“It wasn’t an officer, sir. Someone picked it up as gossip outside. Malone questioned the man who started it, and decided that there might be something in it. He judged that it was his duty to go and have a look into it.”
“Quite right,” agreed the Chief Constable. He turned to Labar. “It’s likely enough to be a mare’s nest. You know how these yarns spread about at these times. Doesn’t sound like Larry to me. All the same we’d better go and see. It’s on our way.”
With this vague destination—for no one knew anything more concrete—they set off, the Metropolitan constable, who drove, taking the marsh road cautiously under the advice of the local policeman who sat by him as a guide.
On the main road into Rye, Labar had his attention drawn to an antiquated Ford which he thought that he recognised. As he suspected, it contained Malone. The big sergeant was out and at the doorway of the Assistant Commissioner’s car in a trice.
“I was hoping to catch you, sir,” he said addressing Labar.
“A stumer, I suppose?” questioned Winter.
“No, it was the straight tip. We were too late to do anything ourselves, but one of the Kent men has pretty well blown Billy Bungey’s head off with a shot gun. Billy’s as dead a man as ever you saw.”
“And Larry?” interjected Labar.
“Larry was in the shemozzle, but there were only two constables and he plugged the one who laid Billy out. The other gave him both barrels but he doubts if he so much as winged him. Larry held him and the farmer at bay with his automatic, and backed into a field of standing corn. Neither of them cared to follow him without more help. By the time that arrived there was nothing to find except his tracks through the corn which came out on this road. I’ve sent men the other way and we were seeing if we could pick up any trace in this direction.”
A few quick questions made the matter clear. A couple of men detailed to patrol the road had received information from a farmhand of two strangers moving about the outbuildings of a farm. Their movements had, in light of the mysterious police doings information of which had spread over the marsh, struck him as suspicious.
The two policemen, without waiting for more, had rushed to search the place. Rounding a haystack one of them had come face to face with Billy Bungey. They were perhaps a couple of yards apart. As the gunman raised his automatic the policeman fired. Billy dropped forward half his head shot away, and it was then that Larry Hughes came into view round the haystack and shot the policeman through the shoulder. The other had been held at bay until Larry could make good his escape. Then the wounded man had been assisted into the farmhouse, and in the queer way that rumour spreads, news of the adventure had reached Malone.
“Carry on, Malone,” ordered Winter. “We can get into Rye in ten minutes and send out help. We’ll keep an eye in this direction.”
It was necessary to get to Rye also to assume direction of the telegraphic and telephonic communications of the hunt. Assured that Larry was still within close reach, Labar ached to take some physical part in the hunt. Had he been alone it was probable that he would have dropped all other considerations to do so. But the presence of his two superiors deterred him from any such suggestion.
After all, there was little that he could do in Rye beyond sending out a few more men to help beat the surroundings of the farm, and send messages to all concerned of this new development. So far as human foresight went all the boltholes had already been stopped. But once in the town and this done, his thoughts moved to Penelope. He determined to reassure her of his safety before turning out on the pursuit once more.
He walked from the police station a little pleased with himself. It was the first time he had permitted himself to relax for many long hours, and calm consideration told him that he had done well. The thing was nearly over. To scour out any of Larry’s associates who had so far escaped would call for nothing more formidable than ordinary routine and detail work, now that the mastermind was a fugitive who would of a certainty be caught at any minute. It was a pity about Larry but still—
He raised the knocker at the door of his lodgings. His matronly landlady received him with warmth.
“Glad to see you back, sir. There have been all sorts of funny stories round the town of things that have been happening. Don’t know how you came to miss Miss Noelson. She—”
Labar was wiping his boots on the map. “She’s out, is she? Where has she gone?”
The landlady’s face dropped. “Why, she went to meet you. Didn’t you send her a note to meet you at the railway station?”
The detective gripped her by the shoulder and a wave of apprehension swept over him. “I sent no note. How long ago was this?”
“A quarter of an hour. I—”
But Labar had flung away from her. He was running at the top of his speed in the direction of the railway station. He was, perhaps for the first time in his life, conscious of deadly fear. Instinctively he knew that such a note could have only come from one person. How Larry Hughes could have known where Penelope was, why he should take the heavy risk of being in Rye at all were matters on which the detective did not stay to reason. Enough it was to know that the girl was in danger.
He stayed only to fling an abrupt question to the porter guarding the platform. “Has any train gone out in this last ten minutes?”
“No, sir. There’s one on the other side just going out for London. Heigh,
