The Voice of Káli/Chapter 13
Chapter XIII
THE PHANTOM CYCLIST
A FURTIVE figure passed the barred window of Wu Chang's quarters. The Chinese pipe was silent, now, and the man who stole along the wet grass outside noticed that the light was out. In spite of the darkness, he hesitated for a moment ere darting from the outbuilding into the shadow of the trees. From there, however, three paces brought him to the kitchen garden. Evidently familiar with the path, he now broke into a run, until he came to the door in the orchard wall. This he opened with a key, entered, and locked the door behind him.
The orchard sloped down to the former moat, but the sky was so heavily overcast by thunder clouds that only one familiar with the ground could possibly have found the way. Presently, however, he came to the nettle-grown gully which marked the site of the former moat. In addition to the natural difficulties, the hollow was thickly set with barbed wire. Pausing at the edge of the gap, the man groped about in the undergrowth for a while and then came upon a stake stuck in the ground, to which was tied a piece of string.
He hauled upon this string, drawing it toward him, and presently, attached to the end of the string, came a rope. He hauled upon this, in turn, until it became fairly taut; then, tying it firmly about the stake, he swung out across the barbed wire below and worked his way along the rope until his feet rested upon the bank beside the road bounding the grounds of the Abbey.
Releasing his hold on the rope, he crawled through a gap in the hedge; and from the trunk of a tree, which grew there, unknotted the rope and allowed it to fall back into the weed-grown moat, where, even in daylight, it would be unlikely to be detected.
He looked along the dark and narrow lane, which came out upon the highroad some twenty yards to the westward. For a while he stood there watching, listening. But no sound reached his ears, save the drip, drip, drip of water from the leaves and the increasing rumble of thunder. He turned to the left, walking quickly away from the highroad, and skirting the Abbey grounds. On the right were meadows; and presently, coming to a stile, the man crossed it, turning sharply to the right behind a thick-set hedge and reached a rough shed having a tarred roof and a door fastened with a padlock.
With a key which he carried he unlocked the door and entered the shed. Closing the door behind him, he struck a match and lighted a candle which rested upon a ledge. There were a number of agricultural implements in the shed and also a motor bicycle; and it was to this that the man turned his attention. He quickly overhauled it, satisfied himself that everything was in order, and then, extinguishing the candle, wheeled the bicycle out of the shed onto the narrow footpath.
He reclasped the padlock and laboriously trundled the machine along the edge of the meadow, passed the stile and carried on for another thirty or forty yards until he came to a gate and, presently, with the bicycle, he was out in the lane. He rested a while, breathing heavily from his labors; then, lighting the head lamp, he succeeded, although not without difficulty, for the road was bad, in starting the bicycle.
Once mounted, he proceeded at a good speed along the lane, swung into a turning on the left, with part of the Abbey grounds now rising above him, until the lane, ever bearing westward, finally brought him out upon the highroad. He followed this to within fifty yards of the Abbey lodge, then swung to the right and raced down a tree-arched narrow road, at a speed which, on so dark a night, must have meant destruction to one not familiar with every foot of the route.
It was at this moment, as the racing cyclist, after recklessly dropping into the valley, had begun to whirl up the slope beyond, that Inspector Gorleston leaped out from the shadow of the hedge, about ten yards north of the Abbey lodge.
“Jones!” he cried. “Tewksbury!”
From a point south of the gate a constable appeared, and a second from the gloom of a small coppice nearly facing the lodge.
“Get your machines out!” cried the inspector excitedly; “we've got him, tonight! He's heading for the Warren. There is no turning before he gets to Yarmouth Road.”
He ran back into the shadow of the hedge, the two constables imitating his movements. Presently all three were mounted upon bicycles of the “push” type in use by the Force, and, Inspector Gorleston leading, were proceeding down the sloping lane, on the track of a racing motorist.
But, considering the nature of the surface and having proper regard for his neck, the pace, as set by the inspector, was not comparable with that of the quarry.
As if the Fates had decided in favor of law and order, there came a temporary break in the storm clouds. Moving patches of light painted the road ahead; and, taking advantage of the slope, the three riders increased their pace to such a degree that they were carried well up the acclivity and contrived to stick to their wheels for two hundred yards of the gradient before being compelled to dismount and push their bikes from thence onward to the brow of the hill.
Blackness closed in again and there came fitful flashes of distant lightning to the south, Now, the ground was level and they rode along at a fair pace.
In the stillness, which was only broken by the distant rumbling of thunder, all could still faintly hear the pulsing of the motor, far ahead of them.
“He's still on the road,” said Gorleston. “We've a good chance this time.”
His subordinates ventured no comment, but plodded along steadily in his wake.
This phantom cyclist had become a nightmare to the local police; intruding upon the monotony of their ordinary duty, he had so stimulated zeal that neither Jones nor Tewksbury resented this special duty. Indeed, recognizing that they were hot upon the heels of a mystery which had set fire to the local imagination, they had no regret for the comforts which they were foregoing, but on the contrary fell for the ardor of the chase. They were three very keen men who pursued the phantom cyclist that night, nor lightly to be discounted.
Meanwhile, the object of the chase, half a mile ahead of his pursuers, had slowed down, at sighting some straggling outbuildings. A dog barked angrily in the distant farm to which the buildings belonged, but the phantom cyclist knew that that he could afford to ignore this disturbance. He dismounted and, evidently familiar with the ground, pushed his bicycle along a narrow path by the side of a barn, reached a weedy wilderness beyond and presently came to a disused cattle shed. There he docked his bicycle and walked back again into the lane, having first extinguished the lamp.
At this time the three pursuers were walking their bicycles up the slope, rather less than half a mile behind him.
He broke into a trot and carried on steadily past the cornfields until the lane ran through a straggling parkland. Here he halted. He took a footpath to the right and, having followed this for fifty yards, plunged into undergrowth. Now the ground rose sharply and was studded irregularly with trees, but beyond, a strangely forbidding object, uprose a ruined Norman tower. He was on the Warren property and a trespasser. But undeterred by this fact, he pressed on, now moving cautiously, avoiding the breaking of any twigs and studying every step that he took.
More than once he paused and listened. Lightning flashed fitfully away to the east and the thunder rumbled and re-echoed incessantly. But there was no sound to tell of human activity, either ahead of him or behind. He crept further forward, cautiously, step by step, until at last there was no obstruction between him and the gaunt ruin.
He dropped down flat amongst the wet undergrowth, studying the building as well as he could see it in the dim light; by now, the wandering storm had obscured the sky all around.
Strangely forbidding, the ancient building uprose above the trees. Rain dripped from the leaves and the night was filled with those curious sounds made by the earth inhaling rain.
Inspector Gorleston and his subordinates had come to the farm buildings and had dismounted.