CHAPTER II
THE MAN THAT DISAPPEARED
Now, whatever his enemies (if he has any) may say against James Moggin,no one can deny the fact that, for a man of his age, his behaviour onthe night when his carriage was "held up" on the North Moor wasmeritorious. On discovering that the "impident rascal" had deliberatelybroken one of the coach windows with the butt of a pistol, the worthycoachman's rage knew no bounds. Leaving his well trained but tremblinghorses, and still clasping the whip in his hand, he scrambled down fromthe box and fell upon the cyclist in the rear.
To speak more accurately, the latter individual fell back into his arms,an action on his part caused by Mr. Laurence having risen in thecarriage and aimed a powerful blow with his fist at the face that had asecond time appeared at the cracked window.
Moggin, had he flung down his whip, might easily have held the assailantuntil the arrival of Laurence, who was fumbling with the catch thatfastened the carriage door, and which had been in some way jammed by apiece of broken window glass. As it was, the audacious cyclist managedin the dark to wriggle himself out of the coachman's clutches and reachthe spot where his bicycle lay.
Laurence alighted from the carriage with unbecoming haste, only in timeto see the dusky figure of the highwayman throw his leg lightly over thesaddle of his machine, and bound forward past the vehicle again with thedexterity of an accomplished rider. He noticed that his garmentsfluttered out behind him in a peculiar manner.
In his evening clothes and thin dancing "pumps," with the roads an inchthick in mud and puddles, young Carrington knew that pursuit wasuseless. Even if he requisitioned one of the terrified horses, herealised that the man would have disappeared from sight before theoperation of unharnessing could be accomplished. One thing he did--thatwas to seize the whip from Moggin's hand, and, taking a couple of stepsforward, cut sharply at the retreating form with the long lash. The blowwent home, for the fellow gave utterance to a hoarse cry of pain. Evenin that exclamation, both Carrington and the coachman were conscious ofsomething unnatural and horrible.
And thus it was that the mysterious creature on the bicycle disappearedinto the blackness of the night.
Laurence waited until he had the dissatisfaction of witnessing the hastydeparture of the unwelcome visitor; then he turned to the open-mouthedand shivering Moggin.
"Let us now see what has happened to your master," he said abruptly.
The two men hurried back to the carriage and carefully stepped inside.
Mr. Carrington was lying in precisely the same position as when Laurencehad left him.
"Mercy, mercy," moaned the coachman, "surely he isn't dead?"
"No," responded young Carrington, "he is not shot, for look at the farwindow. It was smashed by the bullet."
"The hexplosion might have done that, sir," old Moggin suggested, as heassisted Laurence to place the motionless body of Mr. Carrington uponthe seat of the carriage.
"Good gracious me, I never thought of that. Then the poor dad may bekilled--murdered. Oh, why didn't I heed his suspicions?"
He bent down to peer into the old gentleman's face, and as he did sosomething caught his eye. He almost yelled aloud with joy. For there,through the top of Mr. Carrington's hat, was a circular hole. The samehole was to be found on the other side, showing that the bullet fromthe assassin's weapon had penetrated through the hat without harming theunconscious man's head. (The bullet itself was afterwards found imbeddedin a panel of the coach.)
No; Mr. Carrington had been unharmed by the attempt on his life, but theshock of seeing the repulsive face at the window had thrown him into adead faint, from which he was released after many minutes, thanks to thechafings and attention of his son.
When he first opened his eyes Laurence was horrified at the change inhis father's appearance. The terrified look on his face wasindescribable. He moaned faintly, as though in pain, and clutchednervously at the strong arm of his son, who knelt at his side on thefloor of the carriage.
"Come, Daddy," Laurence said encouragingly; "you're better now, and therascal is miles away. Sit up and let us hurry on home. The horses arealmost perished with cold."
His son's cheery voice seemed to convince Mr. Carrington that he wassafe, for he sat up and allowed himself to be carefully laid back intohis favourite corner of the large carriage. Laurence gave orders toMoggin to proceed at once homeward as fast as he could, and so well didthe coachman carry out his instructions, and so ready were the horsesto proceed to their stables, that Mr. Carrington found himself withinhis own grounds before twenty minutes had passed.
With Laurence's assistance he alighted and entered the Manse, where theaged butler, Kingsford, was dozing in the hall. He was then conducted tohis chamber, and there helped into bed and dosed with a strongbrandy-and-soda specially mixed for him by his son.
By this time it was nearly half-past one in the morning, and LaurenceCarrington would have been quite justified in retiring to bed.Nevertheless, after leaving his father's bedroom he crept downstairs,much to the butler's astonishment, and, donning an overcoat and a strongpair of boots, made his way out of the house.
The rain had now stopped--a fact that seemed to please him much; notbecause he would have minded a four-mile trudge in the pouring wet, butbecause he would now be more likely to discover traces of the mysteriouscyclist's tyre-marks in the muddy road that skirts the North Moor. Forthe rain, had it continued in a downpour similar to that at the time ofthe strange affair of an hour before, would undoubtedly have blotted outany tracks that the highwayman must have made in effecting his hastydeparture.
Whistling to keep up his spirits as he went, Laurence strode on at aquick pace towards the scene of the attack. The wind was howling acrossthe heath and the unearthly noises that accompany any storm were such asmight well have unnerved a less determined man than Carrington,particularly after the weird adventures he had gone through.
By the light of the moon, which was now shining brightly, he had nodifficulty in discovering the exact spot at which the carriage hadstopped, while his own footprints and those of the coachman, as well asthe hoof-marks of the restive horses, were distinctly visible. Withease, too, he lighted on the thin track made by the stranger's bicyclewheel, but at first was much puzzled at finding that this trail lay onboth sides of the road. Then he recollected that the rider must haveleft these distinct traces behind him both when on his way to the placewhere he had "held up" the coach and when hastening away on beingrepulsed by Moggin and himself. Therefore he concluded that, byfollowing the double tracks, one on either side of the lonely road, hewould not only discover whence the unknown man had come, but alsowhither he had disappeared. For a good mile he trudged on, never takinghis eyes off the pattern impressed on the surface of the road. He hadnow reached a village, the only one lying between the house at whichthe ball had been and that where he lived, and from which he had justcome.
Half-way along the main street running through this village a branchroad starts off to the left. To his delight, Laurence was able to tracethe cycle tracks round the corner of and into this branch road, and onceagain did he start on, strong on the scent of his father's attemptedmurderer (for the idea that the cycling highwayman had fired at himnever entered his head).
On and on did Laurence walk, the mud and water squelching under hisfeet, until the road again broke off into two lanes.
"Hallo!" he cried half aloud, "the stranger must be something of aneighbour to us," for the tracks in the mud betrayed to him the factthat his quarry had taken the lane which is one and a long way round tothe Manse and the village of Northden, in which it stands. As he drewnearer and nearer to his home Laurence's amazement and excitement (ifsuch a term may be used under the circumstances) increasedcorrespondingly. Would the midnight stranger prove to be one of hisfather's own simple villagers? he asked himself. He had not even caughta glimpse of the stranger's face, so could not answer.
He was now actually in the village of Northden, yet the marks, bothcoming and going, rema
ined. Was he mistaken in any way? he wondered, butthe idea of such a possibility had barely been dismissed from his mindas absurd when he suddenly stopped short. And why?
Because, without the slightest swerve or mark in the slush, both tracksstopped abruptly, and, however vigilantly he searched, he could notdiscover any further sign or clue to the manner of the disappearance ofthe mysterious bicyclist.