XVII
THE LETTERS
The sky had cleared when Foster left the car at the end of the line andheaded towards open country. On the whole, he thought he was fortunateto get out of Newcastle safe, because there were grounds for believingthat Graham had found out the trick. If this were so, he wouldcertainly try to recover the documents. On the surface, it seemedstrange that the fellow had let him take them away; but, when one cameto think of it, as soon as he had written and sealed the letters he washelpless.
In order to keep them, he would have had to overpower Foster, for whichhe had not the physical strength, while any noise they made in thestruggle might have brought in help. Then supposing that Graham had bysome chance mastered him, he would not have gained much, because Fosterwould have gone to the police when he got away. It was, of course,absurd to think that Graham might have killed him, since this wouldhave led to his arrest. He had accordingly given up the letters, butFoster felt he was not safe yet. He might be attacked in some cunningway that would prevent his assailants being traced. It depended uponwhether the documents were worth the risk, and he would know this soon.
In the meantime he was entering a belt of ugly industrial country. Nowand then the reflected glare of a furnace quivered in the sky; tallchimney-stacks and mounds of refuse showed faintly in the dark, and hepassed clusters of fiercely burning lights and dull red fires. Hesupposed they marked pithead banks and coke-ovens; but pushed onsteadily towards the west. He wanted to put some distance betweenhimself and Newcastle before he stopped.
After a time a row of lights twinkled ahead and, getting nearer, he sawchimneys, dark skeleton towers of timber, and jets of steam behind thehouses. It was a colliery village, and when he passed the first lampshe vacantly noticed the ugliness of the place. The small, grimy houseswere packed as close as they could be got, the pavement was coveredwith black mud, and the air filled with acrid smoke. Presently,however, he came to a pretentious hotel, built of glaring red brick andornamented with sooty paint. He wondered what accounted for its beingplanted there; but it offered shelter for the night and he went in.
He admitted that he had slept in worse places than the room he wasshown, although it looked far from comfortable, but the supper he gotwas good, and he afterwards entered a small room behind the bar. Therewas a bright fire, near which he sat down when Pete went away. Thestrain he had borne had brought its reaction; he felt tired and slack.There was another room across the passage, and he smelt rank tobaccoand heard voices speaking a harsh dialect and the tramp of heavy bootson boards. The door was open and men with curiously pale faces thatdid not look clean passed now and then. Foster thought they werecolliers and he had nothing to fear from them.
He had two or three companions, who sat round a small table and seemedby their talk to belong to a football committee. The landlord treatedthem with some deference, as if they were important people, but Fosterwished they would go. He wanted to examine the letters, but thought itsafer to wait until he was alone, since inquiries might afterwards bemade about him. At length the footballers went way, and shutting thedoor, he turned his chair so that he could see anybody who came in,without looking round. It was satisfactory to note that the tablewould be between him and a new-comer.
Before opening the letters, he tried to recollect what had happened inGraham's office. The fellow sat in front of a desk with a row ofpigeon-holes and sides that prevented Foster's noting exactly what hedid after he began to write. In consequence, Foster could not tell ifhe had put anything except the letters in the envelopes, although hehad taken some papers from the safe. It looked as if Graham had notmeant him to see and had not trusted him altogether from the beginning.Now he probably knew he was an impostor, although this was not quitecertain. Foster took out the envelopes, and broke the seal of thefirst, which was addressed to Daly, without hesitation.
It contained a tourist agency's circular cheque for a moderate sum,payable by coupons at any of the company's offices in England andCanada, and Foster saw the advantage of this, because, as the officeswere numerous, one could not tell where the coupons would be cashed.Then he found a letter, which he thought bore out his conclusions,although, on the surface, it did not tell him much. It stated thatJackson's business had been satisfactorily transacted in Berlin, butthe Hamburg matter had not been arranged yet. Lascelles had had somedifficulties in Paris, but expected to negotiate a sale.
Foster carefully folded the papers and replaced them in his pocket.The names were probably false, but they stood for agents of the gang,whose business was, no doubt, the sale of the stolen bonds. Heremembered Percival, the treasurer's, statement that the securitiesmight be disposed of on a Continental bourse, and Hulton's reluctanceto advertise their loss. Well, he now had proof that Daly was, atleast, a party to the theft, and ground for believing him to be open toa more serious charge. The fellow was in his power.
He, however, hesitated a moment before opening the letter to Carmen.He was half-afraid of finding her to some extent implicated in theplot; and it was with relief he saw nothing but another envelope insidethe first, which he threw into the fire. The enclosed envelope wasaddressed to a man he did not know, and he thought Carmen's part wouldbe confined to giving it to her father, or somebody else, who wouldpass it on. Tearing it open, he found a cheque on an American bank fora thousand dollars, but the payee's name was different from that on thecover. Foster put it away and lighted his pipe.
Some of the bonds had obviously been sold and there were a number ofmen in the plot, though it was possible that they did not know allabout the Hulton tragedy. Foster understood that one could dispose ofstolen securities through people who would undertake the dangerousbusiness without asking awkward questions, if the profit were highenough. Still he thought Graham knew, and this would give him anincentive stronger than his wish to save the money for trying to getthe letters back. Indeed, Foster imagined that he was now in seriousdanger. Graham's run to the telephone had alarmed him.
Nobody came in and by degrees the room across the passage got quiet asits occupants went away. It was some relief that the noise hadstopped, but Foster liked to feel that there were people about. He wastired and began to get drowsy as he lounged in front of the fire, butroused himself with an effort, knowing he ought to keep awake. For allthat, he did not hear the door open, and got up with a start as a mancame in. Then his alarm vanished for Pete stood looking at him with asympathetic twinkle.
"I ken what ye feel," the latter remarked. "It's like meeting a keeperwhen ye hae a hare in the lining o' yere coat."
"Yes," said Foster, "I expect its something like that. But where haveyou been?"
"Roon' the toon, though it's no' verra big or bonnie. Then I stopped abit in the bar o' the ither hotel. Sixpence goes some way, if ye stickto beer."
"I hope you didn't say much if there were strangers about."
Pete grinned. "I said a' I could; aboot the sheep and bullocks we weregoing to look at up Bellingham way; but, if it's only comfort, there'sno strangers in the place but a commaircial who deals with the grossersand anither who got a good order from the colliery. Maybe that's worththe money for the beer!"
"It certainly is," Foster agreed. "We'll have a reckoning at the endof the journey, but here's your sixpence." Then he looked at hiswatch. "Well, I think it's late enough to go to bed, and you can orderbreakfast. We had better get off as soon as it's light."
"There's a train to Hexham at nine o'clock, the morn. It might suit yeto start for the station, even if ye dinna' get there."
"No," said Foster thoughtfully. "We'll pull out by some by-road beforethat. You see, the train comes from Newcastle."
He went to his room, which was next to Pete's, and after putting theletters under his pillow quietly moved a chest of drawers against thedoor. The lock was a common pattern and could probably be opened by akey from any of the neighboring rooms. He was half-ashamed of thisprecaution, but admitted that he was getting ner
vous. Hitherto he hadfound some amusement in leaving a trail for his pursuers, but there wasa difference now. For all that, he slept soundly until he was awakenedby a noise at the door. It was dark and somebody was trying to get in.Seizing his pistol, he leaned on one elbow, ready to spring out of bed,and then felt keen relief as he heard Pete say, "Dinna' keep onknocking! Leave the hot water outside."
"Yes; put it down, thanks," said Foster, who got up, feeling angry withhimself.
It looked as if the person outside had been knocking for some time, andthe landlord's curiosity might have been excited had he heard that hisguest had barricaded his door. Dressing by gaslight, he foundbreakfast ready when he went down, and day broke soon after the mealwas over. Foster paid his bill and set off with Pete, taking the mainroad west until they reached the end of the village, where some menwere working on a colliery bank. Pete indicated a lane that branchedoff to the north.
"Yon's our way, but I'm thinking we'll gang straight on for a bit."
They followed the main road until the men were out of sight, and thencrossing some fields, turned into the lane they had passed, which rosesteadily to higher ground. After a time they found another roadrunning straight towards the west. This was the old military road,made when the Romans built the Pict's wall, and long afterwardsrepaired by General Wade, who tried to move his troops across tointercept Prince Charlie's march. Foster sat down for a few minutes atthe corner and looked back at the distant chimney-stacks and trails ofsmoke.
The railway and the road by which the main traffic went followed thevalley of the Tyne, but the military road kept to the edge of the bleakmoors. He gathered from the map that it was, for the most part,lonely, and thought Graham would expect him to go by train; the latterprobably knew enough about him to anticipate his making for Liddesdale,and as there were not many trains running north from Hexham, wouldreckon on his traveling by Carlisle. If this were so, and he was beinglooked for, his pursuers would now be in front of him instead ofbehind, and he saw some advantage in keeping them there. Still he mustnot lose much time in finding Daly; for one thing, it would be awkwardif the police arrested him while he had the checks in his pocket. Allthe same, he meant to visit the Garth, tell Alice he had beensuccessful, ask is she had news of Lawrence, and try to overcomeFeatherstone's suspicions. Then, if Lawrence had not written yet, hemust go back to Canada as soon as he had seen Daly.
Beyond this Foster's plans were vague; he did not know, for example,how he could force Daly to keep Lawrence's secret, without promising towithhold evidence that would bring the man to justice. But he mightfind a way and was tired of puzzling about the matter. In a sense, hehad taken a ridiculous line from the beginning and perhaps involvedhimself in needless difficulties. His partner, however, must beprotected, and in the meantime he had two objects; to avoid the policeand Graham.
"Perhaps we had better keep the military road until we strike the NorthTyne," he said to Pete. "Then, if nothing turns up to prevent it, wemight risk stopping for the night at Hexham."
Having the day before them, they set off at a leisurely pace. The airwas cold but still, and bright sunshine shone upon the tableland, whichrolled north, rising steadily towards distant snow-streaked hills.Nothing suspicious happened, and late in the afternoon they came downinto the valley of the North Tyne and turned south for Hexham. As theydid so they passed an inn and Foster stopped. They were some distancefrom Hexham and he felt hungry, while the inn looked unusuallycomfortable. He was tempted to go in and order a meal, but hesitated,for no very obvious reason.
"We'll wait and get dinner when we make Hexham," he said, setting offagain.
A thin wood, separated from the road by a low fence, ran between themand the river. The light was faint among the trees, the road narrow,and presently they heard a car coming towards them. It was going veryfast and when it lurched across an opening in the hedge round a bendFoster put his hand on the fence and swung himself over. Pete followedsilently, but when they stood in the shadow among the dry undergrowthFoster felt annoyed because he had yielded to a half-instinctiveimpulse. He must, of course, be cautious, but there was no reason foroverdoing it.
Next moment, the car, which swung towards the fence as it took thecurve, dashed past, and Foster set his lips as he saw Graham, whoseemed to be gazing up the road. Then the car vanished among thetrees, and Pete looked at him curiously.
"Is yon the man frae Newcastle ?" he asked.
"Yes," said Foster grimly; "I rather think we were just in time. It'svery possible that he'd have run over me if I'd been in the road. Anaccident of that kind would have suited him well. But I thought I wasa fool for jumping."
Pete nodded. "I ken! When ye feel ye must do a thing, it's betterjust to do it and think afterwards." Then he raised his hand. "She'sstopping!"
The throb of the engine suddenly slackened, as if the driver had seenthe inn, and Foster got over the fence.
"It's lucky we didn't stop for a meal; but, although it may be risky,I'm going back."
They kept along the side of the road, where the ground was soft, butFoster was ready to jump the fence if the car returned; the noise wouldgive him warning enough. After a few minutes they stopped and waitedin the gloom of a hedge, where they could see the inn. The car stoodin the road and it was empty. Graham had obviously gone in to makeinquiries, and Foster wondered whether anybody had seen him and hiscompanion pass. He would know when Graham came out, and moved a fewyards farther until he reached a gate, which he opened, ready to slipthrough. There was no need to warn Pete now the latter understoodmatters. One could trust a poacher to hide himself quickly.
Foster felt some strain. It was disturbing to find Graham already onhis track and he wondered whether the fellow had been to Carlisle. Itwould be awkward if he went to Hexham. After a few minutes two mencame out of the inn and Foster waited anxiously while one cranked thecar, but they drove on when the engine started. Then, as he turnedback, the throbbing stopped again and he beckoned Pete.
"They don't know you and it's getting dark. Go on and see which waythey take."
He kept close to the hedge when Pete vanished. The car had stoppedwhere the military road cut across another that followed the river intothe moors, and Graham apparently did not know which to take. It lookedas if the fellow had ascertained that he was not at Hexham. After atime he heard the car start. It was not coming back, but he could nottell which way it went, and waited in the gathering dark for Pete'sreturn.
"They'd gone before I cam' up, but I heard her rattling on the hill tomy left han'," he said.
"That means they've gone west towards Carlisle."
"There's anither road turns aff and rins north awa' by Bellingham."
Foster frowned, because this was the road he meant to take next day,and if his pursuers did so now, it would be because they expected himto make for the Garth. They were, however, in front, where he wouldsooner have them than behind, and he set off down the valley forHexham. He found the old Border town, clustering round the tall darkmass of the abbey, strangely picturesque; the ancient Moot Hall andmarket square invited his interest, but he shrank from wandering aboutthe streets in the dark. Now he had Graham's checks, he must becareful; moreover his knapsack and leggings made him conspicuous, andhe went to a big red hotel.
He sent Pete to an inn farther on, because it seemed advisable thatthey should not be seen together, although he would have liked to knowthe man was about. After dinner, he sat in a quiet nook in thesmoking-room, reading the newspapers and keeping his gloved hand out ofsight, until it was time to go to bed.