The Sleuth of St. James's Square, Melville Davisson Post [learn to read activity book .txt] 📗

“And that's not all,” Marquis continued. “Something has happened to the cut-under here!”

I was now closely beside him.

“It was broken down, perhaps, or some accident to the harness?”

“No,” he replied. “The wheel tracks are here broadened, as though they had skidded on a turn. This would mean little if the cut-under had been moving at the time. But it was not moving; the horse was standing. The cut-under had stopped.”

He went on as though in a reflection to himself.

“The vehicle must have been violently thrown about here, by something.”

I had a sudden inspiration.

“I see it!” I cried. “The horse took fright, stopped, and then bolted; there has been a run-away. That accounts for the turn out. Let's hurry!”

But Marquis detained me with a firm hand on my arm.

“No,” he said, “the horse was not running when it turned out and it did not stop here in fright. The horse was entirely quiet here. The hoof marks would show any alarm in the animal, and, moreover, if it had stopped in fright there would have been an inevitable recoil which would have thrown the wheels of the vehicle backward out of their track. No moving animal, man included, stopped by fright fails to register this recoil. We always look for it in evidences of violent assault. Footprints invariably show it, and one learns thereby, unerringly, the direction of the attack.”

He rose, his hand still extended and upon my arm.

“There is only one possible explanation,” he added. “Something happened in the cut-under to throw it violently about in the road, and it happened with the horse undisturbed and the vehicle standing still. The wheel tracks are widened only at one point, showing a transverse but no lateral movement of the vehicle.”

“A struggle?” I cried. “Major Carrington was right, Madame Barras has been attacked by the driver!”

Marquis' hand held me firmly in the excitement of that realization. He was entirely composed. There was even a drawl in his voice as he answered me.

“Major Carrington, whoever he may be,” he said, “is wrong; if we exclude a third party, it was Madame Barras who attacked the driver.”

His fingers tightened under my obvious protest.

“It is quite certain,” he continued. “Taking the position of the standing horse, it will be the front wheels of the cut-under that have made, this widened track; the wheels under the driver's seat, and not the wheels under the guest seat, in the rear of the vehicle. There has been a violent struggle in this cut-under, but it was a struggle that took place wholly in the front of the vehicle.”

He went on in his maddeningly imperturbable calm.

“No one attacked our guest, but some one, here at this precise point, did attack the driver of this vehicle.”

“For God's sake,” I cried, “let's hurry!”

He stepped back slowly to the edge of the road and the drawl in his voice lengthened.

“We do hurry,” he said. “We hurry to the value of knowing that there was no accident here to the harness, no fright to the horse, no attack on the lady, and no change in the direction which the vehicle afterwards took. Suppose we had gone on, in a different form of hurry, ignorant of these facts?”

At this point I distinctly heard again the sound of a heavy animal in the wood. Marquis also heard it and he plunged into the thick bushes. Almost immediately we were at the spot, and before us some heavy object turned in the leaves.

Marquis whipped an electric-flash out of his pocket. The body of a man, tied at the hands and heels behind with a hitching-strap, and with a linen carriage lap-cloth wound around his head and knotted, lay there endeavoring to ease the rigor of his position by some movement.

We should now know, in a moment, what desperate thing had happened!

I cut the strap, while Marquis got the lap-cloth unwound from about the man's head. It was the driver of the cut-under. But we got no gain from his discovery. As soon as his face was clear, he tore out of our grasp and began to run.

He took the old road to the westward of the island, where perhaps he lived. We were wholly unable to stop him, and we got no reply to our shouted queries except his wild cry for help. He considered us his assailants from whom, by chance, he had escaped. It was folly to think of coming up with the man. He was set desperately for the westward of the island, and he would never stop until he reached it.

We turned back into the road:

Marquis' method now changed. He turned swiftly into the road along the mountain which the cut-under had taken after its capture.

I was at the extreme of a deadly anxiety about Madame Barras.

It seemed to me, now, certain that some gang of criminals having knowledge of the packet of money had waylaid the cut-under. Proud of my conclusion, I put the inquiry to Sir Henry as we hurried along. If we weren't too late!

He stopped suddenly like a man brought up at the point of a bayonet.

“My word!” He jerked the expression out through his tightened jaws. “Has she got ninety thousand dollars of your money!” And he set out again in his long stride. I explained briefly as I endeavored to keep his pace. It was her own money, not mine, but she did in fact have that large sum with her in the cut-under on this night. I gave him the story of the matter, briefly, for I had no breath to spare over it. And I asked him what he thought. Had a gang of thieves attacked the cut-under?

But he only repeated his expression.

“My word!... You got her ninety thousand dollars and let her drive away with no eye on her!.... Such trust in the honesty of our fellow creatures!... My word!”

I had to admit the deplorable negligence, but I had not thought of any peril, and I did not know that she carried the money with her until the conversation with my sister. There was some excuse for me. I could not remember a robbery on this island.

Marquis snapped his jaws.

“You'll remember this one!” he said.

It was a ridiculous remark. How could one ever forget if this incomparable creature were robbed and perhaps murdered. But were there not some extenuating circumstances in my favor. I presented them as we advanced; my sister and I lived in a rather protected atmosphere apart from all criminal activities, we could not foresee such a result. I had no knowledge of criminal methods.

“I can well believe it,” was the only reply Marquis