XV
From the cover of a group of lilacs the detective inspector glanced swiftly back at the house a hundred yards away. A man was standing by the window scanning the shrubbery. Apparently obeying some summons from within he disappeared, only to return almost at once, accompanied by a couple of other men. Labar thought that he could recognise one of them, even at that distance, as a notorious race-gang tough who was known to be the leader of a group of violent and reckless men which the police had of late broken up. Billy Bungey had only escaped by the narrowest margin from a conviction for murder.
The three separated to approach the shrubbery from different angles. Labar hastily took stock of his position. He could not hope to cope singlehanded with three armed and resolute men. Nor, if he remained where he was, could there be any hope that he would ultimately escape discovery. He took the undignified but sensible course of resuming his flight.
Cautiously he pushed his way at a trot through the shrubbery. It gave way suddenly to a piece of park land. A little to his left but some three hundred yards away, was a belt of coppices. If he could reach them he stood a chance of dodging his pursuers. To do so, however, he must swerve obliquely towards the men and lose ground somewhat. To take any other line meant that it would be a chase in the open, in which he realised the likely possibility of being run down. He determined to take the chance of the trees.
Keeping the pistol, that he had more or less unconsciously retained, poised ready in his hand he made the dash. As he broke cover there was a shout, and the sharp report of an automatic. That for the instant did not worry him. He knew that he was out of range. The man who had fired was now running madly to cut Labar off from his objective. At the very best before the detective could reach the shelter of the trees he would be well within shot, and he feared that these men, heated by the chase, would think little of the consequences if they brought him down.
Once he stumbled over a rut in the ground and the nearest man gained several yards. Another shot rang out and this time he heard it snarl angrily over his head. There was fifty yards to go. In ordinary circumstances he could have made it, but the loss of blood from his wound had weakened him, and he knew that it would be but a matter of a few yards at the finish between him and the foremost of his pursuers—point blank range.
He halted abruptly and swinging in his tracks fired blindly at the nearest man. He took no conscious aim, for he knew himself for a rotten shot. He intended it only as a demonstration to check pursuit. But luck was with him. He saw the first man stop in his stride, and seat himself abruptly on the ground, nursing his ankle while he cursed venomously and loudly.
Labar did not stop to admire his fluke. Breathing hard, he made the shelter of the wood, and plunged on for thirty yards or so till he was satisfied that he was out of sight. Then, copying a famous historical example, he climbed into the sheltering branches of an ancient oak, and rested with fluttering breath, while behind he could hear the crackling of twigs as his two unhurt pursuers, who had abandoned their companion for the while, beat about from the point at which he had entered. He had little fear that they would discover him now, but he quietly examined his weapon as their steps drew near, then receded, then drew closer again.
At last he could distinguish their voices. “Like looking for a needle in a haystack,” complained one. “The bloke’s made a clean getaway, Billy.”
“Can’t have got far,” retorted Billy Bungey. “He’s hiding out somewhere close handy. If we don’t stop his mouth we’re for it. I know the swab and I’d be glad to make him a present of a handful of lead for old time’s sake. He’s as artful as a wagon load of monkeys.”
“Poor ol’ Jim winged out there,” said the other voice. “Hadn’t we better get back to him?”
Billy consigned Jim to the pit, with full-bodied adjectives. “Jim can look after himself. We gotta find this John if it takes a month. Didn’t you hear what Larry said? We got to stop his mouth one way or the other. He’s got it on Larry—which means the rest of us. I guess he’s got me taped anyway. He must have recognised me.”
“But, Billy, this is a dam fool’s game. He may be well away and getting help. We ought to make tracks. If he gets help—”
“Aw—shut up. You make me sick. Whatja think he’s going to do? Bring the village rozzer out by aeroplane, or what? There ain’t any police that he can get here for hours. Got an attack of the funks, ain’t you?”
“All the same I’m chuckin’ it,” returned the other, sullenly. “I’m goin’ to move out of this district swift and sharp and sudden. It won’t be none too healthy if they picket the roads. I guess Larry’ll agree. If you want to picnic in these woods you can do it on your own.”
He turned away with decision, and Billy reviling him for a yellow dog followed. Labar waited till their voices had died away. Then he got to the ground and began to pick his way at leisure through the copse. He came at length to a ride, such as is cut in these places for the convenience of sportsmen, and this rendered his progress easier. So, following this, he reached another strip of the park, and climbing a fence, found his way into a wheatfield.
He had but the remotest idea of the way in which he was travelling. But sooner or later he must come to a road of some sort, and, thus to the resources of civilisation, which were represented in his mind at the moment by one thing—a telephone. If he could get to a telephone much might be done before the day was out.
So at last he reached a country lane and, turning by pure guess work to his right, was brought at last to a superior road two minutes before a light car came speeding from the distance. He stepped to the centre of the road with arms outstretched, and as the car drew up a big-shouldered young man with a square chin peered suspiciously at him.
Labar remembered that he could not look a reassuring object. He was hatless, dishevelled and dirty, and a bramble had caught his face in the wood making a sinister scratch across it.
“What is it?” demanded the square-chinned young man.
“I want a lift to the nearest telephone, and then to a doctor’s,” explained the inspector.
“What’s wrong? I’m a doctor.”
Labar fumbled in his pockets and found his warrant card, and his ordinary official card. He passed them over to the motorist. “I’m a police officer, as these will show you. There are just two things you can do for me. One is to send a telephone message. The other is to patch me up and not bother me with questions till some later time.”
The other descended from his car. “Right you are, Mr. Labar,” he said briskly. “Since I’m here and the telephone is two or three miles away, we’ll do the patching up first. Now let’s have a look at you.”
By the side of the car Labar stripped to the waist, and the doctor with swift gentle skill examined his wound. “Nothing for a man of your physique to worry about,” he declared. “A superficial cut. Chief trouble is that you’ve been losing blood. We’ll soon put that right. Lucky for you that I’m a country practitioner, and carry my supplies about with me.” He rummaged in the car. “Reminds me of the old army days. Here, drink this, while I tie you up.”
He passed a flask to the inspector and busied himself with lint and bandages. Labar, who had been nearer to exhaustion than he had permitted himself to think, felt a wave of new life in him. He began to reconsider his plans.
“Doctor,” he asked, “would it disarrange your affairs much, if I asked your help for three or four hours?”
“Well,” said the doctor, “I can’t say that any of my patients would be likely to die in that time.”
“How fast is your car?”
“I suppose she could do seventy at a push.”
“That’s good. She can keep up with anything on the road?”
The doctor nodded. “Sure thing.”
“Then I’m going to ask you to take me along to a place called ‘Maid’s Retreat’—or rather to the road outside the lodge gates. There will be a Rolls Royce somewhere in the vicinity, and I want to follow that wherever it goes—if possible without giving the people in it an indication that we are trailing them. What is your name?”
“Ware. I’m one of the local medicos.”
“You won’t need me to tell you, Dr. Ware, after what you’ve seen of me that there may be trouble. Can you use a gun—an automatic pistol?”
“It’s some years since I handled one, but I don’t think that I’ve forgotten all that I once knew.”
“Take this then. I can’t shoot for toffee. Don’t use it unless I give you the office. Now let’s go.”
Labar’s original plan had been to get in touch with the nearest considerable town where there was any reasonable reserve of police, and have assistance sent out, while he would have also asked for steps to be taken to notify all the police forces within a big area to keep a lookout for Larry or any of his gang. That would have taken time, and it was big odds that the net would have been drawn vainly. But with a competent man, such as Dr. Ware seemed to be, at his elbow it might be possible to regain and keep touch with the gang, until an opportune moment for dealing with them arrived. They would assume, as Billy Bungey had said, that Labar would be long in getting assistance, and hampered as they were with one wounded man, if not two—for the inspector was not sure how much he had injured Larry—they would not be able to hurry unduly. He suspected that they had not brought their car into the park. That would mean a long walk down to the lodge gates. He did not see how they could have got away yet.
Something of what had happened he told the doctor. That gentleman was smiling happily as he listened. Labar diagnosed him as a fighter by temperament, who would enjoy a rough and tumble struggle far more than he enjoyed administering pills.
They passed a side turning, and the doctor nudged Labar with his elbow. “There’s your Rolls,” he said. “Your men are evidently still here. The lodge gates are quarter of a mile up. What do I do?”
“Drive right by them till we are out of sight,” said Labar. He had turned up his coat collar and was leaning well back in the car. “Then I’ll get out and take a look round. They won’t be expecting me back.”
Ware obeyed his instructions. At a bend in the road some distance beyond the lodge he pulled up. Labar got down and scribbling hastily in his notebook tore out a page. “If anyone comes along give ’em that,” he said. “Ask ’em to telephone it as quickly as possible. It’s a message to the local police.”
He moved warily along a dry ditch, till through the tall hedge he could view the drive leading to “Maid’s Retreat.” The doctor turned the car round, lit a cigarette and lifted the bonnet. That had been Labar’s suggestion. A motorist fiddling with the insides of his car was not likely to arouse suspicion if perchance one of the gang caught sight of him.
A full five minutes had gone when the inspector saw a single figure hastening along the drive. As it came nearer he recognised the second of the men who had pursued him. He considered whether he should call the doctor and arrest the man as he came out of the lodge gates. After a moment’s thought he dismissed the idea. The man must be a messenger sent to bring the car up to the house. To take him would be but to give Larry the alarm. The detective resolved to wait.
At the entrance the man took a comprehensive glance up and down the road, and then went his way. In a little the big saloon turned into the gates and disappeared up the avenue towards the house.
Labar sighed for half a dozen of the stalwarts of his staff. With them he would have had the whole lot in a trap. But it was hopeless to think that he and the doctor could do much more than wait and see, and it would be folly to take the risk. If he could find the haunt where these men were lurking the rest would be easy. The thing now was to pin them down. Burglary or no burglary, Larry Hughes had been associated in an attempt to murder him. That was enough to arrest him on. If he could once get Larry between the four walls of a cell, he promised himself that he would now get at the evidence that would convict. Better to wait. Besides, there was Penelope. He was sure now that she was being held somewhere under coercion by Larry.
He had a glimpse of the Rolls Royce coming back, and signalled to Ware. The doctor closed the bonnet and took his seat at the wheel. The inspector slipped into the place by his side and as he made himself as inconspicuous as possible, the little two seater slid into motion. There was a doubt as to which way the big car would turn at the gates. That had to be risked. The idea was to saunter by close upon it as it emerged, as though on affairs that had no concern with its occupants and thereafter to hold it in sight. Of course if it took the contrary direction to that in which they were headed there would be delay. But the doctor was confident that in any case he could overhaul it.
Fortunately they had guessed right. Barely fifty yards in front of them the big car took the turn out of the gates to the left. It was moving with deceptive speed, and Ware pushed down the accelerator. In five minutes the two seater was swaying over the not too good road like a boat at sea.
“It will make the speed,” said the doctor, clinging grimly to the wheel, “but you can’t expect a light car to hold the road like a Rolls.”
“Hang on to ’em. That’s all I ask,” said Labar.
The doctor pressed his hat more firmly on his head and nodded. Hedges and trees were speeding by them in a wild goggling procession. The speed indicator was touching fifty. It crept up to fifty-five, wavered, and went on to sixty. Once they made a wild lurch as they swerved to avoid a light farmer’s trap, and Labar thought that they were over. But by some miracle the doctor recovered. They took turnings on two wheels, and swept across a main road in defiance of the warning hand of an Automobile Association scout, to escape by half an inch crashing into a big touring car.
“That’s the Worthing Road,” exclaimed Ware. “They’re keeping to the byroads.”
“Moving east near enough,” said Labar. “I wonder if they’ve spotted us yet.”
“Have a chance if they’d get on to a frequented part,” declared the other. “If they keep to these lanes they’re bound to know that we’re following.”
The way bent and twisted and it was now only at occasional intervals that they caught glimpses of their quarry. Suddenly Ware jammed on the brakes. The car skidded on and came to a halt a yard from an unopened gate, through which the road took a right angled abrupt bend and ended peremptorily at a farmhouse. A second’s inattention on the part of the driver and they had crashed through the gate and into a pond beyond.
“Damn ’em. They’ve switched,” exclaimed Ware.
“There was a turning a quarter of a mile back,” said Labar. “I’m afraid we’ve lost the scent, but we may as well go back and try.”