A Chase, ending with a Surprise
“Now then,” said the policeman, falling back on a formula in face of
an unexpected situation. “What’s all this about?”
There can be no doubt that, on most occasions, the sense of humour is
a handicap in life. It implies introspection, and he who introspects
is commonly lost. But laughter is, in great part, the child of
innocence, and it is doubtful if anything could have exculpated the
two amateur detectives from the charge of being criminals so speedily
as the complete break-down of Gordon’s gravity when the question was
asked.
“What are you doing in these rooms?” asked the policeman, less
suspicious but by no means more friendly.
“Well, you see,” said Reeves, “they’re my rooms.”
“I ought to warn you,” the policeman pointed out, “that this may
involve you in a serious charge. We have reason to think that a
murderer has been hiding in that passage there. Say nothing if you
don’t want it to be used as evidence.” And he took out the inevitable
note-book which is the policeman’s substitute for a thunderbolt.
“I’m sorry, officer,” said Gordon, “but you must see that we’ve been
going round one another in circles. You’re looking for a murderer—let
me make a rash guess, and put it to you that it’s Brotherhood’s
murderer you’re looking for? Well, we’re doing exactly the same. It
seems that, by a mere chance, he’s been taking refuge in a passage
which communicates with this room which is rented by Mr. Reeves here.
And instead of finding the murderer, we’ve found one another.”
“Very irregular, gentlemen. You know as well as I do that if you’ve
any information in your possession which might lead to the conviction
of the criminal, it’s your duty to communicate it to the police. Of
course, I’m very sorry if I gave you gentlemen a fright, but you’ve
got to look at it this way, Whose business is it to see justice done,
yours or mine? You see, if it hadn’t been for you gentlemen giving the
alarm, not meaning to, I’m not saying you meant to, but if you
gentlemen hadn’t given the alarm, I might have got this chap bottled
up properly in the passage there; and now how am I to know where he
is? That’s the way you’ve got to look at it.”
“But the coroner’s jury brought in a verdict of suicide,” objected
Reeves.
“Ah, that may be; but you see it’s this way, the Force isn’t tied down
by what the coroner’s jury says, and if the Force has its suspicions,
then it acts accordingly; and if anybody else has their suspicions,
then it’s their duty to communicate them to the police, d’you see? And
then the police can act accordingly.”
“Well, I’m very sorry if we’ve interfered with your plans at all,”
said Gordon, seeing that the Olympian rage was taking its normal
course, and simmering down into a flood of explanatory platitude. “We
were meaning to take a little something after all that hunting about
in the wainscoting; it’s dusty work. I suppose it’s no good asking you
to join us, Inspector?”
“Sergeant, sir, is what I am. Of course, it’s against the regulations,
strictly speaking, when on duty; but if you was to offer me something
just to show there’s no offence taken, why then I won’t say No to a
glass.” And, as the pledge of amity began to flow, Jove ratified his
compact by the infallible formula, “Here’s to your very good health,
gentlemen.”
Reeves felt that the moment had arrived for cooperating with Scotland
Yard. The fact that Scotland Yard, with no golf balls and no
photographs to guide it, no Carmichael and no chewing-gum to aid it,
had after all got on the track of the right criminal, began to impress
him.
“Well, Sergeant,” he said, “there’s not much sense in either of us
playing a lone hand, is there? What I’m asking myself is, why
shouldn’t you and we hunt in couples?”
“Very sorry, sir; of course, any information you may see fit to give
the police will be acted on accordingly; but you see it’s against our
regulations to take civilians about with us when we’re on duty, that’s
how it is. Not but what, as it’s all between friends, I don’t mind
taking you gentlemen downstairs and showing you the other door of that
there passage as you didn’t see and I came in by.”
The fact that Carmichael was still at his useless post occurred to the
two friends at this point, and made them consent to the indignity of a
personally conducted tour. “In a cellar the other door is, but it’s a
cellar you have to get to from the outside,” the sergeant explained,
leading the way downstairs. They were not destined to complete, on
that occasion, their experiences of the passage. They had only just
got out of the front door when the whirlwind figure of a second
policeman almost cannoned into them, and their attention was directed
to a motor-cycle, with side-car, just disappearing through the lodge
gates.
“It’s ’im,” panted the new-comer. “Gone off on the blinking bus!”
The mystery man had disappeared, and disappeared, with singular
effrontery, on the very vehicle on which the representatives of the
law had come to track him down.
“Come on, Sergeant,” shouted Reeves, rising to the occasion. “I’ve got
my car only just round here, and she’ll do a better pace than anything
else you could pick up!” And, while the agitated sergeant explained to
Gordon the message he wanted telephoned to the station at Binver,
Reeves did a record time in starting and bringing round to the front
his new Tarquin “Superbus.” It was scarcely three minutes since the
disappearance of the adventurous stranger when the two policemen, one
at Reeves’ side and one luxuriously cushioned in the tonneau, bounded
off down the drive in pursuit.
“What does that car of yours do, Sergeant? Forty? I can knock fifty
out of this easily, as long as we don’t get held up anywhere. I say,
what happens if some of your friends want to run me in for furious
driving?”
“You’d get off with a caution, sir, and it wouldn’t be in the papers.
You’re all right, don’t you worry, as long as you don’t run into
anything.” Indeed, at the pace Reeves was making, it seemed highly
desirable that they should not. The motor-cycle was still out of
sight, and it seemed likely enough that they were on a forlorn quest.
About half a mile from the Club the road split into two, either branch
joining the main London road, but one going southwards and one going
northwards to meet it. Would the fugitive make for the crowded
suburbs, or for the open country to the north? The question was
fortunately decided for them when they saw a more than usually
self-diffusive herd of sheep blocking up the northern arm. Nobody in a
hurry would have tried to penetrate that bleating barrage when he saw
a Clear road to his right. Whatever his plans had been, it must have
been the London direction he had taken. In a moment they had dived
under the railway close to Paston Oatvile station, and swept round
into the open current of the London main road.
Saturday was not yet far advanced enough to have released its stream
of pleasure-traffic, so late in the year especially. Their right of
way was disputed only by occasional lorries and market-carts. Two
motor-cycles they overhauled, with a spasm of hope each time, which
died down upon a nearer view. The road was for the most part a gentle
switchback, rising and falling over the long folds of the countryside,
and at the top of each incline their eyes swept the stretch in front
of them for a sight of the fugitive. The surface in front of the
engine seemed to spring into a cascade and jumped out on you suddenly;
the sere hedges became streaks of gold.
They had gone ten miles without sighting their quarry, and the
sergeant began to grow anxious. “The expresses stop at Weighford,” he
said, “and that’s only a mile or two on.” He turned to his colleague
behind. “D’you remember what time the express from the north stops at
Weighford? Quarter to twelve? That’s bad. You see, sir, if he gets to
Weighford before we catch sight of him, he may drive through it or he
may turn aside to the station; and if he makes for the station he’ll
most likely catch the express for London.”
“So can we, if we don’t get held up at Weighford. A quarter to twelve,
did you say? I think we ought to do it. But if we don’t sight him
first, it’s a bad look-out. What’s that on ahead?”
“That’s not the one, sir. Ah, there’s the goods sidings; express isn’t
signalled yet.”
Weighford is a straggling, unpleasant town, which seems to cast a
blight on the road as it passes through, and they were mercilessly
bumped. More than once, too, they had to slow down; and finally, to
crown their disappointment, they saw the gates of a level-crossing
shut against them. Then, just as Reeves was slowing down, the gates
began to swing open, and the sergeant suddenly crowed with delight.
“That’s him, sir! Got held up at the level crossing, and now he’s only
half a minute’s start of us.”
The remainder of the race was a thing only to be remembered in
nightmares—the children that only just got out of the way in time, the
dog that didn’t; the lorry that wanted to turn in the middle of the
road. . . . But they had their man marked now, and could see that he
was making for the railway; could hear, too, the whistle of the
express and the grinding of the brakes as it slowed down into the
station. At the further platform a quiet, rural train with the label
BINVER was sitting on its haunches and panting after the exhaustion of
its last five-mile crawl. The station-master was fortunately found,
and the progress of the express held up in the interests of a police
search. The fugitive had left the side-car standing at the entrance
and lost himself among the passengers before his pursuers could
alight.
The search, laboriously and muddle-headedly carried on with the aid of
the station officials, lasted some five minutes without any result.
Fussy passengers might have been paid by the criminal to delay
operations, so ready were they with helpful advice. At last an
inspector pointed to a door on the non-platform side of an empty
first-class carriage, which was unfastened.
“Got through on to the six-foot way, that’s what he’s done, and
slinking round on the other platform maybe.”
“Wrong!” shouted Reeves in a flash of inspiration; “he got through
into the Binver train just as it went off, and hadn’t time to shut the
door properly. Sergeant, it’s us for the road again!” The sergeant
hesitated, then allowed himself to be fascinated by the theory. The
station staff was left with orders to go on searching; the side-car
was entrusted to the Weighford police, and, within a quarter of an
hour of their arrival, Reeves and the two Binver policemen were
tearing back along the main road as fast as they had come down it.
Local trains waste most of their time waiting at stations and chatting
to the signalman. When they are on the move, they are not really easy
to catch even with a fast motor, especially when they have nearly ten
minutes’ start. There was no stop, so far as this train was concerned,
between Weighford and Paston Oatvile. Paston Oatvile had, of course,
been warned to hold up the train on arrival, but the staff there was
neither numerous nor intelligent, and it seemed very probable that the
elusive passenger would be on his travels again, if they could not be
on the platform to intercept him. This time Reeves excelled himself
and so did the Tarquin. There was no doubt about the objective; no
mental undercurrent of hesitancy to breed infirmity of purpose. The
driver himself became part of the machine, a mere lever in the
relentless engine of human justice. Almost all the way the line was
visible from the road; and as reach after reach of it was disclosed,
three pairs of eyes searched for the puff of smoke that would mark the
Binver train.
They saw it at last when they were a full mile off. A moment more, and
they were at the station gates almost before the wheels of the train
had stopped. Three harassed officials were explaining to irritated
passengers that they must keep their seats, please. And so began the
cruel, inevitable search for the traveller without a ticket. They
found him at last, sitting apparently unconcerned in a first-class
carriage; the police did not bring him out, but climbed in after him.
Reeves went up to endure the effusive gratitude of the sergeant, and
caught sight, as he did so, of the prisoner’s face.
It was Davenant.