‘Vicarage. They’ve just been given a bloodhound.’
‘The last dog I went out with——’
‘I know. Don’t worry. We shan’t find a body this time.’
‘Well, the brute will probably eat us.’
‘Oh, no. He knows me.’
‘By the way, I thought you said you’d unchained two brutes of your own?’
‘I did. I’ve chained them up again now. They were prowling about. That’s partly why I held you by the sleeve.’
‘Thanks! As long as they didn’t hold me by the seat of the trousers there’s no harm done. Come along. Can’t we walk a bit faster?’
The side road, or rather lane, along which they were walking was bounded by very high hedges, and was in consequence as dark as a pit. Roger did his best to step out, and, like most people who had experienced the black-out during the war, did fairly well. Very soon a tug on his arm brought him up short by the side of a long stone wall.
‘Up with me,’ murmured Laura, ‘while I speak to the hound.’ A whimper from somewhere beyond the wall lent point to this remark. ‘There, then, Boss!’ she added. ‘His name’s Boscastle. He was born there. Good boy! Come for a walk!’
She dropped down over the wall; there was the rattling of a chain, and then Laura’s voice again. ‘Stay just where you are, Roger Hoskyn. I’ll have to come out of the door in the kitchen garden. There’s a bolt on this side.’
She soon rejoined Roger. The dog, snuffing, laid his nose to what seemed a very hot scent, and they had much ado to keep up with him.
‘Dorothy must have dressed, that’s one thing,’ remarked Laura. ‘I’ve given the hound her pyjama jacket to smell. It was lying on the bed, so I brought it. He seems to have cottoned on. Of course the girl may just have gone out for a quiet country ramble. You never know.’
‘If she has——’ said Roger fiercely.
‘Oh, hold your horses! You aren’t married to her yet,’ retorted Laura. ‘If she has, we’re no worse off. I think this is rather fun.’
‘It might be, if it weren’t so serious. My God! I hope we find her!’
‘We’ll find her, don’t you worry.’
With the dog pulling hard, they came on to the Culminster Road, but it was not until the dog struck off on to the common and commenced smelling its way along one of the rough little paths which began and ended without apparent reason, that Roger began to suspect that their errand was going to prove fruitless.
By the time the dog crossed the road—Laura, by this time, was keeping her torch on, and the progress they were able to make was rapid—Roger thought it was time to protest.
‘I say,’ he said, ‘I know what’s happening! This confounded brute is dragging us along by the way we went this afternoon! It’s no manner of use at all! We’re doing no good! And all this time——’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Laura. ‘I’m sure she’s all right, but I think we ought to give the hound his head.’
Roger could have wept, but he could do nothing by himself, and he knew it. Miserable, frustrated and frightened, he strode anxiously after Laura and the dog.
The bloodhound faithfully followed the trail which led to the Stone in the Manor park. Twice more Roger tried to protest, but his objections were overruled by Laura, who suggested that, as they did not know where Dorothy had gone or been taken, it would be as reasonable to follow the dog’s nose as to try to find out for themselves what had been done with the girl, or what she had done with herself.
The path through the Manor woods was inky dark. Roger summoned his courage. He was abnormally imaginative and strongly subject to impressions, and it seemed to him as though every dip and thick shadow concealed an enemy. He was thankful to come into the clearing ringed by the sombre pines, and to be able to say to Laura, as they shone the torch over the Stone:
‘You see? A wild-goose chase, after all.’
This comfortable conclusion was ruined by the behaviour of the dog. It whined, tugged, attempted to bark, and then began to whimper, this last in accents which turned Roger’s blood to water and even impressed the heroic Laura.
‘Oh, lor!’ she observed beneath her breath. ‘I forgot that someone was murdered here. Dogs can see ghosts, so I’ve heard! Wonder what the brute can see?’
‘You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?’ asked Roger, fearfully.
‘I have Highland blood,’ returned Laura, in a highly significant tone. The dog, which had been tugging, suddenly hung back; this with such force that Laura’s wrist gave way and the dog, with his chain dangling, tore away, not in the direction of the Vicarage, but towards the Manor house.
‘Now, what?’ said Laura. ‘Come on. We’d better get him back. The idiot must have gone crazy. Besides, he’s A.W.O.L., so it certainly wouldn’t do for us to lose him.’
A former owner of the Manor, during that oddly constituted period when port took the place of claret as a gentleman’s wine, had built a watch-tower just outside his terrace boundaries. At the door to this tower the bloodhound sniffed and whined. They could hear him from a considerable distance away, and it was Laura who, from her knowledge of the neighbourhood, was able to deduce where he was.
‘You see?’ she whispered triumphantly. ‘I bet you didn’t come this way this afternoon!’ She tried the door. It opened. The dog began to scramble up the stairs. Laura, lighting the way with her torch, went after him. Roger, propping the door open with a large stone from the adjacent rockery over which, cursing in agony, he had tumbled, went bounding after her.
There was a door at the top of the stairs. Laura twisted at the handle, then transferred the torch to her left hand. She took the small revolver in her right, and kicked open the door whilst remaining in cover beside the wall.
There was no reaction from within. Roger came level with her, and bent to brush soil from his trousers.
‘Keep behind my gun,’ she said. ‘Come on!’
Together they entered. The little room at the top of the tower was empty. Laura switched on the electric light. A door in the opposite wall led on to a balcony. She opened this door in the same manner as she had opened the first one. The light from the room streamed out and shone on the black, iron railings. At the foot of the railings was something pale-coloured and silken, upon which the dog threw itself in frenzy. Roger pushed the dog away and picked up some very pretty silk pyjama trousers.
‘What on earth are these doing here?’ he asked. ‘Does this mean Dorothy, or doesn’t it?’
‘I suppose it’s to your credit that you ask the question,’ Laura replied with a grin.
She took the pyjama trousers from him, rolled them up and put them into the pocket of her waterproof.
‘Come on,’ she said abruptly. ‘I think I see daylight now, but I’m still not absolutely sure. Anyway, don’t worry any more. She hasn’t been kidnapped, that’s clear. We’ll get back to the Stone House. She’s probably there by now. I’ll go down the stairs first. You switch off the light when I call. Here, take the torch. Got your stick ready clubbed? We may meet with trouble when we leave this place. I don’t know. You’ve certainly been neatly got out of the way.’ She whistled the dog, and went downstairs. She called up to Roger, and he switched off the light. In five seconds he was beside her, and they were heading by the shortest cut for Mrs Bradley’s Stone House.
‘For goodness’ sake keep your eyes skinned,’ muttered Laura as they made what haste they could over the turf of the park towards the wicket-gate which led to the vicarage lane. ‘I don’t want the thing to work out wrong. We’ve taken enough chances as it is.’
‘You’re telling me!’ said Roger, between his teeth.
‘I’m not worried very much about the wench, except in so far as you’re concerned,’ said Laura. ‘Look out as we pass the bushes getting back to the house. There’s a brain behind these manoeuvres and a pretty good one, though I say it. If you hear me say “Heel!” drop flat. I shan’t really be speaking to the dog, although I hope that’s what it wil
l sound like to anybody listening in.’
‘All right,’ said Roger. ‘Meanwhile I suppose we return him.’ As Laura had left the vicarage garden door ajar, there was no difficulty in returning the bloodhound to his kennel. They chained him up, and then walked up the sandy lane and so regained the Stone House.
‘Stand still a minute whilst I reconnoitre,’ said Laura, as soon as they drew near Mrs Bradley’s hedge.
‘No,’ replied Roger, with simple firmness. ‘I’m not an egg that may get broken if I’m carelessly handled.’ He continued to walk by her side. The wire which was stretched across the garden path of the Stone House from the trunk of a small laurel to a stone garden ornament weighing perhaps a ton and a half, shot them neatly on to their faces. Roger then thought that the house had fallen on him, but soon his Rugby football experiences aided his memory sufficiently for him to realize almost immediately that the weight on his shoulders was merely a very heavy man.
He lay flat, as though he had been completely knocked out by the assault. His assailant cautiously arose and began to turn him over, with the intention, Roger supposed, of smashing the back of his head on the gravel path. The man, he deduced, must be kneeling astride him, but he soon found that Roger’s eleven stone six of dead weight was not as easy to turn as he had imagined. Roger lay like a log.
His assailant, confident that he was still unconscious, most unwisely got up from his strategic position astride Roger’s body, and, stooping over him from the side, gave a last great heave and tumbled him on to his back. Roger flung out his right arm and turned his head to the left. His long legs then rose in a swift curve and shot over his head so that he made a complete back-somersault. His arm and hand turned with his body, and, as he completed the backward roll, he bent his right leg and brought it in close to his right arm. With his left leg he reached well back, and so came to his feet in a balanced position with his fingertips on the ground. As his unguarded opponent attempted to grip him, he got to his feet with a tremendous lunge and, throwing up his arms to get the distance, he jerked his head up under his stooping opponent’s jaw.
As the man gave a cry and then crashed, Roger remembered Laura. He had lost her torch in the struggle, and now called out to her, hoping that she was not injured.
‘I’m all right!’ she replied. ‘I lost touch with that blighter, Smeary, after the preliminary encounter. Where are you?’
‘Here!’ called Roger. ‘I’ve lost the torch. I’d better try to locate it. By the way, my bloke wasn’t Sim.’
‘Never mind! Let’s get back to the house. I’ve lost the gun, too. We’ll look for them both in the morning. It shot out of my hand when I took the toss over that wire.’
‘I didn’t hear it go off.’
‘It wasn’t loaded.’
‘Wish I could have secured my bloke,’ said Roger. ‘Oh, Lord! My hands are in a mess from that gravel! How are yours?’
‘In ribbons, I think. They feel like it. We’ll have to wait until morning, and then put the police on the track.’
‘But Dorothy?’
‘Yes, I know. But it will be morning soon. I’ll ‘phone the police as soon as we get indoors.’
She could not keep this promise until she had bound up her cuts. By that time the dawn had come.
‘I suppose,’ said Roger, ‘she’s not come back while we’ve been gone? I’ve been thinking that if one of those fellows was Sim—I say, we really ought to have collared one of them, you know——’
‘Let’s go up and look,’ suggested Laura. Dorothy was asleep. She woke when Laura went in and switched on the light.
‘Hullo,’ she said. ‘I think I’ve been mixed up in the murder. I’ve had the most peculiar night. What have you done to your hands?’
Laura drew up the blinds, and the grey morning made the electric light look pale. Laura switched it off, and seated herself on the bed.
‘We’ve had quite a peculiar night ourselves,’ she said; she described their adventures. ‘And it seems to me,’ she added at the end, ‘that whoever worked the scheme had a passable working knowledge of your boy-friend’s psychological reactions. Mine, too, I regret to confess. They had even allowed for the bloodhound. Rather subtle of them, that. They saw to it that we were led a dance, and one that gave them nice time, I should think, to fasten that wire across the gateway. If we’d come in by the kitchen garden entrance, or the stables, it would have been just the same, I expect. I take it the entrances were all wired, and all they had to do was to pass the word to the others to tell them which way the little victims had selected. Very pretty for them, but rather annoying for us. And now, what happened to you?’
‘I heard a noise, or so I thought, and got up. Then I heard you and Roger talking to someone—threatening him—so I dressed, and came along to share in the fun. But as I came out of this room somebody threw a thick cloth over my head and bundled me along towards the stairs. Then a man picked me up and muffled my head, still in this cloth, underneath his overcoat. I was not able to do a thing. He took me along to the garage, put me into a car, locked the car door and then took the cloth off my head. It was pitch dark. He said they wouldn’t hurt me, and that I was not to worry. I was much too furious to worry. I didn’t see his face. He had a scarf muffled nearly to his eyes, and a soft hat pulled right down. I suppose I was locked in the car for about an hour. It got so cold that I thought I should freeze. Then the Frenchman—Henri—came out in his dressing-gown and unlocked the car, and brought me into the kitchen, and gave me some coffee and a hot-water bottle. Then he told me to go back to bed and not to worry. He put some brandy in the coffee. I didn’t like it much, but it sent me to sleep, I think. I asked whether you two were all right, and he said you were.’
‘Good old Henri,’ said Laura. ‘He’s a sensible sort of old idiot. I must have a word or two with him. I suppose one of those men trailed the better half of your pyjamas to the observation tower, and left it there for us to find. Didn’t you miss it, by the way?’
‘Yes, but I kept my dressing-gown on when I came back to bed. I was frozen, and it seemed quite the best thing to do.’
‘So it was. Look here, you’d better have breakfast in bed, and make sure you’re not going to catch cold.’
‘If I’m going to catch cold, I’ve caught it. I don’t want to stay in bed. If there’s going to be fun I want my share of it.’
‘You’ll do as you’re told. It won’t hurt you for once, I suppose?’ said Laura, looking belligerent.
‘No,’ said Dorothy, meekly snuggling down. Laura regarded her intently, and then continued:
‘Well, I should think they’ve shot their bolt. You didn’t get any inkling as to the identity of the gentleman sportsman who put you in the car, I suppose? I know you said you couldn’t see his face, but——’
‘I’m almost certain I’ve heard his voice before, but I can’t remember where. Except for that, and beyond the fact that he was pretty big—long-armed and broad—and was very gentle—most annoying! He behaved as though I were about two years old—I couldn’t tell you another thing about him.’
‘It wasn’t the chauffeur, Sim?’
‘Oh, no, not the chauffeur Sim!’
‘Are you positive?’
‘Absolutely. Sim is fairly broad, but I shouldn’t think he’s a quarter as strong as this man. No, it wasn’t a bit like Sim. He was really rather nice, although it irritates me to admit it.’
‘I see. Very odd. You don’t feel all nerves? Or do you?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Well, I don’t know so much about that,’ said Laura, getting up. ‘For a delicately nurtured child who has been apprehended and gagged by thugs, and incarcerated in a garaged car at dead of night, you take things pretty coolly.’
‘There’s no other way to take them,’ said Dorothy. Laura went downstairs and found Mrs Bradley at breakfast.
As soon as the sun was fairly up, Laura went out to investigate. She had been correct in her surmises. Wires had
been fixed across the stable entrance and the side gate as well as the front gate by which she and Roger had entered. She had come out armed with a pair of wire-cutting pliers and soon removed the obstacles. Then she went round to the stables and had a look at the garage, but did not go in.
There was nothing much to be seen. Mrs Bradley had come back by car, so Laura called upon George, the chauffeur, who lived in a cottage adjacent to the house.
‘Is the young lady any the worse, Miss?’ enquired the chivalrous George.
‘I expect so, but you wouldn’t know it. That kid’s got pluck,’ replied Laura, regarding her own bandaged hands with pensive satisfaction. ‘I got home on my bloke, George, and I shouldn’t wonder if Mr Hoskyn’s aggressor didn’t pretty nearly chew his own tongue off. It’s no joke being butted under the chin when you’re not anticipating same, and the said Hoskyn is by no means such a string-bean as he looks.’
‘Marked him, did you, miss?’ said George, betraying sober and congratulatory interest in Laura’s own exploits.
‘Yes, I believe so. I haven’t mentioned that to anyone else, so keep it under your hat. He didn’t tackle me squarely, and I tore out a chunk of his hair. I’ve got it as a souvenir in a little tin box upstairs. Heaven send it’s not lousy, that’s all. By the way, you did a good job, George. Sober but hearty congratulations and all that. We could not have foreseen the wire. Now, mind! Not a breath to either of them! Glad you could help.’
Upon this secret and sinister note Mrs Bradley’s henchmen parted. Laura returned to bed to make up for the sleep she had lost, and all three young people remained within doors all day. Mrs Bradley showed herself in the afternoon, heard the whole story and clicked her tongue, but made, to the disappointment of her hearers, no particular comment. In response to a question from Dorothy, she reported that Claudia Denbies was as cheerful as might be expected. She left it at that, and then reverted to the events of the night.
‘Deduced that you would use the bloodhound; handled Dorothy as though she were a two-year-old child (except that one wouldn’t leave a two-year-old child to freeze to death in a car), and selected a young lady’s pyjama trousers to lay a false trail…. Ah, that paints a strange portrait,’ she said, with a sudden loud cackle.
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