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Page 72
Where the road upon which we stood wound down into the valley and
lost itself amid the trees surrounding the Gate House, the car
suddenly appeared again, and began to mount the slope toward us!
"Heavens!" whispered Carneta. "He may have seen us--with glasses!
Quick! Let us walk back until the hill-top conceals us; then we
must hide somewhere!"
I shared her excitement. Without a moment's hesitation we both
turned and retraced our steps. Twenty paces brought us to a
spot where a stack of mangel wurzels stood at the roadside.
"This will do!" I said.
We ran around into the field, and crouched where we could peer out
on the road without ourselves being seen. Nor had we taken up this
position a moment too soon.
Topping the slope came a light-weight electric, driven by a man who,
in his spruce uniform, might have passed at a glance for a very
dusky European. The car had a limousine back, and as the chauffeur
slowed down, out from the open windows right and left peered the
solitary occupant.
He had the cast of countenance which is associated with the best
type of Jew, with clear-cut aquiline features wholly destitute of
grossness. His white beard was patriarchal and he wore gold-rimmed
pince-nez and a glossy silk hat. Such figures may often be met
with in the great money-markets of the world, and Mr. Isaacs would
have passed for a successful financier in even more discerning
communities than that of Cadham.
But I scarcely breathed until the car was past; and, beside me, my
companion, crouching to the ground, was trembling wildly. Fifty
yards toward the village Mr. Isaacs evidently directed the man to
return.
The car was put about, and flashed past us at high speed down into
the valley. When the sound of the humming motor had died to
something no louder than the buzz of a sleepy wasp, I held out my
hand to Carneta and she rose, pale, but with blazing eyes, and
picked up her camera case.
"If he had detected us, everything would have been lost!" she
whispered.
"Not everything!" I replied grimly--and showed her the revolver
which I had held in my hand whilst those eagle eyes had been
seeking us. "If he had made a sign to show that he had seen us, in
fact, if he had once offered a safe mark by leaning from the car, I
should have shot him dead without hesitation!"
"We must not show ourselves again, but wait for dusk. He must have
seen us, then, on the hilltop, but I hope without recognizing us.
He has the sight and instincts of a vulture!"
I nodded, slipping the revolver into my pocket, but I wondered if I
should not have been better advised to have risked a shot at the
moment that I had recognized "Mr. Isaacs" for Hassan of Aleppo.
CHAPTER XXX
AT THE GATE HOUSE
From sunset to dusk I lurked about the neighbourhood of the Gate
House with my beautiful accomplice--watching and waiting: a man
bound upon stranger business, I dare swear, than any other in the
county of Kent that night.
Our endeavour now was to avoid observation by any one, and in this,
I think, we succeeded. At the same time, Carneta, upon whose
experience I relied implicitly, regarded it as most important that
we should observe (from a safe distance) any one who entered or
quitted the gates.
But none entered, and none came out. When, finally, we made along
the narrow footpath skirting the west of the grounds, the night was
silent--most strangely still.
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