CHAPTER IV
THE glow of the headlights shimmered on the rain, on huge branches of trees which had been flung across the road, and on a man who stood huddled up in a raincoat, with a hat pulled low over his forehead and a gun pointing towards the car. Roger saw other men, one of whom wrenched open the driver’s door and poked a gun inside.
Harris grunted and grabbed Roger’s wrist. Cold steel brushed his hand, and then the handcuffs clicked—he was manacled to Harris.
“Take it easy.” The man who poked the gun into the car had a smooth voice. A scarf, tied round the lower half of his face, served as a mask. “Do as you’re told, and you won’t get hurt.”
“You’re crazy.” That was Sergeant Drayton, in a shrill voice.
“Not so crazy as you’ll be if you try to pull a fast one. We want West.”
“No one named West——” began the driver.
“Okay, forget who it is, we want your prisoner—he’s a pal of ours.” Bright eyes showed in the pale light inside the car. “Get out, pal.” He looked at Roger.
They were remarkable eyes; like silvery fire.
“We’re the police!” howled Drayton.
“We’d still want our boy friend, even if you were the Army, Navy, and Air Force rolled into one.” The gun swivelled towards Roger. “Get out.”
The door by Roger’s side opened; another man with a gun stood there. The rain hissed down until wind caught it and sent it in a wild flurry about the car.
“I can’t——” Roger began.
“You can, pal. And hurry, we haven’t got all night.”
“That’s enough of this,” said Harris heavily. Harris was good—ten times better than Drayton. “You clear off, the lot of you.” He might have been talking to a crowd of gapers gathered about a street accident. “This man’s our prisoner. Clear off.”
“I’m handcuffed to him,” Roger said. It wasn’t easy to make the words sound casual, or to try to sum this up; except to see that it was the next stage in the framing.
Why?
Harris sat back in his seat. It would be no fun trying to get him out of the car by force, he must weigh sixteen stone.
“He’s got a key, hasn’t he?” The man with the strange eyes said harshly.
“I told you to clear out,” Harris growled. “Another car will be along in a minute, and then——”
“We’d make fools of more policemen,” said the spokesman. The rain hissed and spattered, and the wind howled; it was bitterly cold. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll unlock those handcuffs.”
“Oh, will I,” said Harris. He moved his left arm. Something bright glistened in the light, flew across the car and out of the door and into the hedge—the key; it would take hours to find it.
Then the door at Harris’s side opened.
As Harris turned, a man struck at him with the butt of a gun. The heavy blow caught him on the chin. Quickly, the man with the gun tipped Harris’s helmet over his eyes and struck again—not savagely but with cold calculation.
Harris slumped down, and didn’t move.
“Look here, you’re crazy!” gasped Drayton.
“That’s right. You just do what you’re told.”
By then, men were dragging Harris out of the car, shoulders first. Roger slid towards the door. The tug at his wrist was painful, but the man eased Harris out gently. In five minutes Roger crouched over Harris’s huddled figure, still fastened to him by the single handcuff.
The rain pelted down.
“Take it easy,” said the man who had knocked out Harris. Another came forward and held Roger’s arm, so that the steel connecting bar of the handcuffs was visible, and Harris’s hand hung limp from it. The new-comer started to work with a small file, and the rasping sound was added to the night’s wild bluster. Water trickled down Roger’s neck, was bitterly cold on his sore face. His clothes began to get soggy. The two policemen in the front of the car did nothing, for they were still covered by the gun. The man with the file seemed prepared to work all night; but he didn’t, the job took only five or six minutes.
Soon they were moving down the hill.
* * * *
Roger simply let impressions rest on top of his mind.
Take one detective. Lure him to a lonely cottage with a faked message. Kill a helpless girl. Make it appear that he’d killed her. Give him a false name. Capture him from the police, and use his real name so clearly that the police couldn’t mistake it.
“Cigarette?” asked the man by his side. Those fantastic, silver-fire eyes showed.
“Thanks.”
