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Page 73
I leaped into the cab.
Within five seconds from the time that I slammed the door and dropped
back panting upon the cushions, we were speeding westward toward the
house of the famous pathologist, thereby throwing the police
hopelessly off the track.
Faintly to my ears came the purr of a police whistle. The taxi-man
evidently did not hear the significant sound. Merciful Providence had
rung down the curtain; for to-night my role in the yellow drama was
finished.
CHAPTER XXI
CRAGMIRE TOWER
Less than two hours later, Inspector Weymouth and a party of men from
Scotland Yard raided the house in Museum Street. They found the stock
of J. Salaman practically intact, and, in the strangely appointed
rooms above, every evidence of a hasty outgoing. But of the
instruments, drugs and other laboratory paraphernalia not one item
remained. I would gladly have given my income for a year, to have
gained possession of the books, alone; for, beyond all shadow of
doubt, I knew them to contain formula calculated to revolutionize the
science of medicine.
Exhausted, physically and mentally, and with my mind a whispering-
gallery of conjectures (it were needless for me to mention whom
respecting) I turned in, gratefully, having patched up the slight
wound in my calf.
I seemed scarcely to have closed my eyes, when Nayland Smith was
shaking me into wakefulness.
"You are probably tired out," he said; "but your crazy expedition of
last night entitles you to no sympathy. Read this; there is a train in
an hour. We will reserve a compartment and you can resume your
interrupted slumbers in a corner seat."
As I struggled upright in bed, rubbing my eyes sleepily, Smith handed
me the Daily Telegraph, pointing to the following paragraph upon the
literary page:
Messrs. M---- announce that they will publish shortly the long delayed
work of Kegan Van Roon, the celebrated American traveler, Orientalist
and psychic investigator, dealing with his recent inquiries in China.
It will be remembered that Mr. Van Roon undertook to motor from Canton
to Siberia last winter, but met with unforeseen difficulties in the
province of Ho-Nan. He fell into the hands of a body of fanatics and
was fortunate to escape with his life. His book will deal in
particular with his experiences in Ho-Nan, and some sensational
revelations regarding the awakening of that most mysterious race, the
Chinese, are promised. For reasons of his own he has decided to remain
in England until the completion of his book (which will be published
simultaneously in New York and London) and has leased Cragmire Tower,
Somersetshire, in which romantic and historical residence he will
collate his notes and prepare for the world a work ear-marked as a
classic even before it is published.
I glanced up from the paper, to find Smith's eyes fixed upon me,
inquiringly.
"From what I have been able to learn," he said, evenly, "we should
reach Saul, with decent luck, just before dusk."
As he turned, and quitted the room without another word, I realized,
in a flash, the purport of our mission; I understood my friend's
ominous calm, betokening suppressed excitement.
The Fates were with us (or so it seemed); and whereas we had not hoped
to gain Saul before sunset, as a matter of fact, the autumn afternoon
was in its most glorious phase as we left the little village with its
oldtime hostelry behind us and set out in an easterly direction, with
the Bristol Channel far away on our left and a gently sloping upland
on our right.
The crooked high-street practically constituted the entire hamlet of
Saul, and the inn, "The Wagoners," was the last house in the street.
Now, as we followed the ribbon of moor-path to the top of the rise, we
could stand and look back upon the way we had come; and although we
had covered fully a mile of ground, it was possible to detect the
sunlight gleaming now and then upon the gilt lettering of the inn sign
as it swayed in the breeze. The day had been unpleasantly warm, but
was relieved by this same sea breeze, which, although but slight, had
in it the tang of the broad Atlantic. Behind us, then, the foot-path
sloped down to Saul, unpeopled by any living thing; east and northeast
swelled the monotony of the moor right out to the hazy distance where
the sky began and the sea remotely lay hidden; west fell the gentle
gradient from the top of the slope which we had mounted, and here, as
far as the eye could reach, the country had an appearance suggestive
of a huge and dried-up lake. This idea was borne out by an odd
blotchiness, for sometimes there would be half a mile or more of
seeming moorland, then a sharply defined change (or it seemed sharply
defined from that bird's-eye point of view). A vivid greenness marked
these changes, which merged into a dun-colored smudge and again into
the brilliant green; then the moor would begin once more.
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