“I didn’t know,” the victim continued. “You see, I’m a total stranger here. Fordingbridge is the only person in the place who’s met me before. No one that I know of could have a grudge against me. That’s what surprises me in the business.”
He paused, evidently still pondering over the mystery.
“It beats me still,” he continued, when his reflection had produced no solution. “But at that moment I hadn’t much time to think over it. The next thing I heard was the sound of steps coming closer; and that gave me a start, I can tell you. It looked too much like the fellow coming to finish his job at close quarters. He must have been a damn bad shot—or it may have been the dark that troubled him. But I’d no longing to have him put a pistol-muzzle to my ear, I can tell you. I just let out a yell.”
He winced, for in the excitement of his narrative he had unconsciously shifted his wounded ankle.
“That seems to have been the saving of me; for of course I couldn’t stand, much less get away from the beggar. I suppose the racket I raised scared him. You see, they heard me at Flatt’s cottage, and there might easily have been other people on the road as well. So he seems to have turned and run at that. I kept on yelling for all I was worth; it seemed the most sensible thing to do. Just then, I heard the sound of a big motor-horn down the road at the corner where the path to the cottage comes in; and almost at once a couple of blazing headlights came up.”
“Mrs. Fleetwood’s car, I suppose?”
“I believe that’s her name. Pretty girl with dark hair? That’s the one. She pulled up her car when she saw me all a-sprawl over the road; and she was down from the driving-seat in a jiffy, asking me what it was all about. I explained things, more or less. She made no fuss; kept her head well; and turned on an electric horn full rip. You see, I explained to her I didn’t want to be left in the road there all alone. She’d proposed to go off in her car and get assistance, but I wasn’t keen on the idea.”
Sir Clinton’s face showed his approval of this caution.
“In a minute or two,” Cargill continued, “Fordingbridge and Billingford came up. They’d been roused by my yells and the electric horn. I don’t know what the girl thought when she saw Fordingbridge in the light of the motor’s lamps—it must have given her a start to see a face like that at close quarters in the night. But she’s a plucky girl; and she never turned a hair. Billingford proposed taking me down to the doctor in the car, but she insisted on bringing me back here. More comfortable, she said. And between the lot of them they got me bundled on board her car, and she drove me home.”
“You left the other two there, then?”
“Yes. She didn’t invite them on board. Then, when we got here, she fixed me up temporarily”—he nodded towards the bandages—“and then she went off in her car again to hunt up a doctor.”
Sir Clinton seemed to find nothing further to ask. Wendover stepped into the breach.
“Would you recognise this gunman if you saw him again?”
Cargill shook his head.
“In that light you couldn’t have told whether it was a man or a woman, much less recognise ’em.”
Before Wendover could say anything more, the door opened and Dr. Rafford came in, followed by Inspector Armadale.
“H’m!” said Sir Clinton. “I don’t think we need trouble you any more just now, Mr. Cargill. By the time the doctor’s fixed you up you’ll not want to be bothered with an inquisition, I suspect. I’ll drop in tomorrow and see how you’re getting on. Good night. I hope it’s not a bad business.”
He turned to Armadale.
“You needn’t worry Mr. Cargill, inspector. I’ve got the whole story, and can tell you what you need.”
Wendover and Armadale followed him from the room, leaving the doctor to do his work undisturbed. Sir Clinton led the way to his own room, where he gave the inspector the gist of what they had learned.
“And now, inspector,” he concluded, “perhaps you’ll tell us how you managed to pop up so opportunely. How did you come to hear of this affair?”
“Mrs. Fleetwood brought me up in her car, sir. It seems she drove to the doctor’s first of all, and, as he wanted a minute or two to collect bandages and so forth, she brought her car round to the place where I’m staying and asked for me. I was a bit taken aback when I saw her—couldn’t make out what it was all about at the first glance. She got me on board and was off to the doctor’s before you could say: ‘Snap!’ we picked him up and she drove us both up here. On the way she told me her side of the business.”
“And that was?”
“By her way of it, she’d wanted to make sure of catching the first post in the morning—an important letter, she said. She’d taken her car and driven in to Lynden Sands post office to post it, for fear of the hotel post not catching the first collection. Then she was driving back again when she heard someone calling, just as she came to the corner at Flatt’s cottage. She turned on her horn and came round the corner; and almost at once she saw, in the beam of her headlights, Cargill lying on the road. So she stopped and got down. In a minute or so, up came the gang from Flatt’s cottage; and between the lot of them they got Cargill into the car and she brought him home.”
“Did she see anyone on the road except Cargill?”
“I asked her that, sir. She says she saw no one
