Mickleham and by the time I realised how useful they'd be, it was too late to go back for them. I'm still not accustomed to the damned things, Captain. If I'd had horses, I'd have employed them without a second thought, but, frankly, this new technology is difficult for a traditional old bobby like me to cope with. Anyway, you arrived just as we reached the golf course. So now let's see the girl and find out what happened.'
'It's strange,' mused Burton, as they came to the club house and approached a line of police velocipedes parked outside it, guarded by a constable. 'He has this supernatural ability to vanish into thin air, which I've witnessed twice now, so why didn't he do so straightaway?'
'I have no idea,' answered Trounce, then said to the policeman, 'Constable, I have to commandeer a couple of penny-farthings.'
'That's quite all right, sir-help yourself,' replied his subordinate.
Burton stepped to one of the boneshakers and unclipped a small bellows from the side of its furnace. He inserted the nozzle into a valve and started pumping until steam began to vent from another valve set in the small boiler just below the engine. Then he placed the bellows back in its holder, twisted a toggle switch on the engine, and gave the small wheel beside it a couple of turns. The piston rod jerked and smoke puffed from the two tall, thin funnels. He heard the whine of the gyroscope and kicked the parking stand up; the velocipede didn't need it anymore.
Holding on to the frame, Burton placed his left foot on the lower mounting bar, heaved himself up, swung himself between the front wheel and the funnels, slipped his right foot into the right stirrup, then boosted himself up into the saddle and put his left foot into the left stirrup. It was done in one smooth motion and, though the penny- farthing rocked, the gyroscope kept it stable.
He looked to his right and saw that Trounce had also mounted and was in the act of slipping his cane into the holder affixed for that purpose to the vehicle's frame.
Both men released the brakes. The piston arms moved slowly at first but rapidly picked up speed, the crank pins whirled, steam hissed, the men engaged the gears, and the velocipedes went panting into the road.
'Spring Heeled Jack made mention of the fact that the mist had cleared and the sun was up,' called Burton, as they clattered toward Mickleham. 'It seemed significant to him.'
'Are you suggesting that he can't vanish at night?' returned Trounce.
'No. Remember, the first time I saw him he did vanish at night!'
'Then what?'
'I don't know!'
'This business presents one confounded puzzle after another!' exclaimed Trounce.
They came to the outskirts of Chislehurst, rode through the town, now abustle with the morning market, out the other side, and down a country lane toward the village.
The mist had dispersed entirely and the sky was a jumbled mass of clouds with patches of blue sky occasionally peeking through.
From the brow of a low hill, Burton recognised Mickleham ahead, and a few minutes later he and Detective Inspector Trounce parked their velocipedes at the side of the same field the king's agent had landed in earlier that morning.
The two constables were still on duty by the gate of the ramshackle cottage. It was to this that Trounce led Burton.
The Yard man knocked on the front door and it was opened by a man in corduroy trousers, shirt, and suspenders, with tousled hair, long sideburns, and wire-framed spectacles.
'Police?' he asked, in a lowered voice.
'Yes, sir. I'm Detective Inspector Trounce of Scotland Yard. This is my associate, Captain Burton. You are Mr. Tew?'
'Yes. Edward. Come in.'
They stepped across the threshold and found that the door opened directly into a fairly cramped and low- roofed sitting room. On a threadbare sofa, a pretty young girl lay within her mother's protective embrace. The woman was large, matronly, tearful, and shaking uncontrollably. The girl was wide-eyed and, thought Burton, rather too thin.
'Angela, these are policemen from London,' said Edward Tew, gently.
'She can't speak. She's too upset,' interrupted the mother. 'I know what she feels! I know!'
'Quiet now, Tilly,' said Tew. 'The girl is calm enough now. Go make a pot of tea; give the gentlemen room to sit down.'
'No! Leave her alone. I-she-she can't talk!'
'Yes I can, Mother,' whispered the girl.
The woman turned and kissed her daughter's cheek; held her hands.
'Are you sure? You don't have to. It'll just be questions, questions, questions!'
'Tilly, please!' snapped Edward Tew.
'It's all right, Mother,' whispered the girl.
With a sniff and lowered eyes, the mother nodded, stood, and left the room.
'Sit with your daughter, Mr. Tew,' said Trounce, gesturing to the sofa as he lowered himself onto a wooden chair next to a small table on which a vase of flowers stood. Tew did so, while Burton sat in the single armchair.
'Now then, it's Angela, isn't it?' the detective asked, in a kindly voice.
'Yes, sir,' answered the girl, quietly.
'Would you tell me what happened? Try not to miss anything out. Every detail is important.'
Angela Tew nodded, and her throat worked convulsively for a moment.
'I work as maid for the Longthorns, sir, them what lives in the grand old house on Saint Paul's Wood Hill. I was agoing there this morning and left here at-at-'
'At about ten to five,' put in her father. 'She works from five in the morning until two in the afternoon. Go on, Angey.'
'So I took me the short cut through Hoblingwell Wood.'
'Isn't it rather dark at that time of morning?' asked Trounce. 'Dark, I mean, to be wandering through the woods?'
'It's very dark, sir, aye, but the path is straight and I takes an oil lamp with me to light the way. I goes that way all the time, I does.'
'And what happened?'
'I was a good way along the path when a man stepped out from the trees. I couldn't see him properly, so I lifted the lamp and I says, `Who's that there?' Then I saw he was very tall and had big long legs like one of them circus folks what walks on sticks. I tells you, sir, round here we all know the stories about the ghost what's called Spring Heeled Jack and I ain't stupid. I saw what he was and recognised him straight off from the tales. So I turned and started arunning as fast as I could but I hardly got two steps afore he grabbed me up from behind and clapped his hand over me mouth. Then he-he-'
She put her arm across her face, hiding her eyes in her elbow. 'I can't say it, Father!'
Edward Tew patted his daughter's back and looked pleadingly at Detective Inspector Trounce. The Yard man nodded and Tew took up the story.
'Jumping Jack took the neck of her dress at the front and ripped it down to her waist, taking her underclothes with it. He turned her and bent her backward, putting his face-' A muffled sob came from the girl and Tew blinked rapidly, his mouth opening and closing. He looked at his two visitors and touched the middle of his chest.
'Here,' he whispered.
Burton clenched his jaw. The girl was only fifteen!
She looked up suddenly, and angrily smeared the tears from her cheeks with the heels of her hands.
'He bent me backward until I thought I might break in half. Then he let me up a little, looked into me face with them terrible eyes of his, and he said: `Not you.''
The king's agent leaned forward eagerly. 'Miss Tew, this is very important: are you absolutely sure that's what he said?'
She nodded. 'Clear as a bell it was. `Not you!' he said. Then he let go of me and hopped away like a horrible big cricket.'
