Get Wallace! (9 page)

‘
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes
,' murmured Cousins.

‘It is good to know you do fear the Greeks, little man,' retorted Thalia; ‘it may help to prevent you from attempting anything rash. Come along! I have not had a pet since my dog died some time ago. Perhaps you will make a good substitute.'

The indignity of being regarded as a possible substitute for a pet dog did not anger Cousins. He followed her obediently to the door.

‘You mustn't forget the licence,' he remarked.

She threw him a glance over her shoulder.

‘We will dispense with that,' she returned, ‘but perhaps it would be as well to buy a chain and a collar for you.'

‘Be careful, Thalia,' called Ictinos after them. ‘You had better summon Farrell to help you with him in case he is foolish enough to attempt to escape.'

She laughed scornfully.

‘He will be very sorry if he does,' she declared.

The car bearing Sir Leonard Wallace tore on through the bitter cold of a wild December night. After an extremely mild, sunny day, the weather had changed suddenly. A strong east wind was blowing, carrying with it the threat of snow. Inside the car Sir Leonard sat feeling warm enough, but hardly noticing the violence of the wind or the sleet which pattered against the windows. The discovery that in some way his chauffeur, Johnson, had been abducted, and his place taken by the man impersonating him at the wheel necessitated certain alterations in his plans. It was a little thing that had first aroused Sir Leonard’s suspicions that all was not as it should be: merely the fact that the driver was not sitting at the wheel in the manner to which Wallace had become accustomed. Johnson, perhaps because of his military training, always sat bolt upright; the man now driving was reclining in an indolent manner which would have roused the ex-soldier’s scorn. Once he had observed
one thing, Sir Leonard noticed others. The wheel was being held differently, the gears were not changed with the same smooth precision. The impersonator of Johnson, although made-up very cleverly as the soldier–chauffeur, had overlooked the little details that count for so much in a scheme of that sort, especially when the man in the tonneau of the car possessed the well-trained and keen powers of observation for which Sir Leonard Wallace was noted.

Although anxious concerning the fate that had overtaken his driver, Wallace was rather pleased than otherwise at the turn affairs had taken. He was debating within himself the best use he could make of the knowledge that the man driving him was obviously a member of the organisation he was determined to break up, and that he was unaware that the deception had been detected. At length, his mind made up, Sir Leonard took up the speaking-tube.

‘Stop at the first decent-looking public house you come to, Johnson,’ he instructed. ‘A hot whisky will help to keep the cold out.’

‘Very well, sir,’ came back the answer.

Listening carefully, Wallace was able to detect the very slight difference between the real voice of Johnson and the imitation. The man was decidedly clever; might have made his fortune on the stage as a mimic. Sir Leonard was wondering if the impostor would obey orders, when the car drew up before an inn on the outskirts of Chatham. He descended into the road, told the chauffeur to go into the bar, and order whatever he required; then strolled into a cosy lounge where, sitting in a secluded nook close to a roaring fire, he dallied over his hot drink. He had not been there above three minutes when the door opened,
and the keen eyes of Maddison glanced into the room. Wallace beckoned to him.

‘Whom have you brought with you?’ he asked.

‘Reynolds and Cunliffe, sir.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Outside in the car.’

‘Well, listen,’ Wallace spoke rapidly. ‘Johnson has been knocked on the head or doped, and his place taken by a man masquerading as him. I don’t know whether this fellow happens to know you and the others by sight, it’s very doubtful, but if they enter the bar they will in all likelihood think he is Johnson and speak to him. Go and warn them!’

‘I’ve told them to keep well out of sight, sir, and not to enter into conversation with anybody. When we reached this place, and I noticed your car standing outside, I concluded that you wanted to speak to me. I thought they had better stay where they are in case there was any risk.’

‘Good man. How long had you been waiting in Piccadilly before I left?’

‘About five minutes, sir.’

‘You noticed no suspicious movement near the car?’

‘No; it was standing outside your house with the man we took for Johnson at the wheel. Of course our view was obscured by the traffic on several occasions, for we were a good distance from it.’

‘They must have lured him away on some pretext or other, and hit him on the head while the other man took his place. They’re pretty clever, Maddison. Now the question is, where is the show-down, as the Americans would call it, going to take place? Was I followed?’

Maddison nodded.

‘Three men in a Buick,’ he informed his chief. ‘They did not keep very close behind you, or I would have been here sooner.’

‘Where are they now?’

‘Went on ahead, sir. I daresay they’re lurking somewhere along the road.’

‘Well, look here, I’m going to contrive, if possible, to get captured. That seems the only way to find their headquarters without a long search that will possibly take weeks, and thus mean our losing the game. They’ve obviously abducted Johnson in order to get me into their power. Well, we’ll let ’em, but don’t lose sight of my car, if you can help it. As soon as you’ve discovered where they’ve taken me, you must raid the place.’

Maddison nodded somewhat sombrely.

‘Perhaps they have no intention of capturing you, sir,’ he reminded his chief. ‘It is far more likely that they intend to shoot you offhand, isn’t it? They have already tried twice today to kill you, you know.’

‘You may be sure that I am not going to let myself be assassinated, if I can help it, Maddison. If things begin to look too ugly, I think I can contrive to escape them. They are not likely to be acquainted with the peculiarities of my car.’

Maddison smiled.

‘Why not let Reynolds or Cunliffe hide in the luggage compartment, sir?’ he suggested.

Wallace shook his head.

‘There’s only room for one there, and it’s possible I may want to use it myself. Don’t worry about me. Everything will be all right so long as you don’t let my car out of your sight. My driver is probably waiting by now. Go and ascertain if he is suspicious of your car or not.’

Maddison left the lounge to return presently with the information that the fellow masquerading as Johnson was standing by the limousine waiting for his passenger to continue the journey. He had taken no interest in the other car beyond a casual glance or two. Sir Leonard expressed his satisfaction, finished his drink, and went out. The driver opened the door for him.

‘Now no more stops till we reach Sittingbourne railway station,’ remarked the Chief of the Secret Service. ‘Beastly night, isn’t it?’

The fellow mumbled something. Apparently he was not too sure of himself, possibly because he had had no opportunity of ascertaining the manner in which Johnson spoke to his employer. He was not to know that they were on rather unusual terms for master and servant. Wallace had a habit of treating those in his employ more as friends than inferiors. He switched off the interior lights, and made himself comfortable on the well-padded seat.

The car splashed its way through the muddy streets of Chatham without incident. There were few people about, the wildness of the night keeping at home all but those whom business or necessity compelled to be out of doors. The Sittingbourne road was practically deserted, an omnibus being the only vehicle to be met with over a stretch of two or three miles. The rain was now falling heavily, the wind lashing it furiously against the car as though overcome with rage that its pitiless force should be defied by man. The glaring headlights appeared to lose a considerable amount of their power in that storm; the electric screen-wiper, working rapidly, was unable to keep the glass clear. The man, sitting huddled up over the wheel, his eyes aching with the strain of attempting to keep the road ahead in view, was finding his job well-nigh beyond him. Inside sat Sir Leonard Wallace in comparative comfort, ever
on the alert, allowing an occasional smile to appear on his lips at the realisation of his driver’s distress.

Suddenly, about a mile from Sittingbourne, they came upon a man standing in the road frantically waving his arms. They were scarcely a dozen yards away when the driver first saw him, and applied his brakes so hastily that the car skidded, coming to a dead stop barely more than a foot from a deep ditch that ran along the left-hand side of the road. Full in the glare of its lights could be seen another car lying on its side, its bonnet half buried in the mud. Sir Leonard at once recognised it as a Buick, and it immediately flashed into his mind that the accident had been staged, and with such realism that his suspicions would not be aroused.

‘No need to allow myself to be captured after all,’ he reflected. ‘They’ll have to use this car – it would take hours to move the other.’

His mind was made up at once. The limousine had hardly stopped, when his finger sought for and found a knob cunningly concealed under the arm of his seat. He watched the spurious Johnson descend from the car, and join the men in the road – there were now three of them. With much waving of arms, they appeared to be explaining how the accident had happened. Feeling quite assured that his movements could not possibly be seen, Wallace pressed hard on the button, at the same time rising from the seat, which ascended rapidly until it was quite two feet from the floor. Through the aperture thus formed Sir Leonard promptly crawled into the large luggage compartment. Once there, he pushed down a small lever which, to the eyes of the uninitiated, would have merely appeared to be part of the hinge that enabled the door of the baggage chamber to be opened. The sliding panel and the seat
descended into place with a click. Wallace had had the bodywork of the car constructed with an eye to just such a contingency as this. The luggage compartment, a good deal larger than is usual, was part of and not additional to the body. Inside there was ample room for a man to sit comfortably, while air was admitted by two small and cunningly hidden ventilators. A simple micro-phonic device enabled a person concealed therein to hear practically every sound in the tonneau. There were other secrets in that limousine known only to Sir Leonard, Johnson, and one or two others, while its powerful engine was the pride of its builders, the famous Rolls-Royce Company.

Sir Leonard settled himself as comfortably as he could on a rug, and waited for eventualities. Two or three minutes went by; then he distinctly heard a door open.

‘These gentlemen,’ commenced a voice in admirable imitation of Johnson’s tones, ‘have had an accident, as you will have observed, sir. They ask me to—’

The speaker broke off with an exclamation not in the ex-soldier’s voice. Wallace heard a click as the lights in the interior of the car were switched on.

‘He’s not here!’ cried the man in incredulous tones.

Various exclamations of a distinctly forcible nature came from his companions, after which there was a significant silence for some seconds. Wallace, picturing four amazed faces staring into the empty car, smiled to himself.

‘He’s smelt a rat, and hopped it,’ presently observed one of the others. ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘How the devil could he have got out?’ came in exasperated accents, obviously from the fellow who had impersonated Johnson. ‘We should have been bound to have seen him.’

‘I don’t mean here. He must have jumped out while you were coming along.’

‘Rot! We travelled too fast for that – he’d have been killed or badly injured, if he’d tried it.’

‘How about when you were coming through Chatham?’ asked another voice. ‘You must have slowed down then.’

‘Not enough to enable him to land safely.’

‘Perhaps,’ persisted the other, ‘after you had stopped at that road house, he got out again when you thought you had shut him in.’

‘Why should he do that?’

‘How do I know? He’s gone anyway, and there’ll be the devil to pay when the guv’nor knows.’

‘I tink Mr Hepburn are for it,’ put in a fresh voice in distinctly foreign tones.

‘Shut up, Ibsen. I don’t see how I am to blame. I’ve done my job, and it’s been the trickiest piece of work I’ve ever tackled.’

‘Well, it seems to have come unstuck,’ was the dry remark of one of the others. ‘Obviously you didn’t take him in. We’d better get on – I don’t relish hanging round here in this storm, I’m soaked to the skin now.’

‘I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re right, Danson,’ came slowly from the driver. ‘He must have got out again at that pub. Another car arrived while we were there. I didn’t take much notice of it at the time, but I wouldn’t mind betting now that it was one of his. He probably had it following us. You were spotted, and that’s why he did the disappearing act.’

‘Perhaps he still follow,’ remarked the foreigner.

There was silence. They were apparently engaged in straining their eyes in an effort to see back along the road through the
darkness and rain, for, after some time, one observed that there was not a thing in sight.

‘Fool,’ snapped Hepburn, ‘if we’re being tracked, you can be damn well certain that they’re lying in wait somewhere along there with their lights out. We can’t see them, but they can see us.’

‘Why don’t they come along, and try to arrest us then?’ asked one of the others.

‘Because they’re after bigger game than us. Bundle in, all of you, we’ll have to leave the bus where it is – blasted nuisance now that you upset it – I suppose there is nothing about it to give a clue of any sort?’

‘Not a thing,’ was the reply. ‘It was carefully searched before we started and, as it was a stolen car, it can’t be traced to us.’

‘Mr Ictinos can’t get sore about tat, anyvay,’ remarked the man called Ibsen. ‘He it vas ordered us to ditch eet.’

‘That’s a consolation,’ grunted Hepburn. ‘You come in the front with me, Swede. Danson, you and Farrell sit in the back, and keep your eyes skinned. If they’re after us, they’ll have to show a light or crash to kingdom come. We’ll lead ’em a dance, and soon shake ’em off. This beauty’ll walk away from anything short of Campbell’s Bluebird.’

‘Damn risky, I call it, running round in a car like this,’ muttered one of the others. ‘It may be known to all the police in the country.’

‘Well, if they know the car, they’ll know the driver, won’t they?’ snapped Hepburn, ‘and I’m he. Jump in!’

The limousine glided away from the derelict lying in the ditch, was soon tearing through the storm-racked night, the needle on the speedometer rising from forty to fifty, to sixty, eventually to reach seventy. In that weather the driver was taking a tremendous risk, and he knew it, but it was a risk well worth
it for his own sake, for the ‘guv’nor’s’, and for the sake of his companions. White-faced sat the latter, the Swede with eyes shut that he dare not open, Damon and Farrell looking through the window at the back of the car at the headlights of the motor they now knew for certain was pursuing them. In the luggage compartment crouched Sir Leonard Wallace, aching in every limb, but smiling grimly to himself at this utterly futile effort to shake off the men of the Secret Service, for whether or not Maddison lost track of the Rolls-Royce, it was certain that he himself, unless some unforeseen occurrence took place, would be there at the end of the chase.