The Trail of Fear (21 page)

Behind him somewhere in the darkness were the police and—what at the moment he was even more afraid of—behind him too was the shed with the limp body of Dixon—warm and sticky as had been his hand, before he rubbed it with terrified loathing on the damp moss under the trees.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ROAD TO BEAULIEU

Rezaire ran blindly on for some distance further; then he paused and looked back once more. He could hear nothing; the shots appeared to have stopped. By now they would have discovered Dixon's death and his flight. They would then be after him once more. What if they should catch him when he was so near safety! He stumbled onward, the word ringing in his brain. Safety. Safety. He pulled himself up with a jerk. He must not let his mind wander. Suppose he were suddenly to go half mad, like Dixon had, out here in the lonely New Forest. A thing that might very well happen, for in addition to the strain of the last twenty-four hours, he had had nothing to eat since one o'clock at Basingstoke, no rest, except the few hours' sleep in the prison cell and in Mr. Challoner's flat. God! He was weary. Weary in body and mind. If only he could lie down here under the big trees and sleep, sleep, sleep. He got hold of himself with an effort; he realized how near he was to a breakdown now that the immediate and instant danger had been removed.

Making his uneven way forward he came upon the railway line again, a deep cutting on his left. Cautiously he scrambled down to it and looked round. His way lay to the south he knew, and the railway, judging by the stars, went south. If he followed the railway along he was bound to come to Beaulieu Road Station, whence he could take the road to Beaulieu. He set his face southward and began to walk swiftly along the track.

The starlight glinted on the long steel rails, stretching away in front of him. The ties passed away beneath his feet. He cursed the men who laid the railway for not putting the ties a full pace apart so that he could walk swiftly along. As it was, he had to take three short paces on the ties and then one on the uneven ballast—three and then one—three and then one…

He began to be mesmerized by the railway line and the ties, as a hen is mesmerized by a chalk line. It suddenly seemed to him that he had been walking for hours and hours along this line, walking nearly all his life. If only he could rest—rest and eat. Even the cold comfort of a prison cell seemed alluring, for it meant rest for his limbs, freedom for his brain from the constant tension at which it had been working for the last twenty-four hours.

Three and then one… Three and then one… On he went, his mind a machine that seemed every minute about to break down. He was the only one of the old gang left. Viv was gone. Dixon was dead. Harrap probably dead too. Joe in prison. Sam in prison… His brain suddenly roused itself to new activity, and to his old fear. Why had not Sam's capture been in the paper he had picked up in the train? Had the police purposely forbidden it to be mentioned, or had Sam escaped after all; impossibly, incredibly escaped, and was even now after him with that wicked knife? He knew Sam well enough to realize what to expect if Sam were to catch him alone after what had happened. Sam was an artist in cruelty; it was in his blood. He would take a slow revenge and at the end—death. Rezaire's tortured nerves, spurred by his imagination, writhed and flickered so that he almost shrieked aloud. For a moment he paused, half expecting Sam to leap upon him out of the high shadowed walls of the forest on either side of the railway line.

The warning rattle of a train in the distance recalled him to himself. He crawled into the bushes, crouched down while the train approached. Clouds of smoke, red touched from the furnace, jeweled with sparks; lighted cars streaming past in rows; rattle of wheels over rail ends; then sudden cessation of the roar, as if cut off with a knife, and a red light disappearing in the darkness. The train had passed. Rezaire got on the lines again, and went on; but this time with less fear. The sudden contact with ordinary life had in a way refreshed his mind, upon which the loneliness of the forest had begun to work.

He went on some distance, leaving the trees behind him as the country became more open, until he heard the trickle of a stream, and descending found that a small river flowed under the railway.

He stopped and drank greedily, wondering as he did so whether this might not be Beaulieu River itself, upon whose bosom some miles away was his launch.

Refreshed, he got up and resumed his way along the embankment, till at last the rails dipped into a cutting once more and the signal lights of Beaulieu Road Station came in sight.

Upon this he halted for a while to study the sky. The railway was at the moment running south and he knew from what he remembered of the map before he had lost it that Beaulieu itself was south and east of the station, and about three to four miles away by the main road. He took a further look at such stars as he could see and noted that heavy clouds were coming up, then scrambled up the steep embankment and struck out into the country, leaving the cutting behind him. His idea was to make a detour round the station and houses, whose lights he could now see plainly to his right, and join the Beaulieu Road well south of that danger spot. There would be, he felt sure, someone on the watch for him at the station even if they were only porters or local constables warned by telephone from Totton or Lyndhurst Road. The country was open moorland of grass and dry heather, with here and there a clump of fir trees. A south wind had got up and was blowing freshly from his right with a hint of rain.

After some while he came out into the main road to Beaulieu. Beaulieu and safety! He sat down on the edge of the ditch and rested a moment; for the journey across country had been hard. His hunger gnawed at him like a wild thing. If only he could get something to eat! The fresh wind sprayed his face with first drops of rain. But he did not care. He was on the road that led to freedom—though he felt certain that he had not yet done with the police. But even as he loaded his revolver in case he should need it, he felt strangely elated.

To his right he could see some distance away a light which at first he took to be a house. But it moved, came waveringly nearer, and he saw that it could only be a bicycle. He got up from the ditch prepared to hide once more, when an idea struck him. Here was a man on a cycle going to Beaulieu. Well, he had a revolver in his pocket; the cycle should change hands.

He stood up in the center of the road and signaled to the newcomer to halt. The cycle came to a standstill, and a man—Rezaire could not see his face—got off. The next minute Rezaire flashed his revolver in the light of the lamp that the man might see what it was and then dug it into his ribs.

“'Ere, what's matter…” began the other, a country man by his speech, but Rezaire cut in fiercely: “Never mind what's the matter! I want your cycle, or I'll blow a bullet into you.”

“Want my cycle!…” vaguely repeated the man, uncomprehending, yet half afraid.

“Yes,” snarled Rezaire, trying to inspire him with fear. His hand grasped the handle-bar. “And this,”—he dug him mercilessly in the ribs—“is a loaded revolver.”

“What d'ye mean?” again faltered the man, recoiling from the thrusting weapon.

“Quickly now! Don't start talking. And don't think”—Rezaire's quick brain forestalled any possible attack—“that you can hit me, because if you do, this pistol's got a light trigger and will simply go off into your guts.”

Still plying the country man with the irresistible persuasion of the steel barrel, he snatched the bicycle from him and backed slowly away for a pace. Then: “Now turn your back and walk away from me. If I see the slightest hesitation or if you turn round and try to follow me I'll put a bullet in you. I can see you quite plainly against the sky.”

For a moment the dark figure stood there irresolute, the driving rain striking down across him. Then he turned and walked slowly away. Twenty paces off Rezaire heard him break into a lumbering run.

Hurriedly he pocketed the revolver, mounted the machine and set off as fast as he could toward Beaulieu.

The rain, now coming down fast, whipped his cheek and the side of his face as he rode doggedly onward. He had not far to go now. The little fringe of light from his lamp slid before him on the muddy yellow road barred by bright spears of rain.

He rode on for two miles across the open moorland road, occasionally looking behind him. Once he passed two yokels coming from Beaulieu who bade him good-night, and once a farm wagon, plodding surlily along in the dark; but no one had overtaken him from the direction of the station.

He came to a gate across the road and a few houses by the side, and could not understand it. Had he gone wrong, got into a private park? He stood irresolute outside for a moment; then gently approached and lifted his cycle cautiously over. He did not want to arouse any people, or to let them know he had passed. Then he clambered over himself and resumed his journey. The road was evidently still the main road, but now traversing a park.

He had not gone far before he glimpsed the reflection of bright headlights somewhere behind him. This was what he had feared. He flung himself off his machine, putting out the light as he did so, and dragged it quickly into the side of the road behind some bushes. Here also amid the dripping sodden foliage he himself crouched. He had hardly left the road before the powerful headlights of a car swung round a corner.

Cutting remorselessly through the rain the car went past. Rezaire could not see who was in it, but he was taking no chances. He suspected it was the police who, reaching Beaulieu Road, had been put on his track by the cyclist. He watched the red light fade away in the direction of Beaulieu, then remounted, though this time he did not light his lamp.

A bare ten minutes later, when he was on the outskirts of Beaulieu, he just had time to throw the bicycle in the ditch once more and tumble after it himself, before the car re-passed him at a very high speed. This time he was almost certain it was a police car, for he could see it was crammed full of people and he had had a momentary glimpse of a helmet. He got out and stood for a moment sodden and desperate on the road. He was soaked through to the skin by the pitiless rain; he was cold, weary, and above all, hungry. How hungry he was! He vowed that he would not pass through Beaulieu without getting food somewhere, even though he knew it awaited him on his launch. How he longed for that launch, its little cabin, food, warmth—perhaps even Viv. It was curious how his thoughts were running on Viv whom he thought he had finished with forever. It almost seemed to him as if their break had never been, as if their relations were once more the same intimate ones that had existed before—in the days when there was not much that he would not have done for her, selfish and self-centered though he was.

The first houses of Beaulieu appeared, dark masses on his right hand side. To his left, close by the road, was a wide reach of water—the Beaulieu River again, in which, farther south, half a mile through the village, lay the motor launch. He stopped to relight his lamp. He did not want at this last minute to be summoned by the local constable. He debated with himself for a moment and then realized that his only course was to cycle boldly right through Beaulieu. He could not risk a detour, even if there was one—for while he knew the road he wanted on the far side, he did not know any other way of getting to it. He would have to chance there being anyone abroad on such a bad night. He lit his lamp with difficulty, and rode down into Beaulieu, light flickering in the rain.

He turned to the left into the main street and almost immediately was aware of a figure standing in his path. He set his teeth to ride nonchalantly past, when the figure loomed up clear in the feeble light. His heart came suddenly into his mouth as he recognized the uniform cap and oilskins of the village constable. For a moment fear and indecision held him irresolute, caught unawares, not knowing what to do to circumvent the grim figure before him, which stood for prison, for failure of all his plans, and destruction of his hopes.

CHAPTER XXIII

A BOLD MOVE

Only for a moment though was Rezaire dismayed; the next minute his brain was functioning again with all its usual vigor and alertness. He played boldly as was his custom.

“Ah, constable,” he said easily, walking straight up to him. “Any luck yet?”

The policeman, already warned to look out for a man on a bicycle, had just been about to stop the newcomer and interrogate him when the unusual question pulled him up short.

“What luck?” he queried suspiciously.

Rezaire, skating brilliantly over the thinnest of ice, affected to take this the wrong way.

“Oh, I've had none myself yet,” he answered, “but they told me that you might have had by now.”

Though his heart was hammering with excitement and suspense, he leaned easily on his bike in the now slackening rain.

“Where do you come from?” asked the policeman bluntly, not to be put off, switching on his torch.

For a fraction of a second Rezaire hesitated. His hand had been forced before he was ready. He had hoped to draw the man's confidence further by his assumption that they each knew all about one another. Hurriedly he changed his front—now to play the part of a man who has just realized that he and another have been talking at cross purposes.

“They said they'd told you…” He took a desperate chance which he had not intended to do till he had learned more. “Detective Inspector Harrison of Scotland Yard said he'd seen you when he came up just now.”

Inside his pocket his fingers gripped his revolver, ready to whip it out in an instant should his bluff fail. He was guessing wildly, building on the single glimpse he had had of a policeman's helmet in the car that had passed him twice. For if it had been a police car surely they would not have been to Beaulieu without speaking to the constable. He hurriedly threw out a supplementary sentence—just as the constable's lips opened.

“Perhaps it was your colleague he saw—if you have one?”

“No, it was me,” said the constable slowly, and Rezaire's heart leaped with joy. He had drawn a bow at venture, but he had hit between the joints of his opponent's harness. “But they didn't say anything about you,” added the policeman. “What's your name?”

“My name's Ferguson,” replied Rezaire glibly. He was now on safer ground. The fact once established—for it had not been denied—that Harrison and the detectives had been there, he knew very well how much they knew and what they would say. He ran swiftly on, pouring out what he intended should be confirmation of his identity, skillfully allaying the other's suspicions. He laid particular emphasis on the terrible time he had had in his pursuit across country—to explain the condition of his clothes.

“There are three of us on cycles—Mainprice and Waring are the other two—sent out to watch the roads round here. He's reported to have come this way after stealing a bicycle. We've to watch the Lymington, Hythe and Exbury Roads.” He reeled off the names of places he had seen near Beaulieu on the map.

The constable's last suspicions vanished at this display of knowledge. He had been much overawed at the visit of the Scotland Yard men half an hour ago and here, apparently, was another. He was gratified at the near escape he had had of making a fool of himself. He had for a moment thought of arresting the newcomer when he appeared like that on a cycle out of the night.

“Is he likely to come this way, sir?” he asked at length, and Rezaire could have laughed aloud in triumph. By the last word he knew that he had won. His luck and his “infernal cheek” had held good.

“Can't say. It'll be a good thing for you if he does. Promotion, eh?” He chuckled affably.

“Well, yes, sir. You see, we don't get much to do down here and to 'ave a man like that—name in all the papers—let slip by the London police,” he added with gusto—“and brought to your doors so to speak…”

“Better be careful! He's armed and desperate.”

“I'm ready for 'im,” responded the constable darkly, and Rezaire laughed.

“So am I,” he replied. “And I want to catch him as much as you. It means something to me too. Well, I must be off. If you see either of the others tell them that Ferguson has taken the Exbury Road.” He got on his cycle and rode off whistling into the night, leaving the constable, pleasantly intrigued, to step back into the shadow and resume his watch.

Rezaire rode off across the bridge in high spirits despite the cold and wet. Such had been his elation and self-confidence that he had almost asked the policeman where he could get food, but decided against it. The bold man could skate over thin ice if necessity arose, but only the fool stayed on it too long. It would not do to get tied up with the constable and then find that the police car had returned. But have food he must and he had already determined to raid the nearest house and get what he wanted at the point of a revolver. For it was now eleven o'clock, the launch would be lying at the quay about half a mile away ready to move off at a moment's notice, and the fact that safety was in his grasp had made him reckless.

He passed the gate of Beaulieu Abbey, then the stretch of river on his right, and went on up the hill till he came to the turning. Somewhere down this narrow road was the house called “Joyner's End.” He did not know the ground very well; but a few days ago he had studied a large scale map fairly thoroughly and knew that there were private houses standing in their own grounds on either side for about a quarter of a mile along a twisting road. The last house on the right was that called “Joyner's End,” and somewhere just beyond it, and behind it, was the quay he sought.

He paused at the turning and looked back. The rain had stopped and the moon had also risen. Not a soul was in sight. Behind him lay all the hairbreadth escapes and dangers of the last twenty-four hours; before him lay only safety. And in that moment the pangs of hunger took him again. He must eat, must eat and drink to restore his body and brain, lest like an overwound clock they should both snap and run down, even as Dixon's had.

Putting out his light, he hid the bicycle in the roadside and tiptoed up a little path to a cottage on the opposite side of the main road which slumbered in silent darkness in a small garden. He moved to the back, tried a door and windows, found one that was latched only and with his knife forced the catch.

Climbing quietly in, he found himself in what by the smell and the glint of the moonlight outside on plates and pots appeared to be a kitchen. He felt directly for the cupboards where he discovered a loaf of bread and cheese and a jug of milk. The next moment he was eating ravenously.

A sudden instinct warned him of danger, even before he heard the slight noise outside. He sprang to his feet and at the same moment the door was flung open. In the dim light a big figure in white was facing him. Rezaire could see that it grasped a weapon of some kind—a poker probably. A broad country voice asked him angrily what he was doing.

Rezaire, despite a fleeting temptation to pause and see whether he could not bluff this new opponent in some way, even as he had bluffed the policeman, did not stop to argue. Still clutching the loaf of bread, he went as quickly as he could. The other made a rush at him as he scrambled through the window; he felt the poker whistle past his head and crash on the window ledge. Then he was over and stumbling through a bed of some tall flowers. The owner of the cottage was shouting and cursing from the window, but did not attempt to pursue. By that time too Rezaire, slipping out through the hedge, had regained his cycle and set off again down the road opposite, white barred under the moonlight through the trees. He dismissed the incident from his mind. For now that he was so near to his launch these smaller things did not matter to him. As he rode he finished the bread which he still held in his hand.

He passed the gates to houses on either side, as the road bore first to the left and then to the right again. He would soon now come to the house he sought, the last one behind which lay the quay. It was wonderful to think that all his troubles lay behind him, the police, prison, Sam and his knife.

The next moment his ears, strained to the highest pitch, caught the hum of a car somewhere away behind him, but on the main road. He looked round uneasily. He could not see it, but soon he could make out the reflection of its headlights now on the side of a house, now on the branches of trees. Was it the police car, he wondered, and, if so, how was it that they had come down here after him once more? He had thought they had been thrown off the scent after they had scoured the Beaulieu Road, and it seemed rather strange that they should have returned here. He was certain the Beaulieu policeman had not guessed who he was and telephoned to them and he did not see what else could have given him away—if after all it was the police car.

He dismounted, for safety's sake, and stood looking back. Despite the nearness of his journey's end, he must exercise a certain amount of caution or he would give the hiding place of the launch away.

The lights were going along the main road just beyond the bend. He could see them flashing in and out among the trees. At the corner they seemed to halt; the next moment he realized with a sudden quick beat of the heart that they had swung onto the same road that he was. The lights were gleaming on the road surface just round the bend in the road and would be on him in a minute. As quick as thought he turned and rode on round the next bend, where he stepped aside into the open gate of one of the houses that lined the road, flung his cycle into the hedge and crouched down himself in some bushes.

It was the police car after all. It must be. No other car would have turned down that side road at this time of night. Yet, how had they known?…

The gleaming headlights spread their beams among the trees at the beginning of the road, moved slowly onward. Crouched among the wet leaves, he hoped that his bicycle was well hidden. He had only flung it into the back of the hedge that bordered the road without stopping to see how thick it was. Should the lights strike on any portion of it the reflection would give its hiding place away. He moved slightly and the laurels rustled together.

The car was coming very slowly, almost as though it was searching for him itself. Already it had rounded the first bend and was reaching the next. Through the shrubbery to his left he could see the two big headlights, like two eyes, though at least they could not turn aside and scan the country CHI either hand. But behind he knew were other eyes, keen and watchful, and hands that gripped revolvers.

The leaves and twigs in front of him grew bright under the touch of the approaching beams; the shadows moved athwart his vision. The car crawled slowly along the wet white surface of the road, looking now to his strung up fancy like some baleful animal that was tracking him out by a sixth sense. He felt suddenly that his presence must be known, that the car would stop when it came opposite him, feeling by instinct that he was there.

It came nearer and nearer; and his heart was in his mouth, for he could now see just in front of him the end of the handle-bar of his cycle projecting right through the hedge. The light was full on it; would the keen eyes in the car see it too?

The lights moved on. He heard a voice from the dark mass behind the beams—saw the glow of a torch. The car drew level at last and he could almost have cried out with relief, for the light had passed the danger point and the bicycle had not been seen.

The next moment he only just choked down a quick exclamation of fear. For a few yards further on a voice called out something and the car came to a sudden halt. What had they seen? Surely not the handle-bar of his cycle, for that they had already passed. He peered through the bushes, watching them intently. It was, as his imagination had suggested, almost as if the car was trailing him by scent. A couple of men were out in front of the car looking at the road surface. Then the car began to back.

The truth dawned on him suddenly. Fool that he was to have lingered there waiting for them to pass. For they would not pass; they were indeed tracking him—by the mark of his bicycle wheels on the fresh mud. They had seen that the tracks came to a stop and were backing now to where they had last been seen. In another moment they would find the place where he had turned aside, the discarded cycle—and his hiding place.