“There he is!” exclaimed the Inspector. “He’s carrying a flash-lamp.”
Sir Clinton lifted his glasses and examined the place in his turn.
“I can see him moving about in the room,” the Inspector reported excitedly. “Now he’s going over towards the safe. Can you see him, sir?”
“Fairly well. What do you make of him?”
The Inspector studied his quarry intently for a while.
“That’s the otophone, isn’t it, sir? I can’t see his face; it seems as if he’d blackened it. … No, he’s wearing a big mask. It looks like …”
His voice rose sharply.
“It’s Marden! I recognize that waterproof of his; I could swear to it anywhere.”
“That’s quite correct, Inspector. Now I think we’ll get down from this tree as quick as we can and I’ll blow my whistle. That ought to startle him. And I’ve arranged for that to be the signal for a considerable amount of noise in the house, which ought to give the effect we want.”
He slipped lightly down the branches, waited for the slower-moving Inspector, and then blew a single shrill blast on his whistle.
“That’s roused them,” he said, with satisfaction, as some lights flashed up in windows on the front of Ravensthorpe. “I guess that amount of stir about the place will flush our friend without any trouble.”
He gazed through his glasses at the main door.
“There he goes, Inspector!”
A dark figure emerged suddenly on the threshold, hesitated for a moment, and then ran down the steps. Armadale instinctively started forward; but the cool voice of the Chief Constable recalled him.
“There’s no hurry, Inspector! You’d better hang your glasses on the tree here. They’ll only hamper you in running.”
Hurriedly the Inspector obeyed; and Sir Clinton leisurely hung up his own pair. Armadale turned again and followed the burglar with his eyes.
“He’s making for the old quarry, sir.”
“So I see,” Sir Clinton assured him. “I want the fellow to have a good start, remember. I don’t wish him to be pressed. Now we may as well get the chase organized.”
Followed by the Inspector, he hurried towards the front of Ravensthorpe.
“I think that’s a fair start to give him,” he estimated aloud. Then, lifting his whistle, he blew a second blast.
Almost immediately the figures of Cecil Chacewater and Michael Clifton emerged from the main door, while a few seconds later the police squad rounded the corner of the house.
“Carry on, Inspector!” Sir Clinton advised. “I leave the rest of the roundup to you. But keep exactly to what I told you.”
Armadale hurried off, and within a few seconds the chase had been set afoot.
“We must see if we can wipe your eye this time, Mr. Clifton,” the Chief Constable observed. “It’s a run over the old ground, you notice.”
Michael Clifton nodded in answer.
“If you’d let me run him down I’d be obliged to you,” he suggested. “You’ve given him a longish start, certainly; but I think I could pull him in.”
Sir Clinton made a gesture of dissent.
“Oh, no. We must give him a run for his money. Besides, it wouldn’t suit my book to have him run down too early in the game.”
The fugitive had reached the edge of the pinewood as they were speaking, and now he disappeared from their sight among the arcades of the trees.
“The moon will be down in no time,” Cecil pointed out as they ran. “Aren’t you taking the risk of losing him up in the woods there? It’ll be pretty dark under the trees.”
He quickened his pace slightly in his eagerness; but the Chief Constable restrained him.
“Leave it to Armadale. It’s his affair. We’re only spectators, really.”
“I want the beggar caught,” Cecil grumbled, but he obeyed Sir Clinton’s orders and slowed down slightly.
A few seconds brought them to the fringe of the wood; and far ahead of them they could see the form of the burglar running steadily up the track.
“Just the same as before?” Sir Clinton demanded from Michael.
“Just the same.”
Through the wood they went behind the police squad. At the brow of the hill, where the trees began to thin, Armadale called a halt. They could hear him giving orders for the formation of his cordon. When his men began to move off under his directions the Inspector came over to Sir Clinton.
“He’ll not slip through our hands this time, sir. I’ll beat every bit of cover in that spinney. He can’t get away on either side without being spotted. We’ll get our hands on him in a few minutes now. I suppose he’s armed?”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“I should doubt that.”
The Inspector failed to conceal his surprise.
“Not armed? He’s sure to be.”
“We’ll see in a minute or two,” the Chief Constable answered. “You’d better get your beaters to work, hadn’t you? … Ah!”
In the silence they heard the sound of a faint splash from the direction of the quarry.
“History’s repeating itself pretty accurately, isn’t it?” said Sir Clinton, turning to Michael. “That’s the kind of thing you heard the other night?”
“Just the same,” Michael admitted.
But as the line of constables moved forward he could not help contrasting their methodical work with the rather haphazard doings of the pursuers on the earlier occasion. Armadale had evidently issued stringent orders, for not a tuft of undergrowth was left unexamined as the line slowly closed in upon the hunted man. Every possible piece of cover was scrutinized and beaten before the cordon passed beyond it.
“Very pretty,” Sir Clinton commented, as they moved up in the rear of the line. “The Inspector must surely have been training these fellows. They really do the business excellently.”
Michael suddenly left the path they were following and stepped across under the trees.
“I’m going to have a look at that Fairy House myself,” he declared. “That’s where I found Maurice after the last show. I want to be perfectly certain that it’s empty.”
He opened the door, leaned inside the building, and then came back to his companions. Something like disappointment was visible in his expression. He was taken aback to see glances of sardonic
