a
well-known signal. Was the owl a feathered one or a human mimic?
No other sound followed, until the breeze came again, whispered in the
coppice, and shook the shutter.
Then the chauffeur's whistle came, faintly, and with something tremulous
in its note; for the adventure, though it offered little novelty to the
experience of the Scotland Yard man, was dangerously unique from the
mechanic's point of view. But where the Right Hon. Walter Belford led it
was impolitic, if not impossible, to decline to follow. Yet, the whistle
spoke of a man not over-confident. "Séverac Bablon" was a disturbing
name!
Sheffield pressed the knob of the torch and stepped into the bare and
dirty room beyond.
The beam of the torch swept the four walls, with faded paper peeling in
strips from the damp plaster; showed a grate full of rubbish, a battered
pail, and a bare floor littered with debris of all sorts, great cavities
gaping between many of the planks. A cupboard was searched, and proved
to contain a number of empty cans and bottles--nothing else.
Into the next room went the investigator, to meet with no better
fortune. The third was a big kitchen, empty; the fourth a paved
scullery, also empty--with the chauffeur at the door, holding his
spanner in readiness for sudden assault.
"Upstairs!" said Sheffield shortly.
Up the creaking stairs they passed, their footsteps filling the place
with ghostly echoes.
A square landing offered four doors, all closed, to their consideration.
Sheffield paused, and listened.
The owl had hooted again.
He directed the ray of the torch upon the door on the immediate right of
the stairhead.
"We're short-handed for this!" he muttered; "but it has to be risked
now. Stay where you are and be on the alert. Watch those other doors."
He tried the handle.
The door was locked.
To the next one he passed without hesitation. It yielded to his hand,
and he flashed the light about a bare room, with half of the ceiling
sloping down to the window. In the corner beyond this window a second
door was partly concealed by the recess. The inspector stepped across
the floor and threw the door open.
Then events moved rapidly.
Someone literally shot into the room behind him, falling with a crash
that shook the place like thunder. _Bang!_ sounded through the house,
and a key turned in a lock!
Sheffield spun round like an unwieldy top, and saw the chauffeur
struggling to his feet and rubbing his head vigorously.
The detective made no outcry, nor did he waste energy by trying a door
he knew to be locked. He stood, keenly alert, and listened.
Footsteps rapidly receded down the stairs.
"Who did it? How did he get behind me?" muttered the dazed chauffeur.
"Out of one of the other rooms! I told you to watch them!"
Inspector Sheffield was angry, but he had not lost his presence of mind.
"We must get out--quick! The window!"
He leapt to the low window, throwing it open.
"Too far to drop! We've got to smash the door! Perhaps they've left the
key in the lock! Set to on the panel with that bit of iron of yours!"
The man began a vigorous assault upon the woodwork. It was old, but very
tough, and yielded tardily to the blows of the instrument. Then a big
crack appeared as the result of a stroke shrewdly planted.
"Stand away!" directed Sheffield; and leaning back upon his left foot,
he dashed his right upon the broken panel, shattering it effectually.
At the moment that the chauffeur thrust his hand through the jagged
aperture to seek for the key, _thud! thud! thud!_ came from the lane
below.
"That's the car!" cried the inspector. "My God! what have they done to
Mr. Belford?"
The other paused and listened intently.
"It's the grey car," he said. "Why didn't they take the guv'nor's?"
"Open the door!" cried Sheffield impatiently. "Is the key there?"
"Yes," was the reply; "here we are!" And the door was opened.
Sheffield started down the stairs with noisy clatter, and, the chauffeur
a good second, raced through the rooms below and out into the yard.
"Mr. Belford! Mr. Belford!" he cried.
But no answer came, only a whisper from the coppice, followed by the
squeak of the crazy shutter.
They ran out to where they had left Belford on guard over the grey car;
but no sign of him remained, nor evidence of a struggle. The hum of the
retreating motor grew faint in the distance.
"Ah!" cried Sheffield, and started running towards Mr. Belford's
limousine on the edge of the coppice. "Quick! don't you see? _He's
kidnapped!_ In you go! This just about sees me out at Scotland Yard if
we don't overtake them!"
"They've gone back the way we've just come!" said the chauffeur, hurling
himself on board. "I can't make out where they're going--and I can't
make out why they took the worst car! It's an old crock, hired from
Lewes. We can run it down inside five minutes!"
"Thank God for that!" said Sheffield, as, for the second time that
night, he set out across moonlit Sussex on the front of the big car, in
pursuit of the most elusive man who ever had baffled the Criminal
Investigation Department.
Visions of degradation to the ranks from which he so laboriously had
risen occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else; for to have
allowed the notorious Séverac Bablon to kidnap the Home Secretary under
his very eyes was a blunder which he knew full well could not be
condoned.
Even the breathless drop into the great bowl on the Downs did not serve
to dispel his gloomy dreams. Then:
"There they are! And, as I live, making straight for Womsley!" cried the
chauffeur.
Sheffield stood up unsteadily on his insecure perch, and there was the
mysterious grey car, which now was become a veritable nightmare,
mounting the hill in front.
One minute passed, and Sheffield was straining his eyes to catch a
glimpse of the occupants. But no one was visible. Two minutes passed,
and the inspector began to think that his eyesight was failing, or that
a worse thing portended. For, as far as he could make out, only one man
occupied the car--the man who drove her!
"What does it mean?" muttered the detective, clutching at the shoulder
of the chauffeur to support himself. "It must be Séverac Bablon!
But--where's Mr. Belford?"
Three minutes passed, and the brilliant moonlight set at rest all doubts
respecting the identity of the man who drove the car.
His silvern hair flowed out, gleaming on his shoulders, as he bent
forward over the driving-wheel.
It was the Right Hon. Walter Belford!
"What in the name of murder does it mean?" cried Sheffield. "Has he gone
mad? Mr. Belford! Mr. Belford! Hoy! ... _Hoy! ... hoy! Mr. Belford!_"
But although he must have heard the cry, Mr. Belford, immovable at the
wheel, drove madly ahead!
"What shall I do?" asked the chauffeur in an awed voice.
"Do?" rapped Sheffield savagely. "Pass him and block the road! He's
stark, raving mad!"
So, along that white road, under the placid moon, was enacted the
strangest incident of this entirely bizarre adventure; for Mr. Belford,
in the hired motor, was pursued and overtaken by his own car, which
passed him, forged ahead, turned across the road, and blocked it.
For one moment the Home Secretary, racing down upon them, seemed to
contemplate leaving the path for the grassland, and thus proceeding on
his way; but the chauffeur ran out to meet him, holding up his arms and
crying:
"Stop, sir! _Stop!_"
Mr. Belford stopped the car and fixed his eyes upon the man with a look
of real amazement.
"You?" he said, and turned to Sheffield.
"Who else?" rapped the inspector irritably. "What on earth are you
doing, sir? Where's the quarry--where's Séverac Bablon?"
"What!" cried the Home Secretary, from the step of the car. "You have
lost him?"
"Lost him!" repeated Sheffield ironically. "I never had him!"
"But," said Mr. Belford distinctly, and in his question-answering voice,
"did you not return to where I was stationed and inform me that you had
them all locked in an upper room? Did I not, myself, hear their attempt
to break down the door? And did you not report that, their numbers being
considerable, you could not, single-handed, hope to arrest them?"
"Go on!" said Sheffield, in a tired voice. "What else did I tell you?"
"You see," resumed the politician triumphantly, "this _impasse_ is due
to no irregularity in my own conduct! You told me that my limousine had
mysteriously been tampered with, and that the only course was for you
and Jenkins to remain and endeavour to prevent the prisoners from
escaping, whilst I, in their car, returned to Womsley Old Place for your
men! Hearing you behind me, I naturally assumed that the prisoners had
overpowered you and were in pursuit of me!"
"I see!" said Sheffield, removing his hat and scratching his head
viciously.
"Finally," said Mr. Belford, with dignity, "you gave me this note for
your principal assistant, Dawson"--and handed an envelope to the
inspector.
The latter, with the resignation of despair, accepted it, tore it open,
and took out a card. Directing the ray of his pocket-torch upon it,
though in the brilliant moonlight no artificial aid really was
necessary, he read the following aloud:
"Séverac Bablon begs to present his compliments to His Majesty's
Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department and to thank
him for according the privilege of a private interview. Whilst
deprecating the subterfuge rendered necessary by the right
honourable gentleman's attitude, he feels that it is justified by
results, and begs respectfully to repeat his assurance that no one
in whom the right honourable gentleman is interested shall be
compromised, now or at any future time."
"You see," said the detective wearily, "that wasn't the real Inspector
Sheffield who spoke to you. I thought you might have known him by this
time, sir! That was Séverac Bablon!"