The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales

by Maurice Leblanc

  “Hulloa!” he cried cheerily. “What are you doing to-day—eh?”

  “Well,” I said, with apparent indifference, “I’m just going to look round the car before breakfast. Perhaps I’ll go for a run later on. The roads are still in perfect condition.”

  “Then I’ll go with you,” was his prompt reply. “My wife has a bad headache, and won’t go out to-day. Gibbs, too, is full of business in the town. So let’s go together.”

  Instantly I saw the ruse. He had been awaiting me, and did not mean that I should go for a run unaccompanied.

  “Certainly,” I replied promptly. “Shall you be ready in half an hour?”

  “I’m ready now. I’ve had my coffee.” His response was, to say the least, disconcerting. How was I to get rid of him? My only chance lay in remaining perfectly calm and indifferent. A witness to testify to my identity was, no doubt, on his way out from England, and the two detectives were holding me up until his arrival.

  Together we walked to the car, and for nearly half an hour I was occupied in filling the petrol-tank and putting everything in order for a long and hard journey. A breakdown would probably mean my arrest and deportation to Bow Street. My only safety lay in flight. During the night I had studied the road-book with infinite care, and decided to make a dash out of Dresden along the Elbe bank as far as Meissen, and thence by Altenburg across to Erfurt. Upton’s self-invitation to go with me had, however, entirely upset my plans.

  At last I returned to my room, obtained my motor-cap, coat, and goggles, and, having started the engine, got up at the wheel. My unwelcome friend swung himself up beside me, and we glided out into the Prager-strasse and through the fine capital of Saxony.

  My friend, in his smart motor coat and cap, certainly gave no outward sign of his real profession. Surely no one would have taken him to be an emissary of the Metropolitan Police. As he sat beside me he chatted merrily, for he possessed a keen sense of humour, and it must have struck him that the present position was really amusing—from his point of view.

  In half an hour we were out upon a fine level road running on the left bank of the Elbe. It was a bright sunny autumn morning, and, travelling swiftly as we were, it was delightfully exhilarating. Passing through old-world Meissen, with its picturesque gabled houses, we continued on another fifteen miles to a small place called Riesa, and when about three miles farther on I summoned courage to carry out a scheme over which, during the run, I had been deeply pondering.

  We were in a lonely part of the road, hidden by the long row of poplars lining the broad winding river. On the one side were the trees, and on the other high sloping vine-lands. The road curved both before and behind us, therefore we were well concealed.

  Pulling up suddenly, I said—

  “There’s something wrong. One cylinder is not working—sparking-plug broken, I suppose.”

  To allow me to descend he got down. Then having unlocked the “bonnet” and pretended to fiddle with the plug, I again relocked it. Afterwards I felt the axles all round, saw to the tyres, and, having watched my opportunity, while he was at that moment standing with his back to me, his face turned towards the river, I suddenly sprang into the wheel and drew off.

  In an instant, with a loud shout, “No, you don’t!” he sprang forward upon the step and raised himself into the seat he had occupied. Quick as thought, I whipped my revolver out with my left hand, and, guiding the car with my right, cried—

  “I know you, Mr. Upton. Get down, or I’ll shoot you!”

  His face blanched, for he had no idea I was armed.

  “Get down—quick!” I ordered. “I shan’t ask you again.”

  The car was gathering speed, and I saw that if he attempted to drop off he would probably be hurt. He glanced at the road and then at me.

  “You won’t escape so easily as this, Mr. Ewart!” he cried. “We want you for several jewel robberies, you know. Don’t you think you’d better go quietly? If you shoot me you’ll only hang for it. Now do you think that’s really worth while? Is such a game worth the candle?”

  Without replying, I slowed down again.

  “I tell you to get off this car—otherwise you must take the consequences,” was my cool response. Those were terribly exciting moments, and how I remained so calm I cannot tell. My whole future depended upon my extrication from that impasse. Perhaps that is why my wits had, in that moment, become so sharpened.

  “I shall stay with you,” was the police-officer’s defiant reply, as, with a sudden movement, he grabbed my left wrist in an endeavour to wrest the weapon from my grasp. Next second I had stopped the car, pressed down the brake, and thus had both my hands free.

  In a moment the struggle became desperate. He fought for his life, for he saw that, now he had defied me, I meant what I threatened. No doubt he was physically stronger than myself, and at first he had the advantage; but not for long, because, resorting to a ruse taught me long ago by a man who was a professional wrestler at the music-halls, I succeeded in turning the muzzle of the weapon into his face.

  If I had liked, I could have pulled the trigger and blown half his head away. Yet, although I had become the accomplice of a daring gang of jewel-thieves, and though one of them had given me the weapon to use in case of need, I had neither desire nor intention of becoming a murderer.

  For fully six or seven minutes we were locked in deadly embrace. Upton, time after time, tried to turn the weapon upon me, and so compel me to give it up under threats of death. In this, however, he was unsuccessful, though more than once he showered at me fierce imprecations.

  He had his thin, sinewy hands in my collar, and was pressing his bony knuckles into my throat, until I was half throttled, when, of a sudden, by dint of an effort of which I had never believed myself capable, I gave his arm a twist which nearly dislocated his shoulder and forced him to release his hold. I still had the revolver tightly clenched in my right hand, for I had now succeeded in changing it from my left, and at last slipped it back into my hip-pocket, leaving both hands free. Then, in our desperate struggle, he tried to force me backwards over the steering-wheel, and would have done so had I not been able to trip him unexpectedly. In a second I had flung my whole weight upon him and sent him clutching at the air over the splashboard, and so across the “bonnet” to the ground.

  In a moment I restarted the car, but not before he had risen and remounted upon the step.

  “You shan’t get away!” he cried. “Even if you leave me here you’ll be arrested by the German police before night. They already have your description.”

  “Enough!” I cried savagely, again whipping out my weapon. “Get down—or I’ll shoot!”

  “Shoot, then!” he shouted defiantly.

  “Take that instead!” I replied, and, with the butt-end of the weapon, I struck him full between the eyes, causing him to fall back into the road, where he lay like a log.

  Without a second glance at him, I allowed the car to gather speed, and in a few moments was running across a flat, level plain at quite fifty miles an hour. Upton lay insensible, and the longer he remained so the farther afield I should be able to get without information being sent before me.

  Mine was now a dash for liberty. Having gone twenty miles, I pulled up, and, unfastening one of the lockers within the car, I drew out the complete disguise which Bindo always kept there for emergencies. I had purposely halted in a side road, which apparently only led to some fields, and, having successfully transformed myself into a grey-bearded man of about fifty-five, I drew out a large tin of dark-red enamel and a brush, and in a quarter of an hour had transformed the pale-blue body into a dark-red one. So, within half an hour, both myself and the car were utterly disguised, even to the identification-plates, both back and front. The police would be on the look-out for a pale-blue car, driven by a moustached young man in a leather-peaked motor-cap,
while they would only see passing a dark-red car driven by its owner, a respectable-looking middle-aged man in a cloth golf-cap, gloves, and goggles.

  I looked at myself in satisfaction by aid of the little mirror, and then I regarded the hastily-daubed car. Very soon the dust would cling to the enamel, and thus effectually disguise the hurriedness of my handiwork. There was, of course, no doubt that Upton and Dyer would move heaven and earth to rediscover me, therefore in my journey forward I was compelled to exercise all caution.

  On consulting my road-book I found that the spot where I had pulled up was about three miles from Wurzen, on the main Leipzig road, therefore I decided to give the latter city a wide berth, and took a number of intricate by-roads towards Magdeburg, hoping to be able to put the car in safe keeping somewhere, and get thence by rail across to Cologne and Rotterdam, in which city I might find a safe asylum.

  Any attempt to reach Turin was now impossible, and when late that night I entered the little town of Dessau I sent a carefully worded telegram to Bindo at the little newspaper-shop in the Tottenham Court Road, explaining that, though free, I was still in peril of arrest.

  Shortly after midnight, while passing through a little town called Zerbst, half-way between Dessau and Magdeburg, I heard a loud shouting behind me, and, turning, saw a policeman approaching hurriedly.

  “Where are you from?” he inquired breathlessly.

  “From Berlin,” was my prompt answer. “I left there at six o’clock this evening.” I know a little German, and made the best use I could of it.

  By the light of his lantern he examined my identification-plates, and noted the colour of the car.

  “I’m sorry to trouble you, sir, but I must ask you to come with me to the police-office.”

  “Why?” I inquired, with well-assumed indignation. “My lamps are all alight, and I have contravened no law, surely!”

  “You are an Englishman. I hear that from your speech.”

  “That is so. My name is Hartley—William Hartley, and I live in Liverpool.”

  “We shall not detain you long,” was his reply. “I am only carrying out an order we have received.”

  “An order—what order?”

  “To arrest an Englishman who is escaping on a motor-car.”

  “And am I the Englishman, pray?” I asked sarcastically. “Come, this is really too huge a joke! Haven’t you got the gentleman’s personal description? What has he done that you should be in search of him?”

  “I don’t know. The chief has all particulars. Let us go together.”

  “Oh, very well,” I laughed reluctantly. “Just get up here, and I’ll drive you to the office. Which way is it?”

  “Straight along,” he said, climbing clumsily into the seat beside me.“Straight along almost to the end of the town, and then sharp to the left. I will show you.”

  As soon as he had settled himself I put such a move on the car that his breath was almost taken away. Should I take him out into the darkness beyond the town and there drop him? If I did so, I should surely be arrested, sooner or later. No. The car was disguised by its dark-red enamel, and though I had no intention of going into a brilliantly-lighted office, I felt certain that, if I kept cool, I could allay the suspicion of the police-official on night-duty.

  Ten minutes later I pulled up before the police-office and got down. In order not to enter into the light, I made an excuse that my engine was not running properly, unlocked the “bonnet” and tinkered with it until the official came out to inspect me.

  He was a burly, fair-bearded man, with a harsh, gruff voice.

  In his hand he carried a slip of paper, which he consulted by the light of my glaring head-lamps. I saw that it was a copy of a telegram he had received giving my description, for the previous identification-number of the car was written there.

  For a few moments he stood in silence with the man who had arrested my progress, then, seeing from his face that he found both myself and the car the exact opposite of what was reported, I said, in an irritated tone of indignation—

  “I must really object to being thus brought here against my will. As a foreigner, I cannot entertain a very high estimate of the intelligence of the police of Zerbst.”

  “I trust you will pardon us,” was the gruff man’s reply, bowing. “It was the very fact that you were an Englishman that caused suspicion to rest upon you. It is an Englishman who is wanted for extensive jewel robberies. His name is Ewart.”

  “A very common name in England,” was my reply. “But will it not appear a little too high-handed if you arrest every Englishman who rides in a motor-car in any part of Germany on suspicion that he is this thief Ewart? How do they describe the car?”

  “Pale-blue,” he admitted.

  “Well, mine is scarcely that—is it?” I asked, as he stood beside me.

  The “bonnet” was open, and by the light of the policeman’s lantern he was admiring the six bright cylinders.

  “No,” he responded. Even now, however, the bearded fellow seemed only half convinced. But German officials are a particularly hide-bound genus of mankind.

  He saw, however, that I had now grown exasperated, and presently, after putting a few further questions to me, he expressed his regret that I should have suffered any delay or inconvenience, and politely wished me a pleasant journey to my destination.

  A lucky escape, I thought, when once again I was out on the broad high road to Magdeburg, my head-lamps showing a stream of white light far along the dusty way.

  Instead of getting into Magdeburg, as I believed, I found myself, an hour later, in a dark, ill-lit town upon a broad river, and discovered that I was in Schönebeck, on the main road to Hanover. The distance to the latter city was one hundred miles, and, as I could get away from there by half a dozen lines of railway, I decided to push forward, even though for the past eighteen hours I had only had a piece of bread and a mug of beer at Dessau.

  About eleven o’clock on the following morning, after two tyre troubles, I was passing out of the quaint mediæval town of Hildesheim, intending to reach Hanover before noon. I had come around the Haupt Bahnhof and on to the highway beyond the railroad, when my heart gave a leap as a policeman dashed out into the road in front of me and held up his hand.

  “Your name?” he demanded gruffly.

  “William Hartley—an Englishman,” was my prompt response.

  “I must, I regret, insist on your presence at the police-office,” he said authoritatively.

  “Oh!” I cried, annoyed. “I suppose I must go through the same farce as at Zerbst last night.”

  “You were at Zerbst—you admit that?” asked the man in uniform.

  The instant those words left his lips I saw that I was trapped. It was, no doubt, as I had suspected. The superintendent of police at Zerbst had seen stamped upon the engines the maker’s name, “Napier,” and this he had reported by telegraph to Dyer in Dresden. Then a second telegraphic order had gone forth for my arrest.

  “Well,” I laughed, “it is surely no crime to admit having been to Zerbst, is it? There seems an unusual hue-and-cry over this mysterious Englishman, isn’t there? But if you say I must go to the police-office, I suppose I must. Get up here beside me and show me the way.”

  The man clambered up, when, in a moment, I put on all speed forward. The road was wide and open, without a house on it.

  “No!” he cried; “back—into the town!”

  I, however, made no response, but let the car rip along at a good fifty miles an hour. She hummed merrily.

  “Stop! stop! I order you to stop!” he shouted, but I heeded him not. I saw that he had grown frightened at the fearful pace we were travelling.

  Suddenly, when we had gone about seven miles, I pulled up at a lonely part of the road, and, pointing my revolver at his head, orde
red him to descend.

  He saw that I was desperate. It was a moment for deeds, not words. I saw him make a movement to draw out his own weapon; therefore, ere he was aware of it, I struck him a blow full in the face, practically repeating my tactics with Upton. The fellow reeled out of the car, but before I could get started again he fired twice at me, happily missing me each time.

  He made a desperate dash to get on the footboard again, but I prevented him, and in turn was compelled to fire.

  My bullet struck his right shoulder, and his weapon fell to the ground. Then I left him standing in the road, uttering a wild torrent of curses as I waved my hand in defiant farewell.

  A mile from Hanover I threw off my grey beard and other disguise, washed my face in a brook, abandoned the car, and at three o’clock that afternoon found myself safely in the express for Brussels, on my way to Paris, the city which at that moment I deemed safest for me.

  From that moment to this I have not been upon German soil.

  CHAPTER VII

  THE LADY OF THE GREAT NORTH ROAD

  It occurred about a month after my return from Germany. A strange affair, assuredly; and stranger still that my life should have been spared to relate it.

  After luncheon at the Trocadero I mounted into the car, a new forty six-cylinder “Napier” that we had purchased only a week before, to drive to Barnack, an old-world Northamptonshire village near Stamford, where I had to meet the audacious rascal Count Bindo. From Piccadilly Circus, I started forth upon my hundred-mile run with a light heart, in keen anticipation of a merry time. The Houghs, with whom Bindo was staying, always had gay house-parties, for the Major, his wife, and Marigold, his daughter, were keen on hunting, and we usually went to the meets of the Fitzwilliam, and got good runs across the park, Castor Hanglands, and the neighbourhood.