The Bartlett Mystery Part 39

He was asking himself what new gibe Clancy would spring on him when the story of the night's fiasco came out.

CHAPTER XXV

FLANK ATTACKS

Somewhat tired, having ridden that day to Poughkeepsie and back, Petch, nevertheless, put up a great race after the fleeing motor-car.

His muscles were rejuvenated by Polly Barnard's exciting news and no less by admiration for the girl herself. Little thinking that Jim, the plumber, was performing deeds of derring-do in the hall of Gateway House, he congratulated himself on the lucky chance which enabled him to oblige the fair Polly. He dashed into the road to Hoboken, and found, to his joy, that the dust raised by the pa.s.sage of the car gave an unfailing clue to its route. Now, a well-regulated motor-cycle can run rings round any other form of automobile, no matter how many horses may be pent in the cylinders, if on an ordinary road and subjected to the exigencies of traffic.

Voles, break-neck driver though he was, dared not disregard the traffic regulations and risk a smash-up. He got the best out of the engine, but was compelled to go steadily through cl.u.s.ters of houses and around tree-shaded corners. To his great amazement, as he was tearing through the last habitations before crossing the New Jersey flats, he was hailed loudly from behind:

"Hi, you--pull up!"

He glanced over his shoulder. A motor-cyclist, white with dust, was riding after him with tremendous energy.

"Hola!" cried Voles, s.n.a.t.c.hing another look. "What's the matter?"

Petch should have temporized, done one of a hundred things he thought of too late; but he was so breathless after the terrific sprint in which he overtook Voles that he blurted out:

"I know you--you can't escape--there's the girl herself--I see her!"

"h.e.l.l!"

Voles urged on the car by foot and finger. After him pelted Petch, with set teeth and straining eyes. The magnificent car, superb in its energies, swept through the night like the fiery dragon of song and fable, but with a speed never attained by dragon yet, else there would be room on earth for nothing save dragons. And the motor-cycle leaped and bounded close behind, stuttering its resolve to conquer the monster in front.

The pair created a great commotion as they whirred past scattered houses and emerged into the keen, cold air of the marshland. A few cars met en route actually slowed up, and heads were thrust out to peer in wonder.

Women in them were scared, and enjoined drivers to be careful, while men explained laughingly that a couple of joy-riders were being chased by a motor "cop."

It was neck or nothing now for Voles, and when these alternatives offered, he never hesitated as to which should be chosen. He knew he was in desperate case.

The pace; the extraordinary appearance of a hatless man and a girl with her hair streaming wild--for Winifred's abundant tresses had soon shed all restraint of pins and twists before the tearing wind of their transit--would create a tumult in Hoboken. Something must be done. He must stop the car and shoot that pestiferous cyclist, who had sprung out of the ground as though one of Medusa's teeth had lain buried there throughout the ages, and become a panoplied warrior at a woman's cry.

He looked ahead. There was no car in sight. He peered over his shoulder.

There was no cyclist! Petch had not counted on this frenzied race, and his petrol-tank was empty. He had pulled up disconsolately half a mile away, and was now borrowing a gallon of gas from an Orange-bound car, explaining excitedly that he was "after" a murderer!

Voles laughed. The fiend's luck, which seldom fails the fiend's votaries, had come to his aid in a highly critical moment. There remained Winifred. She, too, must be dealt with. Now, all who have experienced the effect of an anesthetic will understand that after the merely stupefying power of the gas has waned there follows a long period of semi-hysteria, when actual existence is dreamlike, and impressions of events are evanescent. Winifred, therefore, hardly appreciated what was taking place until the car stopped abruptly, and the stupor of cold pa.s.sed almost simultaneously with the stupor of anesthesia.

But Voles had his larger plan now. With coolness and daring he might achieve it. All depended on the discretion of those left behind in Gateway House. It was impossible to keep Winifred always in durance, or to prevent her everlastingly from obtaining help. That fool of a cyclist, for instance, had he contented himself with riding quietly behind until he reached the ferry, would have wrecked the exploit beyond repair.

There remained one last move, but it was a perfect one in most ways.

Would Fowle keep his mouth shut? Voles cursed Fowle in his thought. Were it not for Fowle there would have been no difficulty. Carshaw would never have met Winifred, and the girl would have been as wax in the hands of Rachel Craik. He caught hold of Winifred's arm.

"If you scream I'll choke you!" he said fiercely.

Shaken by the chloroform mixture, benumbed as the outcome of an unprotected drive, the girl was physically as well as mentally unable to resist. He coiled her hair into a knot, gagged her dexterously with a silk handkerchief--Voles knew all about gags--and tied her hands behind her back with a shoe-lace. Then he adjusted the hood and side-screens.

He did these things hurriedly, but without fumbling. He was losing precious minutes, for the telephone-wire might yet throttle him; but the periods of waiting at the ferry and while crossing the Hudson must be circ.u.mvented in some way or other. His last act before starting the car was to show Winifred the revolver he never lacked.

"See this!" he growled into her ear. "I'm not going to be held by any cop. At the least sign of a move by you to attract attention I'll put the first bullet through the cop, the second through you, and the third through myself, if I can't make my get-away. Better believe that. I mean it."

He asked for no token of understanding on her part. He was stating only the plain facts. In a word, Voles was born to be a great man, and an unhappy fate had made him a scoundrel. But fortune still befriended him.

Rain fell as he drove through Hoboken. The ferry was almost deserted, and the car was wedged in between two huge mail-vans on board the boat.

Hardened rascal though he was, Voles breathed a sigh of relief as he drove unchallenged past a uniformed policeman on arriving at Christopher Street. He guessed his escape was only a matter of minutes. In reality, he was gone some ten seconds when the policeman was called to the phone.

As for Petch, that valorous knight-errant crossed on the next boat, and the Hoboken police were already on the _qui vive_.

Every road into and out of New York was soon watched by sharp eyes on the lookout for a car bearing a license numbered in the tens of thousands, and tenanted by a hatless man and a girl in indoor costume.

Quickly the circles lessened in concentric rings through the agencies of telephone-boxes and roundsmen.

At half past nine a patrolman found a car answering the description standing outside an up-town saloon on the East Side. Examining the register number he saw at once that blacking had been smeared over the first and last figures. Then he knew. But there was no trace of the driver. Voles and Winifred had vanished into thin air.

Mrs. Carshaw, breakfasting with a haggard and weary son, revealed that Senator Meiklejohn was at Atlantic City. He kissed her for the news.

"Meiklejohn must wait, mother," he said. "Winifred is somewhere in New York. I cannot tear myself away to Atlantic City to-day. When I have found her, I shall deal with Meiklejohn."

Then came Steingall, and he and Mrs. Carshaw exchanged a glance which the younger man missed.

Mrs. Carshaw, sitting a while in deep thought after the others had gone, rang up a railway company. Atlantic City is four hours distant from New York. By hurrying over certain inquiries she wished to make, she might catch a train at midday.

She drove to her lawyers. At her request a smart clerk was lent to her for a couple of hours. They consulted various records. The clerk made many notes on foolscap sheets in a large, round hand, and Mrs. Carshaw, seated in the train, read them many times through her gold-mounted lorgnette.

It was five o'clock when a taxi brought her to the Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel, and Senator Meiklejohn was the most astonished man on the Jersey coast at the moment when she entered unannounced, for Mrs. Carshaw had simply said to the elevator-boy: "Take me to Senator Meiklejohn's sitting-room."

Undeniably he was startled; but playing desperately for high stakes had steadied him somewhat. Perhaps the example of his stronger brother had some value, too, for he rose with sufficient affability.

"What a pleasant _rencontre_, Mrs. Carshaw," he said. "I had no notion you were within a hundred miles of the Board Walk."

"That is not surprising," she answered, sinking into a comfortable chair. "I have just arrived. Order me some sandwiches and a cup of tea.

I'm famished."

He obeyed.

"I take it you have come to see me?" he said, quietly enough, though aware of a queer fluttering about the region of his heart.

"Yes. I am so worried about Rex."

"Dear me! The girl?"

"It is always a woman. How you men must loathe us in your sane moments, if you ever have any."

"I flatter myself that I am sane, yet how could I say that I loathe _your_ s.e.x, Mrs. Carshaw?"

"I wonder if your flattery will bear a.n.a.lysis. But there! No serious talk until I am refreshed. Do ring for some biscuits; sandwiches are apt to be slow in the cutting."

Thus by pretext she kept him from direct converse until a tea-tray, with a film of _pate de fois_ coyly hidden in thin bread and b.u.t.ter, formed, as it were, a rampart between them.