“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.”