The Secret of the League: The Story of a Social War

"A man who knows the roads," continued B. "Though, for that matter, it's a simple enough route – the Portsmouth road all the way to Kingston, and then across to Willesden. You had better avoid Guildford, by the way, coming back. Now, what other assistance will you require?"

"How many are there likely to be in the car, sir?"

"No one but Salt, I am informed. He has been touring alone for a week past, at all events."

"In that case, sir, we had better take a couple of men from Guildford and drive towards Farnham. We can wait at a suitable place in the road and make the arrest. Then when the irons are on I shall need no one beyond the driver I take with me. The two local men – you'll want Mr Salt's chauffeur detained for a few hours, I suppose, sir?"

"Yes, certainly; until you are well on your way. And any one else who may happen to be in the car. I will give you authority covering that."

"The two local men can take him, or them, back to Guildford – it will be dark by the time they get there – for detention while enquiries are being made. Then if a plain-clothes man meets me at Willesden we can go on, and our driver can take the car on to Scotland Yard."

"You see no difficulty throughout?" said B. anxiously. The inspector assured him that all seemed plain sailing. It was not his place to foresee difficulties in B.'s plans.

"Then I shall expect you to report to me from Stafford about 10.30 to-night that everything is satisfactory. Let me impress on you as a last word the need of care and unconcern in this case. It must be successfully carried out, and to do that there must be no fuss or publicity."

"Sergeant," said Detective-Inspector Moeletter, when they were outside, "between ourselves, can you tell me this: why they think it necessary to have three mute gentlemen looking on while we arrange a matter of this sort?"

"Between ourselves, sir," replied Sergeant Tolkeith, looking cautiously around, "it's my belief that it's come to this: that they are all half-afraid of themselves and can't trust one another."

"D.," remarked C., as they left together a few minutes later, "does anything strike you about B.?"

"It strikes me that he looks rather like an undertaker's man when he is dressed up," replied D.

"Does it not strike you that he is afraid?"

"Oh," admitted D., stroking his wounded cheek, "that's quite possible. So am I, for that matter."

"So may we all be in a way," said C.; "but it is different with him. I believe that he is in a blue funk. He's fey, and he's got Salt on the brain. Just remember that I venture on this prophecy: if Salt through any cause does not happen to get arrested, B. will throw up the sponge."

The office of the Unity League in Trafalgar Chambers was little more than an empty hive now. The headquarters of the operations had been transferred to the colony at Hanwood, and most of the staff had followed. With the declaration of the coal war, an entirely different set of conditions had come into force. The old offices had practically become a clearing house for everything connected with the League, and the high tide of active interest swept on elsewhere.

Miss Lisle remained, a person of some consequence, but in her heart she sighed from time to time for a sphere of action "down another little lane."

On the afternoon of the 13th of January she returned to the office about half-past three, and going to the instrument room unlocked the telescribe receiver-box and proceeded to sort the dozen communications which it contained – the accumulation of an hour – before passing them on to be dealt with. Most fell into clearly-defined departments at a glance. It was not until she reached the last, the earliest sent, that she read it through, but as she read that her whole half-listless, mechanical manner changed. With the first line apathy fell from her like a cloak; before she had finished, every limb and feature conveyed a sense of tingling excitement. In frantic haste she dragged the special writing materials across the table towards her, dashed off a sprawling, "Stop Mr Salt at any cost. – Lisle," and flashed it off to the League agency at Farnham.

A couple of minutes must pass before she could get any reply. She picked up the cause of her excitement, and for the second time read the message it contained:

"If you want to keep your Mr Salt from being arrested on a charge of murder, warn him that Inspector Moeletter from Stafford will be waiting for him on the road between Farnham and Guildford at three o'clock this afternoon with a warrant. No one believes in it, but he will be taken on in his motor to Willesden, and on to Stafford by the 7.30, and kept out of the way for a week while things have time to happen at Hanwood. There will be just enough evidence to get a remand, as there was to get a warrant. This is from a friend, who may remind you of it later and prove who he is by this sign."

The letter finished with a rough drawing of a gallows and a broken rope. It was written in a cramped, feigned hand and addressed to Sir John Hampden. It might have been lying in the box for an hour.

The telescribe bell gave its single note. Irene opened the box in feverish dread. An exclamation of despair broke from her lips as some words on the paper stood out in the intensity of their significance even before she took the letter from the box.

This was what Farnham replied:

"Hope nothing is the matter. Mr Salt left here quite half an hour ago, in his motor, for Guildford. He will stay there the night, or proceed to Hanwood according to the time he is occupied. Please let me know if there is any trouble."

Half an hour! There was not the remotest chance of intercepting him. Already, under ordinary circumstances, he would be in the outskirts of Guildford. It only remained to verify the worst. She wrote a brief message asking Mr Salt if he would kindly communicate with her immediately on his arrival, and despatched it to the agency at Guildford. If there was no reply to that request during the next half-hour she would accept the arrest as an established fact. And there being nothing apparently to do for the next half-hour, Miss Lisle, very much to the surprise of ninety-nine out of her hundred friends could they have seen her, went down on her knees in the midst of a roomful of the latest achievements of science and began to pray that a miracle might happen.

"I suppose that I may smoke?" said Salt. He was sitting handcuffed in his own motor-car, charged with murder, and formally cautioned that anything he should say might be used as evidence against him. It was scarcely a necessary warning in his case; with the exception of an equally formal protest against the arrest, he had not opened his lips until now. He and Moeletter had sat silently facing one another in the comfortably-appointed, roomy car, Salt with his face to the driver and leaning back in his easy seat with outward unconcern, the detective braced to a more alert attitude and with his knees almost touching those of his prisoner. For a mile or more – for perhaps seven or eight minutes by time, for the new driver was cautious with the yet unknown car – they had proceeded thus.

Yet Salt was very far from being unconcerned as he leaned back negligently among the cushions. He was thinking keenly, and with the settled, tranquil gaze that betrayed nothing, watching alertly the miles of dreary high-road that stretched along the Hog's Back before them. He had long foreseen the possibility of arrest, and he had taken certain precautions; but to safeguard himself effectually he would have had to abandon the more important part of his work, and the risk he ran was the smaller evil of the two. But he had not anticipated this charge. Some legal jugglery with "conspiracy" had been in his mind.

"I suppose that I may smoke?" Half a mile ahead a solitary wayfarer was approaching. Salt might have noted him, but there was nothing remarkable in his appearance except that pedestrians – or vehicles either, for that matter – were rare along the Hog's Back on that bitter winter afternoon.

"Why, certainly, sir; in your own car, surely," replied the inspector agreeably. He was there to do his duty, and he had done it, even down to the detail of satisfying himself by search that his prisoner carried no weapon. Beyond that there was no reason to be churlish, especially as every one had to admit that there was no telling what might have happened in a week's or a month's time. "Can I help you in any way?"

"Thank you, I will manage," replied Salt, and in spite of his manacles he succeeded without much difficulty in taking out his cigarette-case and a match-box. He lit a cigarette, blew out the match, and then looked hesitatingly round the rather elegant car, at the rich velvety carpet on the floor, at the half-burned vesta in his hand. Then with easy unconcern he lowered the window by his side and leaned forward towards it.

It was a perfectly natural action, but Inspector Moeletter owed at least one step in his promotion to a habit of always being on his guard against natural-seeming actions of that kind. His left foot quickly and imperceptibly slid across the carpet, so that if Salt made any ill-judged attempt to leave the car he must inevitably come to grief across that rigid barrier; with a ready eye Moeletter noted afresh the handle of the door, the size of the window frame, and every kindred detail. His hands lay in unostentatious readiness by his side, and he felt no apprehension.

But Salt had not the faintest intention of attempting any sensational act. He dropped the match leisurely from between his fingers, cast a glance up to the sky, where the lowering clouds had long been threatening snow, and then drew in his head. But in some way, either from his position, a jolt of the car, or a touch against the sash, as he did so his cap was jerked off, and, despite a quick but clumsy attempt to catch it in his fettered hands, it was whirled away behind in their eddying wake.

"Please stop," he said, turning to Moeletter. "I am afraid that I shall find it too cold without."

The detective was not pleased, but there was nothing in the mishap that he could take objection to. Further, he had no wish to make his prisoner in any way noticeable during the latter part of their journey. "Pull up, Murphy," he called through the tube by his shoulder, and with a grinding that set its owner's teeth on edge, the car came to a standstill in two lengths.

Moeletter had intended that the driver should recover the cap, but he was saved the trouble. The solitary pedestrian had happened to be on the spot at the moment of the incident, and he was standing by the open window almost as soon as the car stopped. Forgetful of his indignity, Salt stretched out a manacled hand and received his property. "Thank you," he said with a pleasant smile. "I am much obliged."

"Go on," said Moeletter, through the tube.

"I think that I had better get used to these – 'darbies' is the professional name, is it not, Inspector? – to these 'darbies' before I look out again," remarked Salt good-humouredly.

The telescribe bell announced another message. It found Irene sitting at the table in the instrument room with ordnance maps around her and the index book of the League's most trusted agents lying open on the shelf. She just glanced at the clock as she jumped up. It was 4.15, exactly the last minute of the half-hour that she had fixed as the limit of uncertainty. The message might even yet be from Salt. But it was not; it was this instead:

"Fear Mr Salt has been arrested. He is in his motor-car, handcuffed, proceeding towards Guildford, in charge of man who has appearance of belonging to police force. Driver is not Mr Salt's man. Mr S. made opp. for me to see sit., but said nothing. Passed just W. of Puttenham 3.55. Roads good, but snow beginning. Car trav only 10-12 m. hour. Shall remain here on chance being use. Don't hesitate."

A hall-formed plan was already floating in the space between Miss Lisle's adventurous brain and the maps. The Puttenham message crystallised it. There was now something to go on. The route she knew already; the times and mileages also lay beneath her hand. The scheme had a hundred faults, and only one thing to recommend it – that it might succeed. For ten minutes she flung herself into the details of the maps, jotting down a time, a distance, here and there a detail of the road. "Puttenham" might remain at his box till dawn, but all the work, all the chance, was forward – before the car. At the end of ten minutes Irene picked up the accumulation of her labours and rang up the telephone exchange.

"What is it, Murphy?" demanded the inspector through the tube, as the car came to a dead stop. "Something else in the way?"

"I can't quite make it out, sir," was the reply. "We're just outside the long railway arch, and there seems to be something on fire towards the other end. Terrible lot of smoke coming through."

"Can't we run up to it?"

"This is an unusually long bridge – fifty or sixty yards, I should say. I hardly like to take you on into that smoke, sir."

"Oh, very well. Jump down and see what it is. Only be as sharp as you can."

It was now pitch dark, and a driving, biting storm of snow and hail was blowing across their path from the east. When the constable-chauffeur had learned sufficient of the car to give him confidence, the storm had swept down, and their progress had been scarcely any faster. There had been delays, too. By Ripley a heavy farm waggon had broken down almost before their eyes, and it had been ten minutes before a spare chain horse could be obtained to drag it to the roadside. Further on some men felling a tree in a coppice had clumsily allowed it to fall across the road, and another ten minutes elapsed before it was cut in two and rolled aside. Fortunately they were not pressed for time. Fortunately, also, the driver knew the way, for few people were afoot to face that dreadful stream of snow and ice with the lashing wind and the numbing cold. Two, two or three, or perhaps four men had chanced to be at hand when the car stopped, making their way towards the bridge, but the wreathing snow soon cut them off. Occasionally, when the wind and drift hung for a moment, a figure or two showed dimly and gigantic in the murk of the tunnel. Nothing of the fire could be seen, but the smoke continued to pour out, and the mingled odour of burned and unburned oil filled the car.

In a few minutes the driver returned. When he had left his seat Moeletter had leaned forward, and with a gruff word of half apology had laid a hand upon the rug across Salt's knees, so that he held, or at least controlled, the connecting links of the handcuffs, while at the same time his other hand had dropped quietly down to his hip-pocket. He now lowered the window on the further side, still keeping his left hand on the rug.

"Oil cart ablaze, sir," gasped the driver, between paroxysms of coughing. "Road simply running fire, and the fumes awful." His face was almost completely protected beneath cap, goggles, and a storm shade that fell from the cap over the shoulders and buttoned across the mouth, but no covering had seemed effectual against the suffocating reek of the burning oil. The fire had melted the snow off his clothes, and he stood by the door with a bar of darkness just falling across his face, and the electric light through the lowered window blazing upon his gleaming leathers, his gauntlets and puttee leggings, and the cumbrous numbered badge that the regulations then imposed.

"It will be some time before the road is passable?" asked Moeletter with a frown.

"Oh, hours perhaps," was the sputtering reply. "Would suggest going by Molesey Bridge, sir. Best way now."

"Is it much out?"

"The turning is half a mile back. From there it is no further than this way."

"And you know the way perfectly?"

The driver nodded. "Perfectly, sir."

"Very well; go on. We have plenty of time yet, but you might get a few more miles out of her, if you think you can."

The driver jumped up to his seat, the horn gave its bull-like note of warning, and gliding round the car began to head back towards Esher with the open common on either side and the pelting wind behind. It slackened for a moment at the fork in the high-road, turned to the right, and then began to draw away northward with an increased speed that showed the driver to be capable of rising to his instructions.

"It is fortunate that the inspector is not a motoring man," thought Salt to himself with an inward smile. "This is very much too good." But the inspector only noticed that with the increased speed the car seemed to run more smoothly, and even then he had no means of judging what the increase had become. The man whose car it was knew that a very different explanation than mere speed lay behind the sudden change that made the motion now sheer luxury. He knew with absolute conviction what had happened, and he would have known without any further evidence that the driver who now had his hand upon the wheel was a thousand miles ahead of constable-chauffeur Murphy in motor-craft.

It was not the first suggestion of some friendly influence at work that had stirred his mind. The incident of the stranded waggon across the road by Ripley was little in itself. Even when they were a second time delayed by the fallen tree a few miles further on nothing but an unreasoning hope could have called it more than coincidence. But with the third episode a matured plan began to loom through the meaningless delays. Oil was here, and where there was oil in England at that day the hand of the Unity League might be traced not far away. In his mind's eye Salt ran over half a dozen miles of the Portsmouth road. As far as he could remember, if it was intended to block the road there was scarcely a more suitable spot than the long railway bridge to be found between Esher and Kingston, and, followed the thought, if it was intended to force Moeletter to accept the bridge at Molesey, no point in all the high-road south of the fork would have served.

The three accidents had taken place each at the exact point where it would best serve its purpose.

Salt did not even glance at the driver when he returned from the fire. He leaned back in his seat in simple enjoyment, and Inspector Moeletter thought from his appearance that he was going to sleep.

There was little to be gained by looking out, apart from the policy of unconcern. The huge white motor-car that was waiting in the cross-road by Esher station had its head-lights masked, and in the snow-storm and the night it could not have been seen ten yards away. The driver of the green car sounded his horn for the road as he swept by, and ten seconds later the white car glided out from its place of concealment like a ghostly mastodon, and, baring its dazzling lamps, began to thrash along the road in the other's wake.

What would be their route when they had crossed the bridge? That was Salt's constant thought now, not because he was troubled by the chances, but because it was the next point in the unknown plan that would serve to guide him. He had not long to wait under the dexterous pilotage of the unknown hand outside. The flat, straight road became a tortuous village street, the lights of the Molesey shops and inns splashed in splintering blurs across the streaming windows, an iron bridge shook and rumbled beneath their wheels, and they were in Middlesex.

The horn brayed out a continuous warning note, the car swung off to the left, and Salt, with his eyes closed, knew exactly what had been arranged.

But there was yet Inspector Moeletter to be reckoned with. He was ignorant of the roads, but he had a well-developed gift of location, and the abrupt turn to the left when he had seen what appeared to be a broad high-road leading straight on from Molesey Bridge, gave him a moment's thought. He turned to the speaking-tube.

"Are you sure that this is right, Murphy?" he asked sharply. "Kingston must lie away on the right."

"We go through Hampton this way, sir, and into the Kingston road at Twickenham," came the chattering reply in a half-frozen voice. "It is just as near, and we don't meet the wind."

It was quite true, although the inspector might not know it, but the ready explanation seemed to satisfy him. Another circumstance would have set his mind at rest. At Hampton the route took them equally to the right. Salt did not know the road intimately, but he knew that if his surmise was correct, they must very soon draw away to the left again. What would happen then? For three or four miles they would run between hedges and encounter nothing more urban than a scattered hamlet. Twickenham they would never see that night. Inspector Moeletter was far from being unsophisticated, and his suspicion had already once, apparently, been touched. How would the race end?

The car slowed down for a moment, but so smoothly that it was almost imperceptible, and with a clanging bell an electric tram swung into their vision and out again. Salt was taking note of every trifle in this enthralling game. Why, he asked himself, had so expert a driver slackened speed with plenty of room to pass? He saw a possible explanation. They had been meeting and overtaking trams at intervals all the way from Molesey Bridge. In another minute they would have left the high-road and the tram route, and the driver wished to hide the fact from Moeletter as long as possible. He had therefore waited to meet this tram so that the inspector might unconsciously carry in his mind the evidence of their presence to the last possible point.

They were no longer on the high-road; they had glided off somewhere without a warning note or any indication of speed or motion to betray the turn they had taken. The houses were becoming sparser, fields intervened, with here and there a strung-out colony of cottages. Soon even the scattered buildings ceased, or appeared so rarely that they only dotted long stretches of country lanes, and at every yard they trembled on the verge of detection. Nothing but the glare of light inside the vehicle and the storm and darkness beyond could have hid for a moment from even the least suspicious of men the fact that they were no longer travelling even the most secluded of suburban high-roads. And now, as if aware that the deception could not be maintained much longer, the driver began to increase the speed at every open stretch. Again nothing but his inspired skill and the perfectly-balanced excellence of the car could disguise the fact that they flew along the level road; while among the narrow winding lanes they rushed at a headlong pace, shooting down declines and breasting little hills without a pause. The horn boomed its warning every second, and from behind came the answering note of the long white motor. It had crept nearer and nearer since they left the high-road, and its brilliant head-lights now lit up the way as far as the pilot car. Little chance for Moeletter to convoy his prisoner out of those deserted lanes whatever happened now!

What means, what desperate means, he might have taken in a gallant attempt to retrieve the position if he had suspected treachery just a minute before he did, one may speculate but never know.

As it was, the uneasy instinct that everything was not right awoke too late for him to make the stand. It was less than ten minutes after meeting the last tram that he peered out into the night doubtfully, but in those ten minutes the green car had all but won its journey's end.

"Murphy," he cried imperiously, with his mouth to the tube and a startled eye on Salt, "tell me immediately where we are."

"A minute, sir," came the hasty answer, as the driver bent forward to verify some landmark. "This brake —

"Stop this instant!" roared the inspector, rising to his feet in rage and with a terrible foreboding.

There was a muffled rattle as they shot over a snow-laden bridge, a curious sense of passing into a new atmosphere, and then with easy precision the car drew round and stopped dead before the open double doors of its own house. No one spoke for a moment. There was another muffled roar outside, the sound of heavy iron doors clashing together, and the great white car reproduced their curve and drew up by their side.

From the driver's seat of the green car the Hon. Bruce Wycombe, son and heir of old Viscount Chiltern and the most skilful motorist in Europe, climbed painfully down, and, pulling off his head-gear, opened the door of the car with a bow that would have been more graceful if he had been less frozen.