THE MAN THAT DISAPPEARED
Now, whatever his enemies (if he has any) may say against James Moggin,
no one can deny the fact that, for a man of his age, his behaviour on
the night when his carriage was "held up" on the North Moor was
meritorious. On discovering that the "impident rascal" had deliberately
broken one of the coach windows with the butt of a pistol, the worthy
coachman's rage knew no bounds. Leaving his well trained but trembling
horses, and still clasping the whip in his hand, he scrambled down from
the box and fell upon the cyclist in the rear.
To speak more accurately, the latter individual fell back into his arms,
an action on his part caused by Mr. Laurence having risen in the
carriage and aimed a powerful blow with his fist at the face that had a
second time appeared at the cracked window.
Moggin, had he flung down his whip, might easily have held the assailant
until the arrival of Laurence, who was fumbling with the catch that
fastened the carriage door, and which had been in some way jammed by a
piece of broken window glass. As it was, the audacious cyclist managed
in the dark to wriggle himself out of the coachman's clutches and reach
the spot where his bicycle lay.
Laurence alighted from the carriage with unbecoming haste, only in time
to see the dusky figure of the highwayman throw his leg lightly over the
saddle of his machine, and bound forward past the vehicle again with the
dexterity of an accomplished rider. He noticed that his garments
fluttered out behind him in a peculiar manner.
In his evening clothes and thin dancing "pumps," with the roads an inch
thick in mud and puddles, young Carrington knew that pursuit was
useless. Even if he requisitioned one of the terrified horses, he
realised that the man would have disappeared from sight before the
operation of unharnessing could be accomplished. One thing he did--that
was to seize the whip from Moggin's hand, and, taking a couple of steps
forward, cut sharply at the retreating form with the long lash. The blow
went home, for the fellow gave utterance to a hoarse cry of pain. Even
in that exclamation, both Carrington and the coachman were conscious of
something unnatural and horrible.
And thus it was that the mysterious creature on the bicycle disappeared
into the blackness of the night.
Laurence waited until he had the dissatisfaction of witnessing the hasty
departure of the unwelcome visitor; then he turned to the open-mouthed
and shivering Moggin.
"Let us now see what has happened to your master," he said abruptly.
The two men hurried back to the carriage and carefully stepped inside.
Mr. Carrington was lying in precisely the same position as when Laurence
had left him.
"Mercy, mercy," moaned the coachman, "surely he isn't dead?"
"No," responded young Carrington, "he is not shot, for look at the far
window. It was smashed by the bullet."
"The hexplosion might have done that, sir," old Moggin suggested, as he
assisted Laurence to place the motionless body of Mr. Carrington upon
the seat of the carriage.
"Good gracious me, I never thought of that. Then the poor dad may be
killed--murdered. Oh, why didn't I heed his suspicions?"
He bent down to peer into the old gentleman's face, and as he did so
something caught his eye. He almost yelled aloud with joy. For there,
through the top of Mr. Carrington's hat, was a circular hole. The same
hole was to be found on the other side, showing that the bullet from
the assassin's weapon had penetrated through the hat without harming the
unconscious man's head. (The bullet itself was afterwards found imbedded
in a panel of the coach.)
No; Mr. Carrington had been unharmed by the attempt on his life, but the
shock of seeing the repulsive face at the window had thrown him into a
dead faint, from which he was released after many minutes, thanks to the
chafings and attention of his son.
When he first opened his eyes Laurence was horrified at the change in
his father's appearance. The terrified look on his face was
indescribable. He moaned faintly, as though in pain, and clutched
nervously at the strong arm of his son, who knelt at his side on the
floor of the carriage.
"Come, Daddy," Laurence said encouragingly; "you're better now, and the
rascal is miles away. Sit up and let us hurry on home. The horses are
almost perished with cold."
His son's cheery voice seemed to convince Mr. Carrington that he was
safe, for he sat up and allowed himself to be carefully laid back into
his favourite corner of the large carriage. Laurence gave orders to
Moggin to proceed at once homeward as fast as he could, and so well did
the coachman carry out his instructions, and so ready were the horses
to proceed to their stables, that Mr. Carrington found himself within
his own grounds before twenty minutes had passed.
With Laurence's assistance he alighted and entered the Manse, where the
aged butler, Kingsford, was dozing in the hall. He was then conducted to
his chamber, and there helped into bed and dosed with a strong
brandy-and-soda specially mixed for him by his son.
By this time it was nearly half-past one in the morning, and Laurence
Carrington would have been quite justified in retiring to bed.
Nevertheless, after leaving his father's bedroom he crept downstairs,
much to the butler's astonishment, and, donning an overcoat and a strong
pair of boots, made his way out of the house.
The rain had now stopped--a fact that seemed to please him much; not
because he would have minded a four-mile trudge in the pouring wet, but
because he would now be more likely to discover traces of the mysterious
cyclist's tyre-marks in the muddy road that skirts the North Moor. For
the rain, had it continued in a downpour similar to that at the time of
the strange affair of an hour before, would undoubtedly have blotted out
any tracks that the highwayman must have made in effecting his hasty
departure.
Whistling to keep up his spirits as he went, Laurence strode on at a
quick pace towards the scene of the attack. The wind was howling across
the heath and the unearthly noises that accompany any storm were such as
might well have unnerved a less determined man than Carrington,
particularly after the weird adventures he had gone through.
By the light of the moon, which was now shining brightly, he had no
difficulty in discovering the exact spot at which the carriage had
stopped, while his own footprints and those of the coachman, as well as
the hoof-marks of the restive horses, were distinctly visible. With
ease, too, he lighted on the thin track made by the stranger's bicycle
wheel, but at first was much puzzled at finding that this trail lay on
both sides of the road. Then he recollected that the rider must have
left these distinct traces behind him both when on his way to the place
where he had "held up" the coach and when hastening away on being
repulsed by Moggin and himself. Therefore he concluded that, by
following the double tracks, one on either side of the lonely road, he
would not only discover whence the unknown man had come, but also
whither he had disappeared. For a good mile he trudged on, never taking
his eyes off the pattern impressed on the surface of the road. He had
now reached a village, the only one lying between the house at which
the ball had been and that where he lived, and from which he had just
come.
Half-way along the main street running through this village a branch
road starts off to the left. To his delight, Laurence was able to trace
the cycle tracks round the corner of and into this branch road, and once
again did he start on, strong on the scent of his father's attempted
murderer (for the idea that the cycling highwayman had fired at him
never entered his head).
On and on did Laurence walk, the mud and water squelching under his
feet, until the road again broke off into two lanes.
"Hallo!" he cried half aloud, "the stranger must be something of a
neighbour to us," for the tracks in the mud betrayed to him the fact
that his quarry had taken the lane which is one and a long way round to
the Manse and the village of Northden, in which it stands. As he drew
nearer and nearer to his home Laurence's amazement and excitement (if
such a term may be used under the circumstances) increased
correspondingly. Would the midnight stranger prove to be one of his
father's own simple villagers? he asked himself. He had not even caught
a glimpse of the stranger's face, so could not answer.
He was now actually in the village of Northden, yet the marks, both
coming and going, remained. Was he mistaken in any way? he wondered, but
the idea of such a possibility had barely been dismissed from his mind
as absurd when he suddenly stopped short. And why?
Because, without the slightest swerve or mark in the slush, both tracks
stopped abruptly, and, however vigilantly he searched, he could not
discover any further sign or clue to the manner of the disappearance of
the mysterious bicyclist.