“Well, anyhow, you might tell me whether you’ve won the forty quid or lost it.”
“Not a word shall you get out of me at present.”
“Then I’ll make Mr. Leyland arrest you and torture you with thumbscrews. By the way, I wonder what Mr. Leyland’s doing? Brinky must have got to the garage by now, and I should have thought he would have brought him straight back here.”
“The garage? Oh, yes. At least, wait a minute. … Of course, now I come to think of it, there’s no real reason to suppose that Brinkman meant to take the car out at all.”
XXI
How Eames Spent the Evening
Eames stood behind the window of the passage into the bar parlour, making sure that there was no light behind him to show a silhouette. Yes, there was no doubt, it was Brinkman who had stepped out into the twilight of the street; Brinkman with a despatch-box in his hand; Brinkman on the run. He waited until the street corner hid the fugitive from view, then crammed on his soft hat and followed. He was not an expert at this sort of game, but fortunately there was not much to be done. Brinkman would obviously make for the garage, and when he had passed through the open doors of it, it would be easy for him, Eames, to slink up behind and post himself outside the gateway to prevent a sudden rush. Hang it all, though, why hadn’t the man gone out by the back lane?
And then he saw that he had counted on his luck too soon. Brinkman had reached the turning, and had not made for the garage after all. He had turned his back on it, and was starting out on the Pullford Road, the road toward the gorge and the Long Pool. This was outside all their calculations; what on earth could the man be up to? Not only was he deserting his car, he was deserting the garage, and with it all the available petrol-power of Chilthorpe. He could not be walking to Pullford, a distance of twenty miles more or less. He could hardly even be walking to Lowgill Junction, eight miles off, though that would, of course, bring him onto the main line. Chilthorpe Station would be hopeless at this time of night; no strand remained to connect it with civilization. No, if Brinkman took this road, he must be taking it only to return along it.
And yet, was it safe to reckon on that? Was it safe to make straight for the garage, and warn Leyland of what was happening? If he did that, he must let Brinkman out of his sight; and his orders were not to let Brinkman out of his sight. Eames was in the habit of obeying orders, and he obeyed. It would need cautious going, for, if Brinkman turned in his tracks, it was not unlikely that he would walk straight into the arms of his pursuer. Very cautiously then, flattening himself in doorways or hiding behind clumps of broom and furze on the roadside, Eames stalked his man at a distance of some thirty yards. It was difficult work in the half-darkness, but those sudden, revealing flashes of lightning made it unsafe to go nearer. They had left the last of the houses, and were now reaching the forked roads a little way up the hill. If Brinkman took the lower road, it must be Lowgill Junction he was making for; that would make easy work for his pursuers, who could ride him down in a fast motor. Surely it could not be that; surely he could not be turning his back on the motor and the thousand pounds!
No, he was not making for Lowgill. He took the hill turning instead; that led either to the railway station or across the moors to Pullford. In either case every step was taking the hunted man farther away from help. “If he goes as far as the first milestone,” Eames said to himself, “I’ll defy my orders and cut back to the garage, so that they can get the car out and follow him. Confound it all, what’s the man doing now?”
Brinkman had left the high road, and was making his way deliberately down the field-path that led to the gorge. This was worse than ever; the path was steep, and Eames, although he carried an electric torch which Bredon had lent him, did not dare to use it for fear of betraying himself. He could not guess the significance of this last move. There was no road Brinkman could be making for, unless he returned to this same road at the other end of the gorge, a few hundred yards higher up. Was it safe to wait at the beginning of the path? Was it safe to follow along the road, flanking his movements from above? Once more Eames had to fall back upon his orders. There was only one way of keeping his man in sight, and that was to stick to his heels. It would mean, probably, some nasty stumbles in the half-darkness, but it was too late to consider that. At least, the fir-trees and the bracken made it easier to follow unseen. And the fir-trees kept off a little of the rain, which was now driving fiercely upon his overcoat, and clogging the knees of his trousers with damp. Never mind, he had his orders.
Any kind of scenery achieves dignity in a thunderstorm; but rocky scenery in particular is ennobled by the combination. Under those quivering flashes, the two sides of the valley with the river running in between looked like the wings of a gigantic butterfly shaking off the pitiless dew that was falling on them. The opening of the gorge itself, with the slant of the shadows as the lightning’s glare failed to reach its depths,
