CHAPTER VII
THE MOTOR BANDIT
Early the next morning, the telephone bell began to ring violently. Themessage must have been short, for I could not gather from Garrick'sreply what it was about, although I could tell by the startled look onhis face that something unexpected had happened.
"Hurry and finish dressing, Tom," he called, as he hung up the receiver.
"What's the matter?" I asked, from my room, still struggling with mytie.
"Warrington was severely injured in a motor-car accident late lastnight, or rather early this morning, near Tuxedo."
"Near Tuxedo?" I repeated incredulously. "How could he have got upthere? It was midnight when we left him in New York."
"I know it. Apparently he must have wanted to see Miss Winslow. She isup there, you know. I suppose that in order to be there this morning,early, he decided to start after he left us. I thought he seemedanxious to get away. Besides, you remember he took that letteryesterday afternoon, and I totally forgot to ask him for it last night.I'll wager it was on account of that slanderous letter that he wantedto go, that he wanted to explain it to her as soon as he could."
There had been no details in the hasty message over the wire, exceptthat Warrington was now at the home of a Doctor Mead, a local physicianin a little town across the border of New York and New Jersey. The moreI thought about it, the more I felt that it was extremely unlikely thatit could have been an accident, after all. Might it not have been theresult of an attack or a trap laid by some strong-arm man who had setout to get him and had almost succeeded in accomplishing his purpose of"getting him right," to use the vernacular of the class?
We made the trip by railroad, passing the town where the report hadcome to us before of the finding of the body of Rena Taylor. There was,of course, no one at the station to meet us, and, after wasting sometime in learning the direction, we at last walked to Dr. Mead'scottage, a quaint home, facing the state road that led from Suffern upto the Park, and northward.
Dr. Mead, who had telephoned, admitted us himself. We found Warringtonswathed in bandages, and only half conscious. He had been under theinfluence of some drug, but, before that, the doctor told us, he hadbeen unconscious and had only one or two intervals in which he wassufficiently lucid to talk.
"How did it happen?" asked Garrick, almost as soon as we had enteredthe doctor's little office.
"I had had a bad case up the road," replied the doctor slowly, "and ithad kept me out late. I was driving my car along at a cautious pacehomeward, some time near two o'clock, when I came to a point in theroad where there are hills on one side and the river on the other. As Ineared the curve, a rather sharp curve, too, I remember the lights onmy own car were shining on the white fence that edged the river side ofthe road. I was keeping carefully on my own side, which was toward thehill.
"As I was about to turn, I heard the loud purring of an engine comingin my direction, and a moment later I saw a car with glaringheadlights, driven at a furious pace, coming right at me. It slowed upa little, and I hugged the hill as close as I could, for I know some ofthese reckless young drivers up that way, and this curve was in thedirection where the temptation is for one going north to get on thewrong side of the road--that is, my side--in order to take advantage ofthe natural slope of the macadam in turning the curve at high speed.Still, this fellow didn't prove so bad, after all. He gave me a wideberth.
"Just then there came a blinding flash right out of the darkness. Backof his car a huge, dark object had loomed up almost like a ghost. Itwas another car, back of the first one, without a single light,travelling apparently by the light shed by the forward car. It hadovertaken the first and had cut in between us with not half a foot tospare on either side. It was the veriest piece of sheer luck I ever sawthat we did not all go down together.
"With the flash I heard what sounded like a bullet zip out of thedarkness. The driver of the forward car stiffened out for a moment.Then he pitched forward, helpless, over the steering wheel. His cardashed ahead, straight into the fence instead of taking the curve, andthrew the unconscious driver. Then the car wrecked itself."
"And the car in the rear?" inquired Garrick eagerly.
"Dashed ahead between us safely around the curve--and was gone. Icaught just one glimpse of its driver--a man all huddled up, his collarup over his neck and chin, his cap pulled forward over his eyes,goggles covering the rest of his face, and shrouded in what seemed tobe a black coat, absolutely as unrecognizable as if he had been aphantom bandit, or death itself. He was steering with one hand, and inthe other he held what must have been a revolver."
"And then?" prompted Garrick.
"I had stopped with my heart in my mouth at the narrowness of my ownescape from the rushing black death. Pursuit was impossible. My car wascapable of no such burst of speed as his. And then, too, there was agroaning man down in the ravine below. I got out, clambered over thefence, and down in the shrubbery into the pitch darkness.
"Fortunately, the man had been catapulted out before his car turnedover. I found him, and with all the strength I could muster and asgently as I was able carried him up to the road. When I held him underthe light of my lamps, I saw at once that there was not a moment tolose. I fixed him in the rear of my car as comfortably as I could andthen began a race to get him home here where I have almost a privatehospital of my own, as quickly as possible."
Cards in his pocket had identified Warrington and Dr. Mead rememberedhaving heard the name. The prompt attention of the doctor hadundoubtedly saved the young man's life.
Over and over again, Dr. Mead said, in his delirium Warrington hadrepeated the name, "Violet--Violet!" It was as Garrick had surmised,his desire to stand well in her eyes that had prompted the midnightjourney. Yet who the assailant might be, neither Dr. Mead nor thebroken raving of Warrington seemed to afford even the slightest clew.That he was a desperate character, without doubt in desperate straitsover something, required no great acumen to deduce.
Toward morning in a fleeting moment of lucidity, Warrington hadmentioned Garrick's name in such a way that Dr. Mead had looked it upin the telephone directory and then at the earliest moment had calledup.
"Exactly the right thing," reassured Garrick. "Can't you think ofanything else that would identify the driver of that other car?"
"Only that he was a wonderful driver, that fellow," pursued the doctor,admiration getting the better of his horror now that the thing wasover. "I couldn't describe the car, except that it was a big one andseemed to be of a foreign make. He was crowding Warrington as much ashe dared with safety to himself--and not a light on his own car, too,remember."
Garrick's face was puckered in thought.
"And the most remarkable thing of all about it," added the doctor,rising and going over to a white enameled cabinet in the corner of hisoffice, "was that wound from the pistol."
The doctor paused to emphasize the point he was about to make."Apparently it put Warrington out," he resumed. "And yet, after all, Ifind that it is only a very superficial flesh wound of the shoulder.Warrington's condition is really due to the contusions he receivedowing to his being thrown from the car. His car wasn't going very fastat the time, for it had slowed down for me. In one way that wasfortunate--although one might say it was the cause of everything, sincehis slowing down gave the car behind a chance to creep up on him thefew feet necessary.
"Really I am sure that even the shock of such a wound wasn't enough tomake an experienced driver like Warrington lose control of the machine.It is a fairly wide curve, after all, and--well, my contention isproved by the fact that I examined the wreck of the car this morningand found that he had had time to shut off the gas and cut out theengine. He had time to think of and do that before he lost absolutecontrol of the car."
Dr. Mead had been standing by the cabinet as he talked. Now he openedit and took from it the bullet which he had probed out of the wound. Helooked at it a minute himself, then handed it to Garrick. I bent overalso and examined it as it l
ay in Guy's hand.
At first I thought it was an ordinary bullet. But the more I examinedit the more I was convinced that there was something peculiar about it.In the nose, which was steel-jacketed, were several little rounddepressions, just the least fraction of an inch in depth.
"It is no wonder Warrington was put out, even by that superficialwound," remarked Garrick at last. "His assailant's aim may have beenbad, as it must necessarily have been from one rapidly approaching carat a person in another rapidly moving car, also. But the motor bandit,whoever he is, provided against that. That bullet is what is known asan anesthetic bullet."
"An anesthetic bullet?" repeated both Dr. Mead and myself. "What isthat?"
"A narcotic bullet," Garrick explained, "a sleep-producing bullet, ifyou please, a sedative bullet that lulls its victim into almost instantslumber. It was invented quite recently by a Pittsburgh scientist. Theanesthetic bullet provides the poor marksman with all the advantages ofthe expert gunman of unerring aim."
I marvelled at the ingenuity of the man who could figure out how toovercome the seeming impossibility of accurate shooting from a carracing at high speed. Surely, he must be a desperate fellow.
While we were talking, the doctor's wife who had been attendingWarrington until a nurse arrived, came to inform him that the effect ofthe sedative, which he had administered while Warrington was restlessand groaning, was wearing off. We waited a little while, and then Dr.Mead himself informed us that we might see our friend for a minute.
Even in his half-drowsy state of pain Warrington appeared to recogniseGarrick and assume that he had come in response to his own summons.Garrick bent down, and I could just distinguish what Warrington wastrying to say to him.
"Wh--where's Violet?" he whispered huskily, "Does she know? Don't lether get--frightened--I'll be--all right."
Garrick laid his hand on Warrington's unbandaged shoulder, but saidnothing.
"The--the letter," he murmured ramblingly. "I have it--in myapartment--in the little safe. I was going to Tuxedo--to seeViolet--explain slander--tell her closing place--didn't know it wasmine before. Good thing to close it--Forbes is a heavy loser. Shedoesn't know that."
Warrington lapsed back on his pillow and Dr. Mead beckoned to us towithdraw without exciting him any further.
"What difference does it make whether she knows about Forbes or not?" Iqueried as we tiptoed down the hall.
Garrick shook his head doubtfully. "Can't say," he replied succinctly."It may be that Forbes, too, has aspirations."
The idea sent me off into a maze of speculations, but it did notenlighten me much. At any rate, I felt, Warrington had said enough toexplain his presence in that part of the country. On one thing, as Ihave said, Garrick had guessed right. The blackmailing letter and whatwe had seen the night before at the crooked gambling joint had been toomuch for him. He had not been able to rest as long as he was under acloud with Miss Winslow until he had had a chance to set himself rightin her eyes.
There seemed to be nothing that we could do for him just then. He wasin excellent hands, and now that the doctor knew who he was, a trainednurse had even been sent for from the city and arrived on the trainfollowing our own, thus relieving Mrs. Mead of her faithful care of him.
Garrick gave the nurse strict instructions to make exact notes ofanything that Warrington might say, and then requested the doctor totake us to the scene of the tragedy. We were about to start, whenGarrick excused himself and hurried back into the house, reappearing ina few minutes.
"I thought perhaps, after all, it would be best to let Miss Winslowknow of the accident, as long as it isn't likely to turn out seriouslyin the end for Warrington," he explained, joining us again in Dr.Mead's car which was waiting in front of the house. "So I called up heraunt's at Tuxedo and when Miss Winslow answered the telephone I brokethe news to her as gently as I could. Warrington need have no fearabout that girl," he added.
The wrecked car, we found, had not yet been moved, nor had the brokenfence been repaired. It was, in fact, an accident worth studyingtopographically. That part of the road itself near the fence seemed tointerest Garrick greatly. Two or three cars passed while we waited andhe noted how carefully each of them seemed to avoid that side towardthe broken fence, as though it were haunted.
"I hope they've all done that," Garrick remarked, as he continued toexamine the road, which was a trifle damp under the high trees thatshaded it.
As he worked, I could not believe that it was wholly fancy that causedme to think of him as searching with dilated nostrils, like ascientific human bloodhound. For, it was not long before I began torealize what he was looking for in the marks of cars left on the oiledroadway.
During perhaps half an hour he continued studying the road, above andbelow the exact point of the accident. At length a low exclamation fromhim brought me to his side. He had dropped down in the grease,regardless of his knees and was peering at some rather deep imprints inthe surface dressing. There, for a few feet, were plainly the marks ofthe outside tires of a car, still unobliterated.
Garrick had pulled out copies of the photographs he had made of thetire marks that had been left at the scene of the finding of theunfortunate Rena Taylor's body, and was busy comparing them with themarks that were before him.
"Of course," Garrick muttered to me, "if the anti-skid marks of thetires were different, it would have proved nothing, just as in theother case where we looked for the tire prints. But here, too, a glanceshows that at least it is the same make of tires."
He continued his comparison. It did not take me long to surmise what hewas doing. He was taking the two sets of marks and, inch by inch, goingover them, checking up the little round metal insertions that wereplaced in this style of tire to give it a firmer grip.
"Here's one missing, there's another," he cried excitedly. "By Jove, itcan't be mere coincidence. There's one that is worn--another broken.They correspond. Yes, that MUST be the same car, in each case. And ifit was the stolen car, then it was Warrington's own car that was usedin pursuing him and in almost making away with him!"