IN FULL CRY
Polly, the maid from the inn, waiting breathlessly intent in the car
outside the gate, listened for sounds which should guide her as to the
progress of events within.
Steingall left her standing on the upholstered back of the car, with her
hands clutching the top of the gate. She did not descend immediately. In
that position she could best hear approaching footsteps, as she could
follow the running of the detective nearly all the way to the house.
Great was her surprise, therefore, to find some one unlocking the gate
without receiving any preliminary warning of his advent. She was just in
time to spring back into the tonneau when one-half of the ponderous door
swung open and a man appeared, carrying in his arms the seemingly
lifeless body of a woman.
It will be remembered that the lamps of the car spread their beams in
the opposite direction. In the gloom, not only of the night but of the
high wall and the trees, Polly could not distinguish features.
She thought, however, the man was a stranger. Naturally, as the rescuers
had just gone toward the point whence the newcomer came, she believed
that he had been directed to carry the young lady to the waiting car.
Her quick sympathy was aroused.
"The poor dear!" she cried. "Oh, don't tell me those horrid people have
hurt her."
Voles who had choked Winifred into insensibility with a mixture of
alcohol, chloroform, and ether--a scientific anesthetic used by all
surgeons, rapid in achieving its purpose and quite harmless in its
effects--was far more surprised than Polly. He never expected to be
greeted in this way, but rather to be met by some helper of Carshaw's
posed there, and he was prepared to fight or trick his adversary as
occasion demanded.
He had carried Winifred down a servants' stairs and made his way out of
the house by a back door. The exit was unguarded. In this, as in many
other country mansions, the drive followed a circuitous sweep, but a
path through the trees led directly toward the gate. Hence, his passage
had neither been observed from the hall nor overheard by Polly.
It was in precisely such a situation as that which faced him now that
Voles was really superb. He was an adroit man, with ready judgment and
nerves of steel.
"Not much hurt," he said quietly. "She has fainted from shock, I think."
Though he spoke so glibly, his brain was on fire with question and
answer. His eyes glowered at the car and its occupant, and swept the
open road on either hand.
To Polly's nostrils was wafted a strange odor, carrying reminiscences of
so-called "painless" dentistry. Winifred, reviving in the open air when
that hateful sponge was removed from mouth and nose, struggled
spasmodically in the arms of her captor. Polly knew that women in a
faint lie deathlike. That never-to-be-forgotten scent, too, caused a
wave of alarm, of suspicion, to creep through her with each heart-beat.
"Where are the others?" she said, leaning over, and striving to see
Voles's face.
"Just behind," he answered. "Let me place Miss Bartlett in the car."
That sounded reasonable.
"Lift her in here, poor thing," said Polly, making way for the almost
inanimate form.
"No; on the front seat."
"But why? This is the best place--oh, help, _help_!"
For Voles, having placed Winifred beside the steering-pillar, seized
Polly and flung her headlong onto the grass beneath the wall. In the
same instant he started the car with a quick turn of the wrist, for the
engine had been stopped to avoid noise, and there was no time to
experiment with self-starters. He jumped in, released the brakes,
applied the first speed, and was away in the direction to New York.
Polly, angry and frightened, ran after him, screaming at the top of her
voice.
Voles was in such a desperate hurry that he did not pay heed to his
steering, and nearly ran over a motor-cyclist coming in hot haste to
East Orange. The rider, a young man, pulled up and used language. He
heard Polly, panting and shrieking, running toward him.
"Good gracious, Miss Barnard, what's the matter?" he cried, for Polly
was pretty enough to hold many an eye.
"Is that you, Mr. Petch? Thank goodness! There's been murder done in
Gateway House. That villain is carrying off the young lady he has
killed. He has escaped from the police. They're in there now. Oh, catch
him!"
Mr. Petch, who had dismounted, began to hop back New York-ward, while
the engine emulated a machine-gun.
"It's a big car--goes fast--I'll do my best--" Polly heard him say, and
he, too, was gone. She met Carshaw and the chief half-way up the drive.
To them, in gasps, she told her story.
"Cool hand, Voles!" said Steingall.
"The whole thing was bungled!" cried Carshaw in a white heat. "If Clancy
had been here this couldn't have happened."
Steingall took the implied taunt coolly.
"It would have been better had I followed my original plan and not
helped you," he said. "You or our East Orange friend might have been
killed, it is true, but Voles could not have carried the girl off so
easily."
Carshaw promptly regretted his bitter comment. "I'm sorry," he said,
"but you cannot realize what all this means to me, Steingall."
"I think I can. Cheer up; your car is easily recognizable. We have a
cyclist known to this young lady in close pursuit. Even if he fails to
catch up with Voles, he will at least give us some definite direction
for a search. At present there is nothing for us to do but lodge these
people in the local prison, telephone the ferries and main towns, and go
back to New York. The police here will let us know what happens to the
cyclist; he may even call at the Bureau. I can act best in New York."
"Do you mean now to arrest those in the house?"
"Yes, sure. That is, I'll get the New Jersey police to hold them."
"On what charge?"
"Conspiracy. At last we have clear evidence against them. Miss Polly
here has actually seen Voles carrying off Miss Bartlett, who had
previously been rendered insensible. If I am not mistaken in my man,
Fowle will turn State's evidence when he chews on the proposition for a
few hours in a cell."
"Pah--the wretch! I don't want these reptiles to be crushed; what I want
is to recover Miss Bartlett. Would it not be best to leave them their
liberty and watch them?"
"I've always found a seven days' remand very helpful," mused the
detective.
"In ordinary crime, yes. But here we have Rachel Craik, who would suffer
martyrdom rather than speak; Fowle, a mere tool, who knows nothing
except what little he is told; and a thick-headed brute named Mick the
Wolf, who does what his master bids him. Don't you see that in prison
they are useless. At liberty they may help by trying to communicate with
Voles."
"I'm half inclined to agree with you. Now to frighten them. Keep your
face and tongue under control; I'll try a dodge that seldom fails."
They re-entered the house. Jim was doing sentry-go in the hall. The
prisoners were sitting mute, save that Mick the Wolf uttered an
occasional growl of pain; his wounded arm was hurting him sorely.
"We're not going to worry any more about you," said Steingall
contemptuously as he unlocked the hand-cuffs with which he had been
compelled to secure Rachel and Fowle.
"Yes, you will," was the woman's defiant cry. "Your outrageous
conduct--"
"Oh, pull that stuff on some one likely to be impressed by it. It comes
a trifle late in the day when Miss Winifred Marchbanks is in the hands
of her friends and Voles on his way to prison. I don't even want you,
Rachel Bartlett, unless the State attorney decides that you ought to be
prosecuted."
The woman's eyes gleamed like those of a spiteful cat. The detective's
cool use of Winifred's right name, and of the name by which Rachel Craik
herself ought to be known, was positively demoralizing. Fowle, too, was
greatly alarmed. The police-officer said nothing about not wanting him.
With Voles's superior will withdrawn, he began to quake again. But
Rachel was a dour New Englander, of different metal to a man from the
East Side.
"If you're speaking of my niece," she said, "you have been misled by the
hussy, and by that man of hers there. Mr. Voles is her father. I have
every proof of my words. You can bring none of yours."
Steingall, eying Fowle, laughed. "You will be able to tell us all about
it in the witness-box, Rachel Bartlett," he said.
"How dare you call me by that name?"
"Because it's your right one. Craik was your mother's name. If friend
Voles had only kept his hands clean, or even treated you honorably, you
might now be Mrs. Ralph Meiklejohn, eh?"
He was playing with her with the affable gambols of a cat toying with a
doomed mouse. Each instant Fowle was becoming more perturbed. He did not
like the way in which the detective ignored him. Was he to be swallowed
at a gulp when his turn came?
Even Rachel Craik was silenced by this last shot. She wrung her hands;
this stern, implacable woman seemed to be on the point of bursting into
tears. All the plotting and devices of years had failed her suddenly. An
edifice of deception, which had lasted half a generation, had crumbled
into nothingness. This man had callously exposed her secret and her
shame. At that moment her heart was bitter against Voles.
The detective, skilled in the phases of criminal thought, knew exactly
what was passing through the minds of both Rachel and Fowle. Revenge in
the one case, safety in the other, was operating quickly, and a crisis
was at hand.
But just then the angry voice of the East Orange plumber reached him:
"Just imagine Petch turnin' up; him, of all men in the world! An' of
course you talked nicey-nicey, an' he's such an obligin' feller that he
beats it after the car! Petch, indeed!"
There was a snort of jealous fury. Polly's voice was raised in protest.
"Jim, don't be stupid. How could I tell who it was?"
"I'll back you against any girl in East Orange to find another string to
your bow wherever you may happen to be," was the enraged retort.
The detective hastened to stop this lovers' quarrel, which had broken
out after a whispered colloquy. He was too late. Miss Polly was on her
dignity.
"Well, Mr. Petch is a real man, anyhow," came her stinging answer. "He's
after them now, and he won't let them slip through his fingers like you
did."
The sheer injustice of this statement rendered Jim incoherent. Petch was
an old rival. When next they met, gore would flow in East Orange. But
the detective's angry whisper restored the senses of both.
"Can't you two shut up?" he hissed. "Your miserable quarrel has warned
our prisoners. They were on the very point of confessing everything when
you blurted out that the chief rascal had escaped. I'm ashamed of you,
especially after you had behaved so well."
His rebuke was merited; they were abashed into silence--too late. When
he returned to the pair in the corner of the room he saw Rachel Craik's
sour smile and Fowle's downcast look of calculation.
"A lost opportunity!" he muttered, but faced the situation quite
pleasantly.
"You may as well remain here," he said. "I may want you, and you should
realize without giving further trouble that you cannot hide from the
police. Come, Mr. Carshaw, we have work before us in East Orange. Miss
Winifred should be all right by this time."
Rachel Craik actually laughed. She wondered why she had lost faith in
Voles for an instant.
"I'll send a doctor," went on Steingall composedly. "Your friend there
needs one, I guess."
"I'd sooner have a six-shooter," roared Mick the Wolf.
"Doctors are even more deadly sometimes."
So the detective took his defeat cheerfully, and that is the worst thing
a man can do--in his opponent's interests. He was rather silent as he
trudged with Carshaw and the others back to the train, however.
He was asking himself what new gibe Clancy would spring on him when the
story of the night's fiasco came out.