The Yellow Streak Part 42

The secretary stretched across and pulled back the latch, releasing the door. It swung out.

"Now close it," said Mr. Jeekes.

The door was flapping to and fro with the swaying of the car over the rough road and Robin had to half rise in order to comply with the request. He was leaning forward, steadying himself with one hand grasping the back of the driving-seat, when he received a tremendous shove in the back. At the same moment the car seemed to leap forward: he made a desperate effort to regain his balance, failed, and was whirled out head foremost on to the side of the road.

Fortunately for himself he fell soft. The road ran here through a little wood of young oak and beech which came right down to the edge of the _chaussee_. The ground was deep in withered leaves which, with the rain and the water draining from the road's high camber, were soft and soggy. Robin went full length into this muss with a thud that shook every bone in his body. His left leg, catching in a bare gorse-bush, acted as a brake and stopped him from rolling farther. He sat up, his mouth full of mud and his hair full of wet leaves, and felt himself carefully over. He contemplated rather ruefully a long rent in the left leg of his trousers just across the knee.

"Jeekes!" he murmured; "he pushed me out! The dirty dog!"

Then he remembered that, with the men in the car gone, he had lost trace again of Mary Trevert. His forcible ejection from the car was evidence enough of their determination to deal with Mary without interference from outside. It looked ominous. Robin sprang to his feet and rushed to the middle of the road.

The _chaussee_ was absolutely empty. About a hundred yards from where he stood in the direction in which the car had been travelling the road made a sharp bend to the right, thus curtailing his view. Robin did not hesitate. Not waiting to retrieve his hat or even to wipe the mud from his face, he started off at a brisk run along the road in the direction in which the car had disappeared. He had not gone far before he found that his heavy overcoat was seriously impeding him. He stripped it off and, folding it, hid it beneath a bush just inside the plantation. Then he ran on again.

Fresh disappointment awaited him when he rounded the bend in the road. A few hundred yards on the road turned again. There was no sign of the car. A cart piled high with manure was approaching, the driver, wearing wooden shoes and cracking at intervals a huge whip, trudging at the side.

Robin stopped him.

"Motor-car? Automobile?" he asked pointing in the direction from which the cart had come. The driver stared at him with a look of owlish stupidity.

"Automobile?" repeated Robin. "Tuff-Tuff?"

Very slowly a grin suffused the carter's grimy face. He showed a row of broken black teeth. A tiny stream of saliva escaped from the corner of his mouth and trickled over the reddish stubble on his chin. Then he continued his way, turning his head every now and then to display his idiot's grin.

"d.a.m.nation!" exclaimed Robin, starting to run again. "Not a soul to ask in this accursed desert except the village idiot! Oh! that Jeekes! I'll wring his blinking neck when I get hold of him!"

He was furious with himself for the abject way in which he had been fooled. The man Victor had given Jeekes his orders in Dutch and had purposely picked a soft spot on the roadside and slowed down the car in order that the unwelcome intruder might be ejected as safely as possible. And to think that Robin had blandly allowed Jeekes to open the door and throw him out on the road!

He was round the second bend now. The sun was s.h.i.+ning with a quite respectable warmth and the steamy air made him desperately hot. The perspiration rolled off his face. But he never slackened his gait. Robin knew these Continental roads and their habit of running straight. He reckoned confidently on presently coming upon a long stretch where he might discern the car.

He was not deceived. After the second bend the _chaussee_, just as he antic.i.p.ated, straightened out and ran clear away between an ever-narrowing double line of poplars to become a bluish blob on the horizon. But of the car nothing was to be seen.

For the second time Robin pulled up. He took serious counsel with himself. He estimated that he could see for about three miles along the road. Less than three minutes had elapsed since his misadventure, and therefore he was confident that the car should yet be in sight, unless it had left the road, for it could not have warmed up to a speed exceeding sixty miles an hour in the time. There was no sign of the car on the road, consequently it must have left it. Robin had pa.s.sed no side roads between the scene of the accident and the second bend; therefore, he argued, he had the car before him still. He would go on.

When he started off for the third time, it was at a brisk walking pace.

As he went he kept a sharp lookout to right and left of the road for any trace of the car. It never occurred to him that to follow on foot a swift car bound for an unknown destination was the maddest kind of wild-goose chase. He was profoundly uneasy about Mary, but at the same time immeasurably angered by the trick played upon him--angered not so much against Jeekes as against the sallow-faced man whom he recognized as its inceptor. He had no thought for anything else.

The flat Dutch landscape stretched away on either side of the road. A windmill or two, the inevitable irrigation ca.n.a.ls with their little sluices, and an occasional tree alone broke the monotony of the scene.

But away to the right Robin noticed a clump of trees which, he surmised, might conceivably enclose a house.

As he walked, he scrutinized the roadway for any track of a car. But on the hard brick _pave_ wheels left no mark. The first side road he came to was likewise paved in brick. In grave perplexity Robin came to a halt.

Then his eye fell upon a puddle. It lay on the edge of the footpath bordering the _chaussee_ about five yards beyond the turning. The soft mud which skirted it showed the punched-out pattern of a studded tyre!

The car had not taken this side road, at any rate. It had probably pulled over on to the footpath to pa.s.s the manure cart which Robin had met. He pushed on again valiantly.

Another hundred yards brought him to a second side road. There was no _pave_ here, but a soft sandy surface. And it bore, clearly imprinted in the mud, the fresh tracks of a car as it had turned off the road.

Breaking into a run Robin followed the track down the turning. It led him to a black gate beyond which was a twisting gravel drive fringed with high laurels. And the gravel showed the same tyre marks as the road.

He vaulted the gate lightly and ran up the drive. He was revolving in his head what his next move should be. Should he walk boldly into the house and confront Jeekes and his rascally looking companion or should he first spy out the ground and try to ascertain whether Mary had arrived? He decided on the latter course.

Accordingly, when an unexpected turn of the drive brought him in view of a white porch, he left the avenue and took cover behind the laurel bushes. Walking softly on the wet gra.s.s and keeping well down behind the laurels, he went forward parallel with the drive. It ran into a clean courtyard with a coachhouse or garage on one side and a small green door, seemingly a side entrance into the house, on the other.

There was no one in the courtyard and the house seemed perfectly quiet.

From his post of observation behind the laurels, Robin observed that a tall window beside the green door commanded the view across the courtyard. He therefore retraced his steps by the way he had come. When he was past the corner of the house, he returned to the drive and keeping close to the bushes walked quietly into the courtyard. There, hugging the wall, he crept round past the closed doors of the garage until he found himself beside the tall window adjoining the green door.

The window was open a few inches at the top. From within the sound of voices reached him. Jeekes was speaking. Robin recognized his rather grating voice at once.

"... no more violence," he was saying; "first Greve and now the girl. I don't like your methods, Victor ..."

Very cautiously Robin dropped on one knee and shuffled forward in this position until his eyes were on a level with the window-sill. He found himself looking into a narrow room, well lighted by a second window at the farther end. It was apparently an office, for there was a high desk running down the centre and a large safe occupied a prominent place against the wall.

Jeekes and the man Victor stood chatting at the desk. The yellow-faced man was grinning sardonically.

"Parrish don't like your methods, I'll be bound," he retorted. "Don't you worry about the little lady, Jeekes! Bless your heart, I won't hurt her unless ..."

The loud throbbing of a car at the front of the house made Robin duck his head hastily. The car, he guessed, might be round at the garage any moment and it would not do for him to be discovered. He got clear of the window, rose to his feet, and tiptoed round the house by the way he had come. Then he crossed the drive and regained the shelter of the laurels.

Crawling along until he came level with the porch, he peeped through.

Mary Trevert was just entering the house.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MR. SCHULZ

As the girl collapsed, the yellow-faced man, with an adroit movement, whisked the handkerchief off her face and crammed it into his pocket.

Then, while he supported her with one arm, with the other he thrust at the door to close it. Without paying further attention to it, he turned and, bending down, lifted the girl without an effort off her feet and carried her across the room to the Chesterfield, upon which he laid her at full length. Then he seized her m.u.f.f, which dangled from her neck by a thin platinum chain.

Suddenly he heard the door behind him creak. In a flash he remembered that he had not heard the click of the lock as he had thrust the door to. He was springing erect when a firm hand gripped him by the back of the collar and pulled him away from the couch. He staggered back, striving to regain his balance, but then a savage shove flung him head foremost into the fireplace. He fell with a crash among the fire-irons.

But he was on his feet again in an instant.

He saw a tall, athletic-looking young man standing at the couch. He had a remarkably square jaw; his eyes were s.h.i.+ning and he breathed heavily.

He wore a blue serge suit which was heavily besmeared with white plaster and the trousers were rent across one knee. Straight at his throat sprang the yellow-faced man.

Something struck him halfway. The young man had waited composedly for his coming, but as his a.s.sailant advanced, had shot out his left hand.

There was a sharp crack and the yellow-faced man, reeling, dropped face downwards on the carpet without a sound. In his fall his foot caught a small table on which a vase of chrysanthemums stood, and the whole thing went over with a loud crash. He made a spasmodic effort to rise, hoisted himself on to his knees, swayed again, and then collapsed full length on the floor, where he lay motionless.

The sound of the fall seemed to awaken the girl. She stirred uneasily once or twice.

"What ... what is it?" she muttered, and was still again.

Bending down, the young man gathered her up in his arms and bore her out through the door with the blue curtain, through a plainly furnished sort of office with high desks and stools, and out by a side door into a paved yard. There an open car was standing. The fresh air seemed to revive the girl further. As the young man laid her on the seat, she struggled up into a sitting position and pa.s.sed her hand across her forehead.

"What is the matter with me?" she said in a dazed voice; "I feel so ill!"