The Motor Pirate Part 21

"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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.s 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 gra.s.shopper, 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 a.n.a.lyse 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 pa.s.sed 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 gla.s.s of hock. Don't you think the air is cooler already? I begin to feel quite an appet.i.te 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 appet.i.te."

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sionately. "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.