The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK ®. Морис Леблан
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desperate. It was a moment for deeds, not words. I saw him make a movement to draw out his own weapon; therefore, ere he was aware of it, I struck him a blow full in the face, practically repeating my tactics with Upton. The fellow reeled out of the car, but before I could get started again he fired twice at me, happily missing me each time.
He made a desperate dash to get on the footboard again, but I prevented him, and in turn was compelled to fire.
My bullet struck his right shoulder, and his weapon fell to the ground. Then I left him standing in the road, uttering a wild torrent of curses as I waved my hand in defiant farewell.
A mile from Hanover I threw off my grey beard and other disguise, washed my face in a brook, abandoned the car, and at three o’clock that afternoon found myself safely in the express for Brussels, on my way to Paris, the city which at that moment I deemed safest for me.
From that moment to this I have not been upon German soil.
CHAPTER VII
THE LADY OF THE GREAT NORTH ROAD
It occurred about a month after my return from Germany. A strange affair, assuredly; and stranger still that my life should have been spared to relate it.
After luncheon at the Trocadero I mounted into the car, a new forty six-cylinder “Napier” that we had purchased only a week before, to drive to Barnack, an old-world Northamptonshire village near Stamford, where I had to meet the audacious rascal Count Bindo. From Piccadilly Circus, I started forth upon my hundred-mile run with a light heart, in keen anticipation of a merry time. The Houghs, with whom Bindo was staying, always had gay house-parties, for the Major, his wife, and Marigold, his daughter, were keen on hunting, and we usually went to the meets of the Fitzwilliam, and got good runs across the park, Castor Hanglands, and the neighbourhood.
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,