STORM
MY tub pulled me together to some extent, but I still felt restless when
I went downstairs. Forrest had already gone out, leaving word that he
expected to be back to breakfast at the usual hour. I went into the
garden, but the sun was shining in a cloudless sky and there was not a
breath of air stirring. It was insufferably hot and I was glad to return
into the shade of the house.
The detective came in panting, a little later, with disappointment
plainly written in his face.
"The surgeon out?" I inquired.
"No," he answered. "But he was not much use though. Mannering kept the
bullet. He wanted to retain it, so he said, as a memento of his
adventure."
"Perfectly natural," I commented.
"Perfectly," returned Forrest. "The unfortunate result is, that his
doing so prevents me from dismissing the possibility of his being the
Pirate from my mind. And I ought to be doing something. Last night the
rascal seems to have been everywhere. Apparently he was actuated with a
desire to destroy everything which stood in his path. One would judge
him to have become absolutely reckless. Instead of avoiding the towns,
he courted observation by passing through them. This morning at the
police office, I heard particulars of at least half a dozen cases of
unoffending people being ruthlessly ridden down, and Heaven only knows
how many more there may be of which the details are not yet to hand. The
sheer devilry of his progress is simply amazing. What it comes to is
this, Sutgrove. If I can't get hold of him within the next week I may as
well resign the force at once. If I don't resign I shall be dismissed,
and quite deservedly."
I tried to say something consolatory, but he would not hear me; and it
was not until after he had made a savage attack upon the eggs and
rashers and had swallowed three cups of tea, that his usual equanimity
returned.
"What's the next move?" I asked, when breakfast was done.
"I am going to town to see if I can identify the purchaser of this
bottle," he replied, holding up the phial he had taken from the bag in
Mannering's house the night before; "and to inquire whether anything
more has been heard of the fair-haired German."
"Then I can be of no assistance to you, to-day?" I said.
"None whatever beyond remaining here and keeping an eye upon our friend.
I shall ask for another man to-day to assist in shadowing him, but
until his arrival I should be glad for some one to keep me acquainted
with his movements. If, as I presume you will, you go over to Colonel
Maitland's, you cannot help seeing whether he leaves his house."
I promised to do as he wished, and shortly after he had gone, I took my
hat and strolled over to the Colonel's place.
Evie appeared to have quite recovered from her fears of the previous
evening, and being busily engaged upon domestic duties, she sent me to
join her father under the shade of a big tree on the lawn. There solaced
by an iced lemon squash and the newspaper, I managed to pass the morning
very comfortably. Mannering gave no sign of existence.
I took myself home for lunch, remembering letters I had to write. I felt
much easier in mind, and made a hearty meal in consequence. The result
was that I fell asleep over my cigar afterwards.
I awoke suddenly, wondering where I was. Then I thought I must have
slept for hours, for a blackness only one degree less than that of night
brooded over the earth. I took out my watch lazily, and was surprised to
see that the hands only pointed to five. I sat still for a minute or two
striving to collect my thoughts, for my head was heavy. I held my watch
to my ear. It had not stopped. I jumped up and walked to the window, and
I saw at once the reason why I had imagined that night had fallen. From
east to west and from north to south a dense pall of cloud hung over
the earth. Not a leaf moved, and except for the shrill chirp of a
grasshopper, not a sound broke the uncanny stillness.
"By Jove!" I muttered, "we are going to have it hot."
There came upon me an intense desire to be near Evie during the progress
of the storm which threatened every moment to break. I did not wait to
analyse the feeling, but catching up my hat I bolted straight out of the
window. I had only a couple of hundred yards to traverse, but when I
reached the Colonel's house, so hot and heavy was the air, that I was
soaked from head to foot in perspiration. I paused at the gate to wipe
my brow with my handkerchief, and at the moment the storm broke. I heard
the crackle of the lightning as it slid from the sky, and the thunder
clap followed so swiftly that for a moment I felt deafened. I waited no
longer, but raced across the lawn and into the open French window of the
drawing-room. The apartment was unoccupied, so I passed through into the
hall. That was vacant too, and I continued my search through the
morning-room to the Colonel's sanctum. There I saw the genial warrior
standing at the window, and watching the play of the lightning with
every appearance of interest.
"Hullo, Colonel!" I said. "Where's Evie?"
"Isn't she in the drawing-room? She was there twenty minutes ago," he
replied.
"She is not there now, I have just come through," I explained.
"Then I fancy she will be in all probability in her bedroom with her
head under the sheets," he said, chuckling.
"At all events I will send one of the maids to see," I said.
I rang the bell, and after giving a message to the maid who answered the
summons, I joined the Colonel at the window. He appeared to be very
pleased with the progress the storm was making.
"Thank goodness this will clear the air," he explained, as a reason for
his satisfaction. "It was so hot that I could take no lunch but a
mayonnaise, iced strawberries, and a glass of hock. Don't you think the
air is cooler already? I begin to feel quite an appetite for dinner. My
only fear is that, if the thunder has not turned everything sour, it
will have frightened my cook out of her senses, and there will be
nothing to appease my appetite."
The window at which we were standing faced towards Mannering's house.
There was a stretch of lawn outside and, beyond, a thicket of shrubs and
small trees between the grounds of the two residences. I was glancing in
the direction of these, when I thought I saw something white moving in
the shrubbery. I was about to say something to the Colonel when a crash
of thunder drowned the utterance. At the next flash of lightning, I
perceived that my eyes had not deceived me, and in an instant I jumped
to the conclusion that it was Evie who was out there in the storm.
Without a moment's hesitation I vaulted through the window and raced
across the lawn. The Colonel must have thought me mad.
It was something of a shock for me to find that I was right in my
conjecture. There, huddled up under the spreading branches of a cedar,
stood my darling, her eyes wide open, her cheeks blanched with terror.
"Why, Evie, dear heart! What is the matter?" I cried.
At the sound of my voice she started, and, with a little cry of delight,
she threw herself into my arms.
"I knew you would come--I knew you would come!" she sobbed hysterically.
The cedar under which she was standing was close to the hedge, and I
fancied, as she spoke, that I saw a figure move away from the other side
of the hedge. I could not verify my suspicion, for Evie needed all my
attention. She had fainted. Catching her up, I bore her across the lawn
to the house.
It was some time before she came to herself, and then, at her own
request, I left her with her maid and returned to the Colonel. Needless
to say I was very much worried in my mind. Why Evie should have been
sheltering in the shrubbery from the storm, with the house so near,
seemed unexplainable, and I awaited with anxiety the time when I could
learn the reason from her own lips. The presence of the figure--the
figure of a man--on the opposite side of the hedge, was also
inexplicable. I should have guessed it to be Mannering, but I would have
staked my life upon Evie's truthfulness when she had told me how much
she had learned to detest him. Besides, her delight was obvious when I
arrived on the scene.
Not until the evening, however, did I get a chance of speaking to Evie
again. The Colonel and I dined alone, Evie sending word to say that the
storm had left her with a headache, and that she would join us later. I
was so silent during the meal that my host grew quite merry at my
expense.
"Wait till you are married, my boy," he remarked. "There will come times
when you will be grateful for these feminine headaches."
I hate cheap witticisms of this sort, but I could hardly resent them
from the Colonel as I could have done had they fallen from any one
else's lips; but I fancy he saw at last that they were distasteful to
me, for after a while he forebore to comment upon my dour looks.
About ten Evie came downstairs. By this time the storm had passed away
entirely, and the air was deliciously fresh and cool after the rain. It
was a strangely subdued girl who came nervously to me, and shrank away
from me as I kissed her.
"No, Jim, no! You mustn't do that," she said.
Colonel Maitland had slipped away upon his daughter's entrance, and we
were alone.
"Why, darling, what ails you?" I asked.
"Nothing--nothing. Oh! don't ask me," she almost wailed in reply.
I put my arm about her waist, and drew her down beside me to a seat on
a big Chesterfield drawn before one of the windows. She resisted faintly
at first, but presently I heard her give a sigh of content, and felt her
nestle towards me. Then I spoke.
"Tell me, dear, what possessed you to go out into the storm?"
"I don't know," she murmured--"I don't know. I--I felt that I must. I
didn't think it was going to break so soon, and then the first flash of
lightning and the voice of the thunder! It was like judgment day."
"It is all passed and over," I remarked, with a man's clumsy attempt at
consolation.
"I wish it were--I wish it were," she repeated, with an indrawn sigh.
"It is all over hours ago," I said.
She broke away from me passionately. "Oh! Jim, you don't know," she
cried.
"I don't know what?" I inquired, as I attempted to draw her to me again.
She pushed my hands away with a gesture of despair. Then with an effort
she rose to her feet, and looking at me straight in the face, she said--
"Jim, this must not go on. It is more than I can bear."
I rose to my feet too, my heart beating wildly. "I don't understand
you," I answered, though I comprehended her meaning only too well. "What
must not go on?"
"Our--our engagement," she faltered. She was white to the lips as she
said the words.
I staggered back under the blow, then leaning forward I sought to take
her hand.
"No, Jim, no!" she said. "It's no use; I can never be yours. It is
impossible--quite impossible. My love would be fatal to you! I know it
will! He said so."
"He?" I asked.
She faltered. "Oh! I cannot help believing him. He tells me that I am to
be his." She shuddered. "Jim, you must leave me, and never see me again.
I cannot have your--your blood on my hands."
She held out her slender white fingers, and I saw that the ring which I
had placed there had been removed. Though my brain was awhirl, I tried
my utmost to be calm. I think the effort was successful, and that my
voice was fairly even when I said--
"Come, darling, a promise is a promise, and my own little girl is not
going to break her promise because of the threats of a jealous rival."
She shuddered from head to foot. "You don't know him as I know him," she
murmured. "He would stick at nothing, Jim. I don't think he is a man; he
must be a devil. He can do things no man ever thought of doing."
"You exaggerate his capacities for evil," I said, as equably as I was
able, for her agitation was so great that I feared for her reason. "What
has Mannering been saying to you, for it was he whom I saw behind the
hedge when I brought you out of the storm, I suppose?"
"You saw him?" she queried. "Then it is true. I have been hoping you
would tell me I had been dreaming again."
"I saw nothing very terrible about him," I remarked.
"You don't know him," she said again.
"He will have cause to know me before many hours have passed," I
declared savagely.
She clung to me in terror. "No, Jim. You must not go near him. You do
not know the power he exercises. This afternoon I was sitting thinking
of you when I became conscious that he was telling me to come to him.
There was no reason why I should have thought so. He was not in sight,
but I was bound to go."
"And you found him waiting for you?" I asked quietly, though my brain
was aflame, for I was determined to ascertain all that had passed
between them.
"He was waiting for me," she repeated--"waiting for me and the storm.
That must have come at his bidding too. It was horrible waiting for him
to speak--horrible! I tried to ask him what he wanted, but my tongue was
tied. Not until after the first peal of thunder did he utter a word.
Then he told me the time was nearly at hand when he should come for me."
I clenched my fists involuntarily, but I did not interrupt my darling's
story. "I begged of him to leave me free. He paid no heed. 'I am going
away,' he said. 'For three days you will see nothing of me, though all
England will be talking of my deeds. On the third I shall return. Mind
you are ready.'"
"Did you not mention me?" I remarked weakly. I hardly knew what to say,
for it seemed to me that either Evie must be the victim of some
extraordinary hallucination, or else that Mannering was mad.
"He mentioned you," she replied. "'Tell Sutgrove,' he said, 'that he has
three days in which to capture the Motor Pirate and make sure of his
bride. After that he will be too late. Tell him, too, that death waits
on the fool who fails.'"
"It's a sporting challenge," I muttered, for I had no doubt now in my
mind that Mannering and the Pirate were identical.
My words did not reach Evie's ear, for she continued,
"Now you know why I have put away your ring. He is too strong for us. I
must do as he bids me. I----"
I interrupted her sharply. "Have you everything packed to go away on
your visit to Norfolk to-morrow?" I asked.
The tone of my voice roused her. She looked at me wildly.
"Why--why----" she said. Then the expression faded out of her face. For
the second time that day she had fainted.