CHAPTER XIX. WHAT HAPPENED TO HARLEY--CONCLUDED
He regained the curve of the drive without meeting any opposition.There, slipping the pistol into his pocket, he climbed rapidly up thetree from which he had watched the arrival of the three cars, climbedover the wall, and dropped into the weed jungle beyond. He creptstealthily forward to the gap where he had concealed the racer, drawingnearer and nearer to the bushes lining the lane. Only by a patch ofgreater darkness before him did he realize that he had reached it. Butwhen the realization came one word only he uttered: "Gone!"
His car had disappeared!
Despair was alien to his character: A true Englishman, he never knewwhen he was beaten. Beyond doubt, now, he must accept the presenceof hidden enemies surrounding him, of enemies whose presence even histrained powers of perception had been unable to detect. The intensity ofthe note of danger which he had recognized now was fully explained.He grew icily cool, master of his every faculty. "We shall see!" hemuttered, grimly.
Feeling his way into the lane, he set out running for the highroad, hisfootsteps ringing out sharply upon the dusty way. The highroad gained,he turned, not to the left, but to the right, ran up the bank and threwhimself flatly down upon it, lying close to the hedge and watching theentrance to the lane. Nothing appeared; nothing stirred. He knew thesilence to be illusive; he blamed himself for having ventured uponsuch a quest without acquainting himself with the geography of theneighbourhood.
Great issues often rest upon a needle point. He had no idea ofthe direction or extent of the park land adjoining the highroad.Nevertheless, further inaction being out of the question, creeping alongthe grassy bank, he began to retreat from the entrance to the lane. Someten yards he had progressed in this fashion when his hidden watchersmade their first mistake.
A faint sound, so faint that only a man in deadly peril could havedetected it, brought him up sharply. He crouched back against the hedge,looking behind him. For a long time he failed to observe anything.Then, against the comparatively high tone of the dusty road, he saw asilhouette--the head and shoulders of someone who peered out cautiously.
Still as the trees above him he crouched, watching, and presently, bentforward, questing to right and left, questing in a horribly suggestiveanimal fashion, the entire figure of the man appeared in the roadway.
As Paul Harley had prayed would be the case, his pursuers evidentlybelieved that he had turned in the direction of Lower Claybury. A vague,phantom figure, Harley saw the man wave his arm, whereupon a second manjoined him--a third--and, finally, a fourth.
Harley clenched his teeth grimly, and as the ominous quartet began tomove toward the left, he resumed his slow retreat to the right--goingever farther away, of necessity, from the only centre with which he wasacquainted and from which he could hope to summon assistance. Finallyhe reached a milestone resting almost against the railings of the ManorPark.
Drawing a deep breath, he sprang upon the milestone, succeeded ingrasping the top of the high iron railings, and hauled himself upbodily.
Praying that the turf might be soft, he jumped. Fit though he was, andhardened by physical exercise, the impact almost stunned him. He camedown like an acrobat--left foot, right foot, and then upon his hands,but nevertheless he lay there for a moment breathless and temporarilynumbed by the shock.
In less than a minute he was on his feet again and looking alertly abouthim. Striking into the park land, turning to the left, and parallelingthe highroad, he presently came out upon the roadway, along which undershelter of a straggling hedge, he began to double back. In sight of theroad dipping down to Lower Claybury he crossed, forcing his way througha second hedge thickly sown with thorns.
Badly torn, but careless of such minor injuries, he plunged heavilythrough a turnip field, and, bearing always to the left, came outfinally upon the road leading to the station, and only some fifty yardsfrom the bottom of the declivity.
A moment he paused, questioning the silence. He was unwilling to believethat he had outwitted his pursuers. His nerves were strung to highesttension, and his strange gift of semi-prescience told him that dangerwas at least as imminent as ever, even though he could neither see norhear his enemies. Therefore, pistol in hand again, he descended to thefoot of the hill.
He remembered having noticed, when he had applied to the porter forinformation respecting the residence of Ormuz Khan, that upon a windowadjoining the entrance had appeared the words "Station Master." Thestation master's office, therefore, was upon the distant side of theline.
Now came the hardest blow of all. The station was closed for the night.Nor was there any light in the signal box. Evidently no other trainwas due upon that branch line until some time in the early morning.The level crossing gate was open, but before breaking cover he pauseda while to consider what he should do. Lower Claybury was one of thosestations which have no intimate connection with any township. Thenearest house, so far as Harley could recall, was fully twenty yardsfrom the spot at which he stood. Furthermore, the urgency of the casehad fired the soul of the professional investigator.
He made up his mind, and, darting out into the road, he ran acrossthe line, turned sharply, and did not pause until he stood before thestation master's window. Then his quick wits were put to their ultimatetest.
Right, left, it seemed from all about him, came swiftly patteringfootsteps! Instantly he divined the truth. Losing his tracks upon thehighroad above, a section of his pursuers had surrounded the station,believing that he would head for it in retreat.
Paul Harley whipped off his coat in a flash, and using it as a ram,smashed the window. He reached up, found the catch, and opened the sash.In ten seconds he was in the room, and a great clatter told him that hehad overturned some piece of furniture.
Disentangling his coat, he sought and found the electric torch. Hepressed the button. No light came. It was broken! He drew a hissingbreath, and began to grope about the little room. At last his handtouched the telephone, and, taking it up:
"Hello!" he said. "Hello!"
"Yes," came the voice of the operator--"what number?"
"City 8951. Police business! Urgent!"
One, two, three seconds elapsed, four, five, six.
"Hello!" came the voice of Innes.
"That you, Innes?" said Harley. And, interrupting the other's reply: "Iam by no means safe, Innes! I am in one of the tightest corners of mylife. Listen: Get Wessex! If he's off duty, get Burton. Tell him tobring--"
Someone leaped in at the broken window behind the speaker. Resting thetelephone upon the table, where he had found it, Harley reached into hiship pocket and snapped out his automatic.
Dimly he could hear Innes speaking. He half-turned, raised the pistol,and knew a sudden intense pain at the back of his skull. A thousandlights seemed suddenly to split the darkness. He felt himself sinkinginto an apparently bottomless pit.