CHAPTER XIV

The Second Chase in the Woods

“I’ve made all the necessary arrangements, sir,” Inspector Armadale reported to the Chief Constable on the following evening. “A dozen constables—two with rubber-soled shoes—and a couple of sergeants. They’re to be at the Ravensthorpe gate immediately it’s dark enough. The sergeants have the instructions; the constables don’t even know where they’re going when they leave here.”

“That’s correct,” Sir Clinton confirmed. “Let’s see. That’s fourteen altogether. Less two, twelve. Plus you and myself, fourteen. I think we’ll add to our number. Nothing like being on the safe side. Mr. Chacewater’s personally interested in the affair; I think we’ll take him in also. And Mr. Clifton might reasonably claim some share in the business. That makes sixteen. You’re detaching two constables to watch that lakelet. Well, surely fourteen of us ought to be able to pick up the scoundrel without difficulty.”

“You’re sure that he’ll make for the terrace over the pool, sir?”

“Nothing’s sure in this world, Inspector. But I think there’s a fair chance that he’ll make in that direction. And if he doesn’t, why, then, we can run him down wherever he goes.”

“If he goes up there, we’ll have him,” the Inspector affirmed. “There’ll be no amateur bungling this time, like the last affair. I’ll see to that myself. He won’t slip through a constabulary cordon as he did when he’d only a lot of excited youngsters to deal with.”

“I leave that part of the business entirely in your hands, Inspector,” the Chief Constable assured him.

“What I can’t see,” the Inspector continued, with a faint querulousness in his tone, “is why you’re going about the thing in this elaborate way. Why not arrest him straight off and be done with it?”

“Because there’s one little party you’ve omitted to take into your calculations, Inspector—and that’s the jury. Suspicion’s not good enough for us at this stage. Criminal trials aren’t conducted on romantic lines. Everything’s got to be proved up to the hilt. Frankly, in this case, you’ve been scattering your suspicions over a fairly wide field, haven’t you?”

“It’s our business to be suspicious of everybody,” the Inspector pleaded in extenuation.

“Oh, within limits, within limits, Inspector. You started by suspecting Foxton Polegate; then you branched off to Marden; after that you hovered a bit round Maurice Chacewater; and at the end you were hot on Cecil Chacewater’s heels. There’s too much of the smart reader of detective stories about that. He suspects about six of the characters without having any real proof at all; and then when the criminal turns up clearly in the last chapter he says: ‘Well, that fellow was on my list of suspects.’ That style of thing’s no use in real criminal work, where you’ve got to produce evidence and not merely some vague suspicions.”

“You’re a bit hard, sir,” the Inspector protested.

“Well, you criticized my methods, remember. If I were to arrest the fellow just now, I doubt if I could convince a jury of his guilt. And they’d be quite right. It’s their business to be sceptical and insist on definite proof. It’s that proof that I expect to get out of to-night’s work.”

“It will be very instructive for me, sir,” Inspector Armadale commented, with heavy irony.

“You take things too seriously,” Sir Clinton retorted, with an evident double meaning in the phrase. “What you need, Inspector, is a touch of fantasy. You’ll get a taste of it to-night, perhaps, unless my calculations go far astray. Now I’m going to ring up Mr. Chacewater and make arrangements for to-night.”

And with that he dismissed the Inspector.

Armadale retired with a grave face; but when he closed the door behind him his expression changed considerably.

“There he was, pulling my leg again, confound him!” he reflected. “A touch of fantasy, indeed! What’s he getting at now? And the worst of it is I haven’t got to the bottom of the business yet myself. He’s been quite straight in giving me all the facts. I’m sure of that. But they seem to me just a jumble. They don’t fit together anyhow. And yet he’s not the bluffing kind; he’s got it all fixed up in his mind; I’m sure of that, whether he’s right or wrong. Well, we’ll see before many hours are over.”

And with reflections like these Inspector Armadale had to content himself until nightfall.

As they drove up to the Ravensthorpe gates the Inspector found Sir Clinton in one of his uncommunicative moods. He seemed abstracted, and even, as the Inspector noted with faint malice, a little anxious about the business before them. When they reached the gates they found the constabulary squad awaiting them. Sir Clinton got out of the car, after running it a little way up the avenue.

“Now, the first thing you’ve got to remember,” he said, addressing the squad, “is that in no circumstances are you to make the slightest noise until you hear my second whistle. You know what you’re to do? Get up behind the house at the end opposite to the servants’ wing and stay there till you get my signal. Then you’re to come out and chase the man whom the Inspector will show you. You’re not to try to catch him. Keep a hundred yards behind him all the time; but don’t lose sight of him. The Inspector will give you instructions after you’ve chased for a while. Now which of you are the two with tennis shoes?”

Two constables stepped out of the ranks. Sir Clinton took them aside and gave them some special instructions.

“Now, you’d better get to your places,” he said, turning to the squad again. “Remember, not a sound. I’m afraid you’ll have a long wait, but we must take things as they come.”

As the squad was led off into the night, he moved over to where the Inspector was standing.

“I want something out of the car,” he said. The Inspector followed him and waited while Sir Clinton switched off the headlights and the tail lamp. The Chief Constable felt in a locker and handed something to Armadale.

“A pair of night-glasses, Inspector. You’ll need them. And that’s the lot. We’d better get to our position. There’s no saying when the fellow may begin his work.”

Rather to the mystification of the Inspector, Sir Clinton struck across the grass instead of following the avenue up to the house. After a fairly long walk they halted under a large tree.

“A touch of fantasy was what I recommended to you, Inspector. I think a little tree-climbing is indicated. Sling these glasses round your neck as I’m doing and follow on.”

“Quite mad!” was the Inspector’s involuntary comment to himself. “I suppose, once we get up there, he’ll come down again and tell me I needed exercise.”

He followed the Chief Constable, however; and was at last directed to a branch on which he could find a safe seat.

“Think I’m demented, Inspector?” Sir Clinton demanded with the accuracy of a thought-reader. “It’s not quite so bad as that, you’ll be glad to hear. Turn your glasses through that rift in the leaves. I was at special pains to cut it yesterday evening, in preparation for you. What do you see?”

The Inspector focused his glasses and scanned the scene visible through the fissure in the foliage.

“The front of Ravensthorpe,” he answered.

“Some windows?”

“Yes.”

“Well, one of them’s the window of the museum; and this happens to be one of the few points from which you can see right into the room. If the lights were on there, you’d find that we’re looking squarely on to the door of the safe.”

With this help the Inspector was able to pick out the window which evidently he was expected to watch.

“It’ll be a slow business,” Sir Clinton said in a bored tone. “But one of us has got to keep an eye on that window for the next hour or two at least. We can take it in turn.”

They settled down to their vigil, which proved to be a prolonged one. The Inspector found his perch upon the branch anything but comfortable; and it grew more wearisome as the time slipped past.

“Fantasy!” he commented bitterly to himself as he shifted his position for the twentieth time. “Cramp’s more likely.”

But at last their tenacity was rewarded. It was during one of the Inspector’s spells of watching. Suddenly the dark rectangle of the window flashed into momentary illumination and faded again.

“There he is!” exclaimed the Inspector. “He’s carrying a flash-lamp.”

Sir Clinton lifted his glasses and examined the place in his turn.

“I can see him moving about in the room,” the Inspector reported excitedly. “Now he’s going over towards the safe. Can you see him, sir?”

“Fairly well. What do you make of him?”

The Inspector studied his quarry intently for a while.

“That’s the otophone, isn’t it, sir? I can’t see his face; it seems as if he’d blackened it. . . . No, he’s wearing a big mask. It looks like . . .”

His voice rose sharply.

“It’s Marden! I recognize that water-proof of his; I could swear to it anywhere.”

“That’s quite correct, Inspector. Now I think we’ll get down from this tree as quick as we can and I’ll blow my whistle. That ought to startle him. And I’ve arranged for that to be the signal for a considerable amount of noise in the house, which ought to give the effect we want.”

He slipped lightly down the branches, waited for the slower-moving Inspector, and then blew a single shrill blast on his whistle.

“That’s roused them,” he said, with satisfaction, as some lights flashed up in windows on the front of Ravensthorpe. “I guess that amount of stir about the place will flush our friend without any trouble.”

He gazed through his glasses at the main door.

“There he goes, Inspector!”

A dark figure emerged suddenly on the threshold, hesitated for a moment, and then ran down the steps. Armadale instinctively started forward; but the cool voice of the Chief Constable recalled him.

“There’s no hurry, Inspector! You’d better hang your glasses on the tree here. They’ll only hamper you in running.”

Hurriedly the Inspector obeyed; and Sir Clinton leisurely hung up his own pair. Armadale turned again and followed the burglar with his eyes.

“He’s making for the old quarry, sir.”

“So I see,” Sir Clinton assured him. “I want the fellow to have a good start, remember. I don’t wish him to be pressed. Now we may as well get the chase organized.”

Followed by the Inspector, he hurried towards the front of Ravensthorpe.

“I think that’s a fair start to give him,” he estimated aloud. Then, lifting his whistle, he blew a second blast.

Almost immediately the figures of Cecil Chacewater and Michael Clifton emerged from the main door, while a few seconds later the police squad rounded the corner of the house.

“Carry on, Inspector!” Sir Clinton advised. “I leave the rest of the round-up to you. But keep exactly to what I told you.”

Armadale hurried off, and within a few seconds the chase had been set afoot.

“We must see if we can wipe your eye this time, Mr. Clifton,” the Chief Constable observed. “It’s a run over the old ground, you notice.”

Michael Clifton nodded in answer.

“If you’d let me run him down I’d be obliged to you,” he suggested. “You’ve given him a longish start, certainly; but I think I could pull him in.”

Sir Clinton made a gesture of dissent.

“Oh, no. We must give him a run for his money. Besides, it wouldn’t suit my book to have him run down too early in the game.”

The fugitive had reached the edge of the pine-wood as they were speaking, and now he disappeared from their sight among the arcades of the trees.

“The moon will be down in no time,” Cecil pointed out as they ran. “Aren’t you taking the risk of losing him up in the woods there? It’ll be pretty dark under the trees.”

He quickened his pace slightly in his eagerness; but the Chief Constable restrained him.

“Leave it to Armadale. It’s his affair. We’re only spectators, really.”

“I want the beggar caught,” Cecil grumbled, but he obeyed Sir Clinton’s orders and slowed down slightly.

A few seconds brought them to the fringe of the wood; and far ahead of them they could see the form of the burglar running steadily up the track.

“Just the same as before?” Sir Clinton demanded from Michael.

“Just the same.”

Through the wood they went behind the police squad. At the brow of the hill, where the trees began to thin, Armadale called a halt. They could hear him giving orders for the formation of his cordon. When his men began to move off under his directions the Inspector came over to Sir Clinton.

“He’ll not slip through our hands this time, sir. I’ll beat every bit of cover in that spinney. He can’t get away on either side without being spotted. We’ll get our hands on him in a few minutes now. I suppose he’s armed?”

Sir Clinton shook his head.

“I should doubt that.”

The Inspector failed to conceal his surprise.

“Not armed? He’s sure to be.”

“We’ll see in a minute or two,” the Chief Constable answered. “You’d better get your beaters to work, hadn’t you? . . . Ah!”

In the silence they heard the sound of a faint splash from the direction of the quarry.

“History’s repeating itself pretty accurately, isn’t it?” said Sir Clinton, turning to Michael. “That’s the kind of thing you heard the other night?”

“Just the same,” Michael admitted.

But as the line of constables moved forward he could not help contrasting their methodical work with the rather haphazard doings of the pursuers on the earlier occasion. Armadale had evidently issued stringent orders, for not a tuft of undergrowth was left unexamined as the line slowly closed in upon the hunted man. Every possible piece of cover was scrutinized and beaten before the cordon passed beyond it.

“Very pretty,” Sir Clinton commented, as they moved up in the rear of the line. “The Inspector must surely have been training these fellows. They really do the business excellently.”

Michael suddenly left the path they were following and stepped across under the trees.

“I’m going to have a look at that Fairy House myself,” he declared. “That’s where I found Maurice after the last show. I want to be perfectly certain that it’s empty.”

He opened the door, leaned inside the building, and then came back to his companions. Something like disappointment was visible in his expression. He was taken aback to see glances of sardonic amusement exchanged between Cecil and the Chief Constable.

“Drawn blank, have you?” Cecil inquired.

“There’s no one there at present,” Michael admitted.

“I don’t think the constables would have missed a plain thing like that,” Sir Clinton remarked mildly, though with a faint undertone of correction in his voice.

Before Michael had time to reply they heard Armadale’s voice. The cordon had passed completely through the spinney and was now on the edge of the marble terrace.

“Come along,” Sir Clinton urged. “We mustn’t miss the final scene.”

They hurriedly joined the line just as Armadale ordered a last advance.

“He’s somewhere on this terrace,” he told his men. “See that he doesn’t break away from you at the last moment.”

Sir Clinton turned to Michael.

“Just the same as before?”

Michael made a gesture of assent.

“I’ll admit that this is more businesslike.”

The Constabulary line crept forward almost foot by foot, subjecting every one of the marble seats to the most rigid scrutiny. Inspector Armadale’s anxiety was more and more apparent as the cordon advanced without securing the man for whom they were searching. At last the whole of the possible cover had been beaten, and the constables emerged on the open terrace. The fugitive had vanished, apparently, into thin air.

Michael Clifton turned to the Chief Constable with an ironical smile.

“_Just_ the same as last time, it seems. How history repeats itself!”

The Inspector hurried across the terrace to where they were standing. It was obvious that he was completely staggered by the turn of events.

“He’s got away, sir,” he reported in a mortified voice. “I can’t think how he’s managed it.”

“I think we’ll repeat that last stage again, Inspector, if you don’t mind. Withdraw your men till they’re just in front of that last line of seats.”

While the Inspector was giving his orders Sir Clinton pulled his case from his pocket, opened it, and thoughtfully tapped a cigarette on the