From the shore behind him he heard Birch’s agonized voice shouting to the girl, and while still battling with the water he listened anxiously for the reply.
It came at last, still far beyond him and a little to his right.
Having breasted the cold current he came to a patch of warm water, and then into another current, a violently flowing stream which took him some way out of his course, and he had to wait for Judy’s shout before he could fight his way back into position again.
At last he saw the boat. His eyes had become accustomed to the light, and it seemed to him that the moving clouds had actually permitted more light to reach the surface of the water.
He made out the tiny craft with great difficulty. It was not moving, or at least it seemed to be drifting only very slowly.
He ploughed on and was well nigh exhausted when at last he stretched out his hand and reached the gunwale.
Judy was crouching in the bottom of the boat. At the sound of his voice a scream escaped her. Then she burst into tears.
David, scrambling into the boat, found her on the point of exhaustion. Both oars had slipped overboard, and she seemed to have not even enough strength to sit up. She clung to him like a child and lay sobbing on his shoulder.
David held her close.
“Don’t worry, dear. It’s all right now. What’s the matter? What happened?”
She sobbed out her story, and David began to understand.
“I haven’t any strength,” she said. “I kept on rowing, but the current pulled me out of my course. I thought I was going to die. But I got past one stream, and then I think I must have fainted. When I came to myself I heard someone call, and I was alone out here, and the oars had gone. There aren’t any rowlocks, you see.”
David made the girl comfortable as best he could and then took stock of the situation. He could not hope to get the boat back to shore as it was, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that the craft was drifting more swiftly now. He shouted to the shore, and, although there was an answering hail from Lionel Birch, no words were distinguishable.
However, David did not worry. Bloomer, he had no doubt, had done his telephoning by this time, and a motorboat was being launched to find them.
A few minutes later his alarm increased again, however. The boat was certainly moving more swiftly now. She was being urged along by a force which he knew must be irresistible. Faster went the little boat and faster, and David began to understand what Bloomer had meant when he had said “a reg’lar whirlpool.” The water had become choppy, and the little boat was none too safe. At any moment he felt she might overturn. But there was nothing to do but to wait.
Judy lay with her head on his shoulder, her face ashen in the dimness.
Once the little boat dipped and shipped so much water that he was forced to bale feverishly. It was a nightmare situation.
He realized that Judy was ill, and his anxiety for her increased at every moment. The little boat was speeding on, dipping and rolling on her perilous journey. From far off across the bay the light blinked and wavered. It seemed little nearer now that it had been from the shore, and David realized that the journey was much longer, besides being a thousand times more perilous, than he or the girl had dreamed.
And then suddenly, when the darkness seemed to have settled over them again and the water seemed to be licking the sides of the little boat malignantly and hungrily, the thing that David had prayed for happened.
A beam of light swept out over the surface of the water, and at the same time the soft chug-chugging of a motorboat engine reached his ears.
David was surprised. Bloomer had summoned aid much more quickly than he dared hope. But there it was, and he rose in his seat and signalled frantically, while the boat rocked unsteadily beneath him.
The searchlight passed over them and then ran along the coast, picking up the lonely house with its darkened windows. It hovered over the garden, and David strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of either of his companions who might signal the little boat’s whereabouts to the rescue party.
To his surprise the motorboat seemed to decide to put in at the end of the garden, and he shouted vigorously, waving his arms to summon assistance.
Suddenly those in the boat seemed to hear. The searchlight was directed full upon them. Judy scrambled up beside the young man and waved also.
David heaved a sigh of relief. The searchlight remained where it was, and he heard the motor-boat turn and speed through the water towards them.
As it bore down upon them the dazzling searchlight completely blinded the young people in the boat. Judy, overcome by the strain, had dropped to her knees.
David braced himself. He realized that the rescue was not going to be effected without a considerable amount of difficulty.
At last the motorboat was upon them, and David saw to his surprise that it was a much more powerful craft than he had suspected. A gruff voice hailed him, and the question which came over the speeding water was unexpected.
“How many of you are there?”
“Two. There’s a girl here. She’s fainting. Can you take us off?”
There was a muttered consultation aboard, or at least a pause in which one might have taken place, and then the same voice spoke again.
“We’ll try and come alongside.”
It was a long and ticklish business, but at last it was accomplished. Two brawny arms in a seaman’s jersey drew Judy aboard, and David himself followed. He was not assisted, but made a flying leap from his own foundering boat and landed beside the girl.
He bent over her anxiously.
“Judy! Judy dear, are you all right? We’re quite safe now. There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t get alarmed. There’s nothing to be afraid of any more.”
He heard her sigh and felt her little cold hand seize his own. And then the light of a powerful flash lamp shone suddenly in his face, and the last voice in the world that he expected to hear said softly:
“Inspector David Blest, I believe. Perhaps you will raise your hands above your head. I have you covered with a revolver. I have two assistants aboard, and I assure you that they are not a pair even a man of your physique would be advised to take on single-handed, especially in a boat which carries such precious cargo.”
David knelt up stiffly. The blood seemed to have turned to ice in his veins, for he knew quite well, without any further telling, that the man who bent towards him, the gleaming gun barrel catching the light from his torch, was Saxon Marsh, his own and Judy’s most dangerous enemy.
CHAPTER XXI
My Future Wife
“SINCE IT IS probably your last voyage in any boat, Inspector, may I hope that you are comfortable?”
By the faint light reflected from the giant beam which picked up their course, David could just see the thin, skull-like face of the man who sat opposite him.
Judy was lying, a little huddled heap, on the seat at the man’s side. The two members of the crew were at their duties, one at the wheel and the other at the searchlight.
Their own little boat lay far behind, for, for the past half hour, the motorboat had been headed straight for the open sea.
David was powerless. For Judy’s sake, he knew his only chance of saving them both was to keep still and bide his time. Saxon Marsh’s heavy revolver was trained directly upon his body, and he knew that at the first movement the man would fire unhesitatingly.
“Perfectly comfortable, Mr. Marsh, thank you,” he said. “Even my clothes are drying. If it is not an impertinence, may I inquire where we are going?”
Saxon Marsh smiled. “No impertinence at all. Although you will not accompany us all the way, Inspector, I think at least you are entitled to know something of your own and your young friend’s ultimate destination.
“In the first place,” he went on, his voice still precise and conversational, “perhaps it would interest you to know that you are going to die. It is only because I prefer travelling with a live man rather than with a c
orpse, a fastidiousness you may perhaps find surprising in me, that you are not dead already. I prefer to consign your body to the open sea, Inspector. It would suit my purpose better if you were washed up with your skull broken open on some foreign shore.”
He paused.
“The foreign police have not quite that passionate interest in the ultimate fate of their English confreres which the Metropolitan Police feel for their immediate colleagues. As I intend to return to England eventually, you will see that I am naturally anxious not to have my peace of mind disturbed by a lot of official questions.”
David leant back and watched the man through half-closed eyes. He wondered what kink it was in that cold, calculating brain which made Marsh so anxious to torment his intended victims. The man was enjoying himself, he felt instinctively. There was an irrepressible satisfaction in his voice, a flavour of contentment which he was evidently quite unable to hide, even had he so desired.
David decided to play up to this weakness. It seemed a very slender thread at which to grasp, but at least it was a thread.
“I commend your forethought, Mr. Marsh,” he said. “Tell me, do you intend to make your departure from England in your present craft? I suppose she would take you across the Channel?”
“My dear sir—” Saxon Marsh was amused—“I’m not a young man. At my time of life one doesn’t go gadding about the world asking for danger. My yacht is waiting for me. In fact,” he went on, “she’s been waiting for me since six o’clock this evening. But I am on time. My captain will be suitably gratified. I am not always so punctual. Owing to a fortunate chance, and yourself, my dear Inspector, I have been able to accomplish what I set out to do with the minimum of trouble and danger to myself. But of course you don’t understand.”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” said David drily. In spite of the iron hold he was keeping upon himself he found that quiet voice uttering this series of villainous disclosures maddening in the extreme.
“Since we still have a little time, perhaps I will explain.”
Again there was that satisfied ring in the voice.
“Circumstances have arisen which make it imperative for me to leave the country for some little time. I am afraid I was recognized this morning by a most undesirable young woman, and since she was backed by a singularly efficient-looking police inspector, I thought it as well to disappear for a time. It was then that I communicated with the captain of my yacht.
“However, I was determined not to let go the prize on which I had set my heart. I am a wealthy man, Inspector Blest, and I wish to continue to be a very wealthy man until I die. I decided to pick up my fortune, therefore, on my way out of the country. I hope I am not boring you?”
“Not at all,” said David grimly.
Saxon Marsh sighed. “How pleasant it is to have an interested hearer! Really, Inspector, I shall be quite sorry to lose you. Well, then, I had ascertained where my fortune lay, and it occurred to me that, although its stronghold would be very well guarded by land, it was most unlikely that its sea approach would be at all protected. I came down the coast intending to snatch Miss Wellington from the arms of her self-styled protectress and to carry her off in a romantic fashion which I thought might appeal to her youthful heart. I admit the actual kidnapping, for I am afraid it would have been kidnapping, might have given me some little difficulty, but I am glad to say that with your assistance I was able to accomplish it with practically no trouble at all. You, my dear Inspector, are the only unexpected addition to my scheme. I am afraid it will cost you your life, but in the circumstances I don’t see how that can be helped.”
He was silent, and remained smiling enigmatically, his gun still carefully trained upon the young man.
Judy stirred, but she did not rise, and Saxon Marsh patted her shoulder, although without looking at her, for his eyes were still fixed warily upon his captive.
“Poor little girl,” he said. “I am afraid it will take her some time to forget you, Inspector. However, for your comfort I should like to say that I shall do my best to see that she is well treated, even though I cannot promise to make her happy.”
David’s lazy blue eyes narrowed, and he sat up stiffly.
“Do I understand that you intend to . . . ?”
His voice died away in horror.
“Oh, quite. I thought you understood. May I introduce you? Inspector Blest, my future wife. Sit down, my young friend!” he added sharply as the young man lunged forward. “I do not want to have to shoot you. Bullet holes are such telltale affairs. But I shall do so unhesitatingly should it be necessary.”
David subsided into his seat with the muzzle of the revolver only a few inches from his face.
“You——” he began.
“Hush, my dear sir.” Saxon Marsh was mildly shocked. “I believe my fiancee is still unconscious, but, should she revive, I am sure you would not like her last memory of you to be connected with a string of profanities.
“I quite see your objection—the difference in our ages,” he continued affably. “You young people are so often oversqueamish on that score. But I’ve had it in my mind for some time. Not unnaturally my friend Sir Leo, her guardian, did not see it in quite the same light as I did, but that, I am afraid, was because he did not altogether trust me.”
“But you’ll never get the money,” David burst out angrily. “No English court would award it to you.”
Saxon Marsh laughed aloud. “Fortunately it is not a case for an English court,” he said. “That difficulty had arisen in both my own and Sir Leo’s minds, when Major Deane was chosen for Miss Wellington, and Sir Leo very wisely transferred everything to France. No, my friend, I am afraid that you will go to your death knowing that I have beaten you in every way. When your body is washed up on some French or Spanish coast I shall be honeymooning in Paris. Really yours is a most distressing situation, Inspector.”
David opened his mouth to reply, but the angry words never came, for the lookout man shouted a few words above the droning of the engine.
“Ah, the yacht,” said Saxon Marsh, rising. “Not so fast, Inspector. I still have you covered.”
Again David sank back, frustrated. The simple scheme which the sadist had detailed to him with such relish was so diabolically clever that he had no doubt but that it would succeed. He looked at Judy, and his heart failed him. He thought of the heartbroken Lionel Birch waiting in that fortress of a garden for the child who would never return. It was all the money, he thought bitterly, the wretched money. Had Judy only not been an heiress they might have been so inexpressibly happy. He dared not think of it. He longed desperately to take her in his arms, but always there was Saxon Marsh and the gun in the way.
From where he sat he could just see the yacht, a white speck in the searchlight’s beam. As they drew a little closer he made out her beautiful slender form as she rode at anchor on the swelling tide. Her steam was up, he had no doubt, and he thought wretchedly of the scene which must inevitably follow.
They would be taken aboard. Perhaps he would be a corpse even before then. Judy would lie moaning in some overdecorated cabin, while his body would be pitched overboard at some convenient spot far away from the English shore.
It seemed to David that his whole life passed before him in swift review, but in all those scenes it was Judy’s face that looked up at him, Judy’s face that smiled even through incidents which had happened long before he had ever met her.
And then, as the yacht loomed nearer and nearer and he was able to descry the details on her deck, another craft moved slowly out from behind her graceful white bows, a long low black craft lying close to the water, streamlined for excessive speed.
At the same moment that David caught a glimpse of it a tremendous white beam, much stronger than their own, cut through the grey night and bathed them in vivid light.
There was a shout from the man at the tiller, and David caught a glimpse of Saxon Marsh’s distorted face as it was turned away from him for a second.
<
br /> David’s heart bounded. A police boat! Suddenly he realized the truth. Saxon Marsh had not got away quite so cleanly as he had supposed. It came to David in a flash of intuition that the efficient-looking police inspector of whom Marsh had spoken could have been none other than Inspector Winn. Somehow Winn had got on to Marsh and had then acted swiftly.
The police boat at the yacht was not waiting to rescue himself and Judy, but to capture an escaping malefactor.
As David recollected that low black craft, now completely hidden from their gaze by the dazzling beam of its own searchlight, he realized that Marsh would have no hope of escape. Nothing could outrace that small black monster.
But he was not prepared for the tenacity and savagery of the man. Saxon Marsh rose slowly. There was an indescribable expression upon his cadaverous face. David caught a glimpse of his eyes and saw in them something he had only partly guessed. Saxon Marsh was a maniac, not to be taken alive.
The police boat was waiting, holding them in its vivid beam.
Saxon Marsh beckoned the lookout man, a huge, stupid-looking fellow who took the gun as he was told and held it trained on David. Saxon Marsh himself took the wheel.
The next moment the little boat was leaping through the water at full speed. The spray shot up on both sides, drenching all those within.
So he was going to make a run for it. David waited for him to swing the tiller round and wondered if the boat would capsize at the sudden swerve. But there was no turn, and with the recollection of that terrible expression in the small pale eyes still in his mind he suddenly realized the maniac’s intention.
Saxon Marsh was speeding straight into the searchlight. He was going to murder them all.
The police boat seemed to guess his intention at the same moment. Without extinguishing its searchlight, it slid silently behind the yacht again. But Saxon Marsh hardly altered his course. He was bearing upon the yacht now, which waited for him, so graceful and yet not mobile enough to escape its owner’s suicidal attack.
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