The night fell stifling and airless, unfortunately favorable for the
kidnapers, as the sky was covered with clouds and the country wrapped in
a thick darkness.
At half-past eight the roadster, with Ferguson driving, glided into the
little village of North Cresson and swung out into the Cresson Turnpike.
Ten minutes behind him was his touring car with Saunders, his chauffeur,
at the wheel. Twenty minutes later a limousine was to strike into the
pike from a road just beyond the village, and a runabout, emerging from
an opposite direction, complete the chain. At the other end of the
ten-mile limit Chapman Price in the black racer, was running up from the
shore drive, with two satellites, one his own motor, one a hired Ford,
strung out behind him.
Of a hot summer night at this hour the pike was alive with autos;
returning holiday-makers, city dwellers taking a spin in the country to
cool off, joy riders rioting by, belated business men speeding to the
sea-side for the Sunday rest. They bore down on Ferguson like a
procession of fleeing monsters with round, goblin eyes staring in
affright. They came from behind, swinging across his path in a blur of
dust, laughter and shrill cries rising from their crowded tonneaus.
Keeping to their narrow track between the borders of the fields they
were like a turbulent, flashing torrent, dividing the darkness with a
stream of streaked radiance, cutting the silence with a current of
continuous sound.
Ferguson’s glance ranged ahead, dazzled by the glare of advancing lamps
that enlarged on his vision, grew to a blinding haze and swept by. He
could see little, blackness and brightness alternating, the motors
emerging as dim solidities, realized for a passing moment, then gone.
Once a small car, cutting across his bows from a side road, made him
slacken, but it slowed round showing the gnarled face of a farmer with a
fat woman on the seat beside him and a bunch of children behind.
As he went on the press of vehicles thinned, the line of the road showed
bare for longer stretches. The runabout overhauled him, kept by his side
for a few yards, then drew ahead, its red tail lantern receding with an
even, skimming smoothness; a spot, a spark, nothing. He calculated he
had covered nearly half the distance when the black racer passed in a
soft, purring rush, his eye, through the yellow fog that preceded it,
catching a glimpse of Price’s face. Then came a long, straight level
between fields where only two cars went by, both going cityward. He
looked back and tried to see the road behind him, straining his vision
for a following shape, but the darkness lay close and unbroken, no
goblin eyes peering through it in anxious pursuit.
The road took a dive into woods, black as a cavern, the air breathless.
It wound in sharp curves, his lamps sending their swinging rays into
thickets, then out again on a hilltop, and down, swooping with a long,
smooth glide into a valley. Here the touring car passed him and he met a
limousine, traveling at a pace as sober as his own, in its lit interior
two men talking; after that a farmer’s wagon drawn up against the
roadside grasses, the horse prancing in fractious fear. Then nobody—a
wide strip of open country with the sky setting down like an arched lid
over the low circular surface of the land.
It was very still and his listening ear caught the buzzing hum of a
vehicle behind him. This time he did not turn but drew off further to
the right, and a closed coupé swung by, with the jarring rattle of an
old and loose-geared body. He was on the alert at once, its hooded shape
suggesting secrecy, the surrounding loneliness apt for its design. Its
tail light cast a bobbing, crimson blot on the bed and he saw its back,
dust-grimed and rusty, and the numbered oblong of its license tag. That
caused his expectancy to drop—the tag stood for respectability and
honest wayfaring, then, with a quickened leap of his heart, he realized
that its speed was slackening. It slowed down to his own gait, and at
the limit of his lamp’s illumination, moved before him, a square bulk,
its back cut by a small window. He felt sure now, and with his hand on
the wheel took a look over his shoulder. In the distance, cresting a
rise, he saw two golden dots, too far for a speedy overtaking, and even
if that were possible he had no reason to suppose they belonged to any
of his followers.
A belt of woods spread across the way and the road entered it as if
tunneling a vault. It wound, looped and twisted, tree trunks and leafy
hollows starting out as the long bright tubes swept over them. As one of
these, slewing wide in a sharper turn, crossed the bank of the forward
car, Ferguson saw an arm extended and from the hand a white spark flash
twice. Almost immediately the coupé turned to the left, and plunged into
a by-way, black as a pocket, the woods’ thick growth crowding on its
edges.
The roadbed was good and the leading car accelerated its speed racing
onward under the arching boughs. Ferguson, close on its heels, knew that
the sounds of their going would be muffled by the enshrouding woodland,
absorbed in its woven density. No chance either of meeting any one; the
way was one of those forest trails, sought by the rich on their
afternoon drives, but at night deserted by all but the birds and the
squirrels. Cursing at the failure of his schemes, powerless now to
protest or to retaliate, he followed until he knew by a freshening of
the air that they were near the Sound. The coupé’s speed began to lessen
and it came to a halt.
Ferguson drew up a few rods behind it. He could see the trees about him
picked out in detail and behind them the engulfing darkness. The machine
in front still seemed to shake and vibrate; he caught the sound of a
step and then a voice, a man’s, deep and low-keyed:
"This is the place. Get out."
He jumped to the ground, discerning a shape by the coupé’s door. He
advanced, peering through his lantern’s intervening glare, and made out
it was alone. Stung with a quick fear, he halted and said.
"Where’s the child?"
"Here. Put the money on the rock to your right."
The man came forward, a raised hand pointing to where the top of a rock
showed among the wayside grasses. From the lifted hand, the light struck
a silvery gleam, touching the barrel of a revolver. Ferguson, without
moving said:
"I must see her first."
He thought he detected a moment’s hesitation, then the man stepped back
to the car and called a gruff:
"All right—quick—look."
He swung the coupé door open and from an electric torch in his left hand
sent a ray into the interior. The white shaft pierced the murk like a
pointing finger. Its circular end, a spot of livid brightness, played on
Bébita curled on the floor asleep. Ferguson saw her as if cut from an
encompassing blackness, transparently clear like a picture suspended in
a void. Then the ray was extinguished, and as he stood, blinking against
the obscurity, heard the man’s voice, "The money—on the rock there," and
caught the gleam of the revolver barrel level with his eyes.
He walked to the rock and laid the money, in an envelope clasped with
rubber bands, on its flat surface. The whole thing seemed to him like a
cheap melodrama and he could have laughed as he righted himself and saw
the round, shining end of the revolver covering him, and the silent
figure behind it.
"Come on," he said, "get to the rest. You tie me—where?"
"The oak—behind you."
It was a large-sized tree back from the edge of the road, and he walked
to it hearing the man trampling the underbrush in his wake. He had a
sense of a dreamlike quality in the whole fantastic performance, as if
he might wake up suddenly and find he’d been having a nightmare.
But there was nothing dreamlike in the force with which the rope was
thrown about him and tightened round the tree. As he felt it strained
across his chest, lashed round his legs, girding him to the trunk close
at its bark, he recognized expertness and strength in the hands that
bound him. The thing was done with extraordinary speed and deftness, and
ended by a lump of waste, that smelled of gasoline, being thrust into
his mouth.
The heavy tread moved again through the underbrush, the man passed to
the rock, and, his back to Ferguson, crouched on the light’s edges
counting the money. Ferguson saw him in silhouette, a large, humped body
with bent head. This done, he went to the door of the coupé and lifted
out the child. He had some difficulty in getting hold of her, muttered
an oath, then drew her out, carried her to the roadside and set her down
on the grass. There was a moment when he crossed the full gush of
illumination and Ferguson had a clear glimpse of him, a chauffeur’s cap
on his head, the lower part of his face covered by a thick beard.
Returning to his car, he jumped in. Its lurching start broke into a
sudden flight, it rushed; Ferguson could hear the bounding of stones,
the creaking and wrenching of its body as it hurtled down the road.
[Illustration: _Ferguson saw him in silhouette, a large, humped body
with bent head_]
Silence settled, the deep, dreaming quiet of the woods. The young man
tried to struggle, to writhe and work himself loose, but his bonds held
fast, and he found himself choked for air, stifling and snorting over
his gag. He gave it up and looked at the child. By straining his eyes he
could just see her, a small, relaxed body, one hand outflung, her
profile, held in a trance-like sleep, marble white against the grass. A
hideous fear assailed him:—she might be dead. Some drug had evidently
been administered to keep her quiet—an overdose! He wrenched and pressed
at the cords, almost strangled and had to stop, the sweat pouring into
his eyes, his heart pounding on the rope that cut into his chest. He
called on his will, felt himself steadied, his smothered breath came
easier, the only sound on the silence.
Then another broke upon it, far away, from the direction of the Sound—a
thin, clear report. He stiffened, all his faculties strained to listen,
heard it again, several in a spattering run, dropping distinct, like
little globules piercing the stillness. "Shooting!" he thought with a
wild surge of excitement, "out toward the water—Oh, Lord, have they got
him?"
He listened again, but heard nothing. And then from the ground rose a
moaning breath, a sleepy cry—Bébita was awake. He wrenched his head till
he could see her plainly, her face turned upward, the eyes still closed,
the forehead puckered with a look of pain. He tried to emit some word,
heard it only as a guttural mutter, and watching, saw her stir, the
out-stretched arm sway upward, her eyes open, dazed and heavy, and heard
her drowsy whimper of, "Mummy," and then, "Oh, Annie, where are you?"
Slowly, her head moving as her glance swept the unfamiliar prospect, she
sat up.
He remembered the next few minutes as something incredibly horrible, the
child’s consciousness clearing to an overwhelming fear. She looked
about, saw him, scrambled to her feet and began to scream, shrill,
terrified cries, crouching away from him like a scared animal. She made
a rush for the motor, climbing in, cowering down, calling on the names
that meant safety: "Mummy! Oh, Mummy! Gramp, Daddy—Come! _Come_ to me!"
An answer came, the hollow bray of a motor horn, the shout of a man’s
voice, then the twin spears of light, the whirring buzz of a machine
shooting out of the road’s dark tunnel—Chapman Price in the black car.
He leapt out and ran to her, caught her up, strained her to him, held
her head back to look into her face, kissed her, babbled words of love
that broke on his lips and he hid his face on her neck. She twined round
him, arms and legs clutching and clinging, sobbing out, "Popsy, Popsy!"
over and over.