The Charing Cross Mystery, J. S. Fletcher [portable ebook reader .txt] 📗

They’d force them into the car and get in after them; a third man, an accomplice, would drive off. If only we had some more definite information about the car and its occupants!”

“There’s an old chap coming down the road who seems to have his eye on us,” remarked Hetherwick, looking round. “He may have something to tell. After all, some of the people hereabouts must have seen the car!”

The old man, evidently a labourer, came nearer, looking inquiringly from one to the other. He had the air of one who can tell something on occasion.

“Be you gentlemen a-enquirin’ about a moty-car what was round here this mornin’?” he asked, as he came up. “I hear there was somebody a-askin’ questions that way, so I just come down-along, like.”

“We are,” answered Penteney. “Do you know anything?”

The old man pointed up the sunk road to a part of the park where it was lost amongst trees and coppices.

“Lives up there, I do,” he said. “My cottage, it be just behind they trees, t’other side o’ the road what this here runs into; my garden, it runs down to the edge o’ that road. And when I was a-gardenin’ this morning⁠—mebbe ’bout half-past-nine o’clock, that was⁠—I sees a moty-car what come along from your way, and turns into this here sunk road. Mebbe that’s what you’re a-talkin’ ’bout?”

“No doubt,” agreed Penteney. “And we’re much obliged to you. Now what sort of a car was it? Closed, or open?”

“Oh, ’twas closed up, same as one o’ they old cabs what us don’t see no more now,” said the old man. “But I see inside it, for all that. Two gentlemen.”

“Two gentlemen, eh?” repeated Penteney. “Just so. And a driver outside, of course.”

“Oh, aye; there was a driver outside, to be sure. In livery, he was⁠—like a gentleman’s servant. Smart feller!”

“Could you describe the gentlemen?”

“No, surely⁠—two gentlemen, though; a-sitting back, I sees ’em! And sees the moty-car, too, turn down this here very road.”

“What sort of car was it?” inquired Penteney. “What colour was it painted?”

“Well, now, you beats me! It med be a sort o’ greyish colour⁠—or again, it med be a sort o’ yaller, lightish yaller, or it med be drabbish⁠—I couldn’ ’zac’ly go to for say what it was, proper. But a lightish colour.”

“Lightish⁠—grey, yellow, or drab⁠—something of that sort?”

“Surely! Her wasn’t a dark ’un, anyhow. But the feller what drove, now he were in a dark livery⁠—I took partic’lar notice of he, ’cause he was so smart as never was. Green! that was his colour, and gold lace. Looked like a duke, he did! And I thought, hearin’ as there was them in the park as was inquirin’, like, as ’ow I’d come and tell ’ee.”

Penteney rewarded the informant with some silver, and turned to his companions with a shake of the head.

“A light-coloured car with two men in it, driven by a man who wore a dark-green livery with gold lace on it!” he remarked. “That’s about all we’re likely to get. And⁠—if this has been a carefully-planned affair, the chauffeur would change his livery before they’d gone far⁠—slip another coat on! However⁠—”

They went back to the Court, consulting together; obviously, there was nothing to do but to send out inquiries in the surrounding country. Penteney was sceptical about the success of these.

“When one considers the thousands of cars to be seen in any given area during one morning,” he said, “how can one expect that anybody, even rustics, should give special attention to any particular one? There’s no doubt about it⁠—they’ve got clean away!”

It seemed as if nothing could be done but to give the kidnapping full publicity through the police and the press. In the neighbourhood of the Court nobody beyond the housemaid and the old cottager appeared to have seen the car and its occupants. But during the afternoon, as Hetherwick and Penteney were about to set out for London, a man came to the house and asked to see Lady Riversreade. Lady Riversreade went out to him; the two men accompanied her, and found at the hall door an elderly, respectable-looking fellow who had driven up in a light cart. He had heard, he said, of what had happened at Riversreade Court that morning, and he believed he could tell something, for he was sure that he had seen a car, such as that the police were inquiring after, pass his house.

“And where is that?” asked Lady Riversreade.

“About two miles the other side of Dorking, my lady, on the London Road. I’m a market gardener⁠—name of Thomas Chillam. And I was outside my garden gate this morning, about, as near as I can reckon, ten o’clock, when I saw a car, light-coloured, coming from Dorking, at a particularly high speed⁠—a good deal faster than it had any right to do! I watched it careful, my lady. But just as it got near to my place, there was a man drove some sheep out of a by-lane, a few yards past my garden and the car was obliged to slow down. And so I saw the folks in it.”

“Yes?” said Lady Riversreade. “And⁠—who was in it?”

“There was a couple of men, my lady, on the front seat, and a couple of ladies in the back. Of course, it was a closed car, but I saw ’em, plain enough, all four. It seemed to me as if they were all either quarrelling or having high words⁠—they were all talking together, anyway. But though the car had slowed down ’cause of the sheep, it was still moving at a fair pace, and, of course, they were past and gone, London way, in a minute, as it were. All the same, I saw ’em clearly enough to see that one of the men inside was a man I’ve seen before.”

“About here?” exclaimed Lady Riversreade.

“No, my lady,” answered Chillam. “In London. It’s this way, my lady⁠—me and my missis, we’ve a grown-up daughter what’s in service in London⁠—Grosvenor Gardens. Now