Through the grey, damp afternoon I drove on up the Great North Road, that straight, broad highway which you who motor know so well. Simmons, Bindo’s new valet, was suffering from neuralgia; therefore I had left him in London, and, sitting alone, had ample time for reflection.
The road surface was good, the car running like a clock, and on the level, open highway out of Biggleswade through Tempsford and Eaton Socon along to Buckden the speed-indicator was registering thirty-five and even forty miles an hour. I was anxious to get to Barnack before dark; therefore, regardless of any police-traps that might be set, I “let her rip.”
The cheerless afternoon had drawn to a close, and rain had begun to fall. In a week or ten days we should be on the Riviera again, amid the sunshine and the flowers; and as I drew on my mackintosh I pitied those compelled to bear the unequal rigour of the English winter. I was rushing up Alconbury Hill on my “second,” having done seventy miles without stopping, when of a sudden I felt that drag on the steering-wheel that every motorist knows and dreads. The car refused to answer to the wheel—there was a puncture in the near hind tyre.
For nearly three-quarters of an hour I worked away by the light of one of the acetylene head-lamps, for darkness had now fallen, and at last I recommenced to climb the hill and drop down into Sawtry, the big French lamps illuminating the dark, wet road.
About two miles beyond Sawtry, when, by reason of the winding of the road, I had slackened down to about fifteen miles an hour, I came to cross-roads and a sign-post, against which something white shone in the darkness. At first I believed it to be a white dog, but next moment I heard a woman’s voice hailing me, and turning, saw in the lamp-light as I flashed past, a tall, handsome figure, with a long dark cloak over a light dress. She raised her arms frantically, calling to me. Therefore I put down the brakes hard, stopped, and then reversed the car, until I came back to where she stood in the muddy road.
The moment she opened her mouth I recognised that she was a lady.
“Excuse me,” she exclaimed breathlessly, “but would you do me a great favour—and take us on to Wansford—to the railway?” And looking, I made out that she held by the hand a fair-haired little lad about seven years of age, well dressed in a thick overcoat and knitted woollen cap and gloves. “You will not refuse, will you?” she implored. “The life of a person very dear to me depends upon it.” And in her voice I detected an accent by which I knew she was not English.
Seeing how deeply in earnest she was, and that she was no mere wayfarer desirous of a “lift,” I expressed my readiness to do her a favour, and, getting down, opened the door of the tonneau, removed the waterproof rug, and assisted the little lad and herself to get in.
“Ah, sir, this kindness is one for which I can never sufficiently thank you. Others may be able to render you some service in return,” she said,“but for myself I can only give you the heartfelt thanks of a distressed woman.”
In her refined voice there was a ring of deep earnestness. Who could she be?
The hood of her heavy, fur-lined cape was drawn over her head, and in the darkness I could not distinguish her features. The little boy huddled close to her as we tore on towards Wansford Station, her destination, fifteen miles distant. The ceaseless rain fell heavier as we entered the long, old-world village of Stilton, and noticing they had no mackintoshes, I pulled up before the “Bell,” that well-known inn of the coaching days where the York coaches changed horses.
“You are not surely going to make a stop here, are you? No one must see us. Let us go on!” she urged in apprehension.
“But you can’t go through this storm,” I said. “No one shall see you. There is a little sitting-room at the side that we may have until the rain has ceased.” And then, with apparent reluctance, she allowed me to lead her and the boy through the old stone hall and into the little, low, old-fashioned room, the window of which, with its red blind, looked out upon the village street.
As she seated herself in the high-backed arm-chair beside the fire, her dark, refined face was turned towards me, while the little lad stood huddled up against her, as though half afraid of me. That she was a lady was at once apparent. Her age was about twenty-two, and her countenance one of the most beautiful that I had ever gazed upon. Her dark, luminous eyes met mine with an expression half of innate modesty, half of fear. The white hand lying in her lap trembled, and with the other she stroked the child’s head caressingly.
She had unhooked her dripping cloak, and I saw that beneath she wore a well-cut travelling-gown of pale-grey cloth that fitted admirably, and showed off her neat figure to perfection. Her dress betrayed her foreign birth, but the accent when she spoke was only very slight, a rolling of the “r’s,” by which I knew that she was French.
“I’m so afraid that someone may see me here,” she said, after a slight pause.
“Then I take it, mademoiselle, that you are leaving the neighbourhood in secret?” I remarked in French, with some suspicion, still wondering who she might be. The boy was certainly not her child, yet he seemed to regard her as his guardian.
“Yes, m’sieur,” was her brief reply; and then in French she said, after a pause, “I am wondering whether I can trust you further.”
“Trust me?” I echoed. “Certainly you can, mademoiselle.” And taking out a card, I handed it to her, declaring my readiness to serve her in any way in my power.
She was silent for some moments.
“To-morrow, or the next day, there will be a sensation in the neighbourhood where I joined you,” she said at last.
“A mystery, you mean?” I exclaimed, looking straight into her handsome face.
“Yes,” she answered in a deep, hoarse voice. “A mystery. But,” she added quickly, “you will not prejudge me until you know—will you? Recollect me merely as an unhappy woman whom you have assisted, not as—” She sighed deeply, without concluding the sentence.
I saw that her splendid eyes were filled with tears—tears of regret, it seemed.
“Not as what?” I inquired softly. “May I not at least know your name?”
“Ah!” she said bitterly. “Call me Clotilde, if you like. The name will be as good as any other—until you know the truth.”
“But, mademoiselle, you are in distress, I see. Cannot I do anything else for you now than merely dropping you at the roadside station? I am on my way to Stamford.”
“No,” she sighed; “you can do nothing more at present. Only deny that you have ever met me.”
Her words puzzled me. At one moment I wondered if she were not some clever woman who was abducting the lad, and by whose plausible tale I was being led into rendering her assistance. And yet as I stood with my back to the fire gazing at her as she sat, I recognised a something about her that told me she was no mere adventuress.
Upon her finger was a magnificent ring—a coronet of fine diamonds that flashed and sparkled beneath the lamp-light, and when she smiled at me her face assumed a sweet expression that held me in fascination.
“Cannot you tell me what has occurred?” I asked at last, in a quiet, earnest voice. “What is the nature of the sensation that is imminent?”
“Ah no!” she answered hoarsely. “You will know soon enough.”
“But, mademoiselle, I confess I should like to meet you again in London, and offer you my services. In half an hour we shall part.”
“Yes, we shall part; and if we do not meet again I shall always remember you as one who performed one of the greatest services a man can perform. To-night, m’sieur, you have saved my life—and his,” she added, pointing to the little lad at her side.
“Saved your lives? How?”
“You will know one day,” was her evasive reply.
“And who is he?”
“I regret that I am not permitted to tell you,” she answered.
At that instant heavy footsteps sounded in the hall, and gruff voices exchanged greetings.
“Hark!” she gasped, starting to her feet in alarm. “Is the door locked?”
I sprang to it, and, as the waiting-maid had left it slightly ajar, I could see the new-comers. I closed it, and slid the bolt into its socket.
“Who are they?” she inquired.
“Two men in dark overcoats and soft felt hats. They look like foreigners.”
“Ah! I know!” she gasped, terrified, her face blanched in an instant.“Let us go! They must not see me! You will help me to escape, won’t you? Can I get out without them recognising me?”
Was it possible that she had committed some crime, and they were detectives? Surely this adventure was a strange and mysterious one.
“Remain here,” I exclaimed quickly. “I’ll go out and prepare the car. When all is ready, I will keep watch while you and the boy slip out.”
I went forth into the pelting rain, took off the rugs from the seats, and started the motor. Then returning, and finding no one in the passage—the two men having evidently passed on into the tap-room—I beckoned to her, and she and the lad stole softly along and out into the roadway.
In a moment they were both in the car, and a few seconds later we were tearing along the broad road out of Stilton village at a pace that might have cost me a five-pound fine.
What was the forthcoming “sensation”? Why was she flying from the two strangers?
She feared we might be followed, therefore I decided to drive her to Peterborough. We tore on through the biting wind and driving rain, past Water Newton and Orton, until we drew up at the Great Northern Station at Peterborough, where she descended, and for a moment held my hand in a warm grasp of heartfelt thankfulness.
“You must thank this gentleman,” she said to the lad. “Recollect that to-night he has saved your life. They meant to kill you.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the little lad simply, holding out his hand.
When they had gone I remounted and drove away to Barnack, utterly dumbfounded. The fair stranger, whoever she was, held me in fascination. Never in all my life had I met a woman possessed of such perfect grace and such exquisite charm. She had fled from her enemies. What startling event had occurred that evening to cause her and the lad to take to the road so ill-prepared?
What was the “sensation” which she had prophesied on the morrow? I longed for day to dawn, when I might learn the truth.
Yet though I chatted with the grooms and other outdoor servants at Barnack during the next day, I heard nothing.
Over the dinner-table that evening, however, old Colonel Cooper, who had driven over from Polebrook, near Oundle, related to the guests a strange story that he had heard earlier in the day.
“A mysterious affair has happened over at Buckworth, near the Great North Road, they say,” he exclaimed, adjusting his monocle and addressing his hostess and Bindo, who sat on her right. “It seems that a house called ‘The Cedars,’ about a mile out of the village, has been rented furnished by some foreigners, a man named Latour and his wife and son, whose movements were rather suspicious. Yesterday they received three visitors, who came to spend a week; but just before dinner one of the servants, on entering the drawing-room, was horrified to find both her master and mistress lying upon the floor dead, strangled by the silken cords used to loop up the curtains, while the visitors and the little boy were missing. So swiftly and quietly was it all done,” he added, “that the servants heard nothing. The three visitors are described as very gentlemanly-looking men, evidently Frenchmen, who appeared to be on most intimate terms of friendship with their hostess. One of them, however, is declared by the groom to be a man he had met in the neighbourhood two days before; therefore it would seem as though the affair had been very carefully planned.”
“Most extraordinary!” declared Bindo, while a chorus of surprise and horror went around the table. “And the boy is missing with the assassins?”
“Yes; they have apparently taken him away with them. They say that there’s some woman at the bottom of it all—and most probably,” sniffed the old Colonel. “The foreigners who live here in England are mostly a queer lot, who’ve broken the laws of their own country and efface their identity here.”
I listened at the open door with breathless interest as the old fellow discussed the affair with young Lady Casterton, who sat next him, while around the table various theories were advanced.
“I met the man Latour once—one day in the summer,” exclaimed Mr. Molesworth, a tall, thin-faced man, rector of a neighbouring parish. “He was introduced to me at the village flower-show at Alconbury, when I was doing duty there. He struck me as a very pleasant, well-bred man, who spoke English perfectly.”
I stood in the corridor like a man in a dream. Had I actually assisted the mysterious woman to abduct the child? Every detail of my adventure on the previous night arose vividly before me. That she had been aware of the terrible tragedy was apparent, for without doubt she was in league with the assassins. She had made me promise to deny having seenher, and I ground my teeth at having been so cleverly tricked by a pretty woman.
Yet ought I to prejudge her when still ignorant of the truth, which she had promised to reveal to me? Was it just?
Next day, making excuse that I wished to test the car, I ran over to the sleepy little village of Buckworth, which lay in a hollow about two miles from the sign-post where I had been stopped by Clotilde. “The Cedars” was a large, old-fashioned house, standing away from the village in its own grounds, and at the village inn, where I called, I learned from the landlord many additional details of how the three mysterious visitors had arrived in a station-fly from Huntingdon, how eagerly Mr. Latour had welcomed them, and how they had disappeared at nightfall, after accomplishing their object.
“I hear it said that a woman is at the bottom of it all,” I remarked.
“Of course we can’t say, sir,” he replied; “but a little while ago Mr. Latour was seen several times by men working in the fields to meet, down at Alconbury Brook, a rather handsome, dark young lady, and walk with her.”
Was that lady Clotilde? I wondered.
The inquest, held two days later, revealed nothing concerning the antecedents of the Latours, except that they had taken “The Cedars” furnished a year before, and very rarely received visitors. Mr. Latour was believed to be French, but even of that nobody was certain.
A week afterwards, after taking Bindo up to Nottingham, I returned to London, and watched daily for some communication, as Clotilde had promised. Weeks passed, but none came, and I gradually became more and more convinced that I had been the victim of an adventuress.
One afternoon, however, I received at my rooms in Bloomsbury a brief note in a woman’s handwriting, unsigned, asking me to call at an address in Eccleston Street, Pimlico, that evening, at half-past nine. “I desire to thank you for your kindness to me,” was the concluding sentence of the letter.
Naturally, I kept the appointment, and on ringing at the door was shown up by a man-servant to a sitting-room on the first floor, where I stood prepared again to meet the woman who held me entranced by her beauty.
But instead of a woman there appeared two dark-faced, sinister-looking foreigners, who entered without a word and closed the door behind them. I instantly recognised them as those I had seen in the passage of the “Bell” at Stilton.
“Well? So you have come?” laughed the elder of the two. “We have asked you here because we wish to know something.” And I saw that in his hand he held some object which glistened as it caught my eye. It was a plated revolver. I had been trapped!
“What do you want to know?” I inquired, quickly on the alert against the pair of desperate ruffians.
“Answer me, Mr. Ewart,” said the elder of the two, a man with a grey bear
d and a foreign accent. “You were driving an automobile near Alconbury on a certain evening, and a woman stopped you. She had a boy with her, and she gave you something—a packet of papers, to keep in safety for her. Where are they? We want them.”
“I know nothing of what you are saying,” I declared, recollecting Clotilde’s injunction. “I think you must be mistaken.”
The men smiled grimly, and the elder made a signal, as though to someone behind me, and next instant I felt a silken cord slipped over my head and pulled tight by an unseen hand. A third man had stepped noiselessly from the long cupboard beside the fireplace, to which my back had been turned.
I felt the cord cutting into my throat, and tried to struggle and shout, but a cloth was clapped upon my mouth, and my hands secured by a second cord.
“Now,” said the elder man, “tell us the truth, or, if not, you die. You understand? Where is that packet?”
“I know nothing of any packet,” I gasped with great difficulty.
“It’s a lie! She gave it to you! Where did you take her to?”
I was silent. I had given my promise of secrecy, and yet I was entirely helpless in their unscrupulous hands. Again and again they demanded the papers, which they said she had given me to keep for her, and my denial only brought upon me the increased torture of the cord, until I was almost black in the face, and my veins stood out knotted and hard.
I realised, to my horror, that they intended to murder me, just as they had assassinated Latour and his wife. I fought for life, but my struggles only tightened the cord, and thus increased my agony.
“Tell us where you have put those papers,” demanded the younger of the villainous, black-eyed pair, while the third man held me helpless with hands of steel. “Where is the boy?”
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ™: 28 Classic Tales Page 32