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Page 26
Marquis' hand held me firmly in the excitement of that
realization. He was entirely composed. There was even a drawl
in his voice as he answered me.
"Major Carrington, whoever he may be," he said, "is wrong; if we
exclude a third party, it was Madame Barras who attacked the
driver."
His fingers tightened under my obvious protest.
"It is quite certain," he continued. "Taking the position of the
standing horse, it will be the front wheels of the cut-under that
have made, this widened track; the wheels under the driver's
seat, and not the wheels under the guest seat, in the rear of the
vehicle. There has been a violent struggle in this cut-under,
but it was a struggle that took place wholly in the front of the
vehicle."
He went on in his maddeningly imperturbable calm.
"No one attacked our guest, but some one, here at this precise
point, did attack the driver of this vehicle."
"For God's sake," I cried, "let's hurry!"
He stepped back slowly to the edge of the road and the drawl in
his voice lengthened.
"We do hurry," he said. "We hurry to the value of knowing that
there was no accident here to the harness, no fright to the
horse, no attack on the lady, and no change in the direction
which the vehicle afterwards took. Suppose we had gone on, in a
different form of hurry, ignorant of these facts?"
At this point I distinctly heard again the sound of a heavy
animal in the wood. Marquis also heard it and he plunged into
the thick bushes. Almost immediately we were at the spot, and
before us some heavy object turned in the leaves.
Marquis whipped an electric-flash out of his pocket. The body of
a man, tied at the hands and heels behind with a hitching-strap,
and with a linen carriage lap-cloth wound around his head and
knotted, lay there endeavoring to ease the rigor of his position
by some movement.
We should now know, in a moment, what desperate thing had
happened!
I cut the strap, while Marquis got the lap-cloth unwound from
about the man's head. It was the driver of the cut-under. But
we got no gain from his discovery. As soon as his face was
clear, he tore out of our grasp and began to run.
He took the old road to the westward of the island, where perhaps
he lived. We were wholly unable to stop him, and we got no reply
to our shouted queries except his wild cry for help. He
considered us his assailants from whom, by chance, he had
escaped. It was folly to think of coming up with the man. He
was set desperately for the westward of the island, and he would
never stop until he reached it.
We turned back into the road:
Marquis' method now changed. He turned swiftly into the road
along the mountain which the cut-under had taken after its
capture.
I was at the extreme of a deadly anxiety about Madame Barras.
It seemed to me, now, certain that some gang of criminals having
knowledge of the packet of money had waylaid the cut-under.
Proud of my conclusion, I put the inquiry to Sir Henry as we
hurried along. If we weren't too late!
He stopped suddenly like a man brought up at the point of a
bayonet.
"My word!" He jerked the expression out through his tightened
jaws. "Has she got ninety thousand dollars of your money!" And
he set out again in his long stride. I explained briefly as I
endeavored to keep his pace. It was her own money, not mine, but
she did in fact have that large sum with her in the cut-under on
this night. I gave him the story of the matter, briefly, for I
had no breath to spare over it. And I asked him what he thought.
Had a gang of thieves attacked the cut-under?
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