CHAPTER XV
LAID BY THE HEELS
"EXCUSE me," said Mr. Greenwood diplomatically, after having welcomed his guest's friend and given him a second invitation to lunch. "I've some work to do in the garden, but I know you two would like to have a yarn together. If, however," he added as he made for the door, "you are in need of a little gentle exercise before lunch I can introduce you to a really healthful and intellectual task—chopping wood. Failing that there are two serviceable prongs in the tool-house."
"Genial old chap," remarked Entwistle, after Mr. Greenwood had gone, "and jolly thoughtful too. As a matter of fact, I wanted to see you alone. Look here, Barcroft, to put a straight question: Did you say anything to young Farrar about my business here?"
Peter shook his head.
"I simply told him you were a vet., and a friend of mine from Barborough," he replied. "As to your business here I'm quite in the dark."
A look of relief flashed across Entwistle's features.
"That's good," he remarked. "It's rather a complex case, and Farrar may be able to render material assistance. I'm on the track of the Poldene Bridge business. I have reason to believe that the kapitan of the U-boat that torpedoed the 'Tantalus' knows something about it. You heard the details?"
"From Farrar and young Greenwood," admitted Peter. "You see, they told me the yarn in connection with that St. Bernard of Farrar's."
"Yes," added the Secret Service man. "That rather baffles me—the dog, I mean. Since I've been in Trebalda I've been on the track of the man who dined with von Loringhoven. The waiter at the hotel led me a pretty dance, and for three days I shadowed a highly respectable London banker who happened to be staying at Trebalda for a month. The waiter, it seems, got mixed up between the banker and a commercial traveller of the name of Middlecrease: that's the man I want—and he's disappeared."
"In what way is the dog concerned?" asked Barcroft.
"I'm coming to that," continued Entwistle. "You see, the fellow who attempted to blow up the bridge answers in description to this Middlecrease, putting aside the difference in clothes. But if Middlecrease were the man it is fairly safe to assume that the St. Bernard he had with him would be well known in this district. Unfortunately the animal was not known to any one until Farrar brought him up by train."
"How did you get on the fellow's track?" inquired Peter.
"From documents found at von Eitelwurmer's house," replied Entwistle. "He was not mentioned by name, but by a number; and from the importance of the numerous references made to him he was evidently one of the heads of the German Secret Service in England, which most people are now beginning to realise as an active and dangerous menace."
"Hope you'll be successful," remarked Barcroft.
"I'll do my level best," rejoined Entwistle. "However, I must wait and have a quiet yarn with Farrar when he returns. There are one or two points I want to go into."
For some moments the two men smoked in silence.
"Seen to-day's paper?" asked Peter.
The Secret Service man shook his head.
"Rarely look at one now-a-days; muzzled a jolly sight too much," he replied. "There's precious little consolation to be found in them. Russia, food-tickets, U-boat menace, tip-and-run raids in the Channel and off the East Coast, general mismanagement—enough to put a fellow off colour absolutely. Anything much this morning?"
"No—only that Sir James Timberhead has resigned."
The Secret Service man snorted indignantly.
"Resigned!" he exclaimed. "These resignations make me feel sick. First this official and then that, hopelessly incompetent nobodies pushed into soft jobs by influential friends, and then can't manage them. I'd make 'em resign—fine them a year's salary. Just think what would happen if Tommy or Jack resigned their jobs—they'd find themselves in front of a firing party in less than no time. Yet every day you'll read that So-and-so has resigned his post owing to ill-health—there's no 'medicine and duty' for them, worse luck!"
"Admitted," replied Barcroft. "But if you are in need of a wholesome tonic, might I suggest an hour or so of young Farrar's or young Greenwood's company. You'll learn something of what's doing, Entwistle. You'll have to drag it from them, but putting two and two together you'll find that the Navy is still the mainstay of the Empire."
"Pity, then, that the man-in-the-street hasn't an opportunity of finding it out," growled Barcroft's companion.
"D'ye mind if I open this window? Jolly warm for the time of year, isn't it?"
Entwistle walked to the window. Then, with his hand on the catch, he exclaimed:
"My word, Barcroft! Something's happened. There's a stretcher being carried up the drive."
Peter was by his friend's side in an instant. He, too, could see the throng of country folk around the gate as they parted to allow the improvised stretcher to pass.
"It's not Miss Greenwood," he decided, giving voice to his thoughts, and not heeding his companion's presence. "Nor Eric.... And there's Farrar. Now, who have they shot?"
"Perhaps no one," remarked Entwistle. "An accident entirely unconnected with the guns."
He threw open the French window and the two men hurried to meet the stretcher, forestalled, however, by Mr. Greenwood, who, in his agitation, had forgotten that he was shouldering a huge wood-cutter's axe and bore a resemblance to the Lord High Executioner.
"What has happened?" demanded Mr. Greenwood.
"Unfortunately I——" began the sub, but Mr. Entwistle raised a warning hand.
"Leave details for the present," he cautioned in a low voice. "Don't incriminate yourself before a crowd. Doctor's been sent for? Good! Where shall we take him, Mr. Greenwood?"
The injured man was taken to a spare bedroom, where his face was washed and his numerous wounds temporarily dressed pending the doctor's arrival.
This done Entwistle drew the sub aside.
"Where did the accident take place?" he asked.
Farrar told him, adding that the shooting party had left the guns there.
"Too tired for a walk?" inquired the Secret Service man.
"Not at all," replied the sub, rather surprised at the invitation. "I'll bring Bruno, too. And Greenwood?"
"Better leave him out of your calculations for the present," decided Entwistle. "I'll get you to offer excuses to our host. Bringing home the guns will be quite a satisfactory pretext."
It was not until the two men were a good distance from the house and well on their way across the moors that Entwistle remarked:
"I may as well be quite open with you, Farrar, knowing that I can rely upon an officer and a gentleman to be discreet. I presume that you are not aware that I am a member of the British Secret Service?"
"A 'tec?" inquired the sub, without betraying any unwonted surprise. "I'm not going to be arrested for manslaughter, I hope?"
"Far from it," replied Entwistle; "especially as the victim is in no great danger from the pellets. He is, nevertheless, in a very hazardous position, for which I have to thank you."
"Me?" exclaimed the sub incredulously.
"Certainly. The fellow you shot is a man who is greatly in request. He is none other than Thomas Middlecrease, known in Germany and elsewhere as Ernst von Gobendorff, and, I venture to suggest, the principal in the attempt to blow up Poldene Bridge."
"I saw the man on the train," remarked Farrar. "He was in military uniform. Hanged if I could see much resemblance to the man I shot—build, perhaps, but nothing else."
"The peppering of the pellets made a very efficient disguise," said Entwistle. "The anguish of the wounds tends to contract the facial muscles. I hope you will be able to identify him. Your dog, Bruno, may also be able to afford us some assistance. Hullo! here's the faithful spaniel on guard, I see."
"And there's the place where the man was when I fired," explained the sub. "See, the gorse shows the track of the pellets."
Entwistle made no remark, but forced his way through the bushes by the same track as the one made by the two officers when they carried von Gobendorff away from the scene.
"H'm!" he exclaimed softly as his hand closed upon the butt of a small but extremely powerful automatic pistol that lay partly hidden in the long grass. "Friend Gobendorff was evidently under the impression that you two fellows were tracking him, the presence of Miss Greenwood notwithstanding. He meant to make a fight for it. From the impressions upon the ground I take it that the fellow was kneeling up and looking first in your direction and then towards young Greenwood. The safety-catch of this weapon being released tends to confirm my belief that he meant to make use of the pistol. It was at the moment that he was looking at your friend that the pellets caught him, otherwise he would have received a great portion of the charge full in the face instead of the side of the face."
"Then a thundering good job I did plug the Hun!" declared the sub vehemently. He was not vindictive by nature, but the thought of being in danger of being ambushed and shot down by a skulking assassin riled him. "Better be moving, I suppose? If you'll carry one gun I'll tackle the others. Those rabbits? Yes, I'll bring them along. Poor little beasts; fancy being laid out by the same charge of shot that kippered the Boche spy. Horribly degrading for poor bunny. I say, rummy spot for a spy, isn't it? Did he have an inkling that you were on his track?"
"One cannot tell," replied Entwistle. "My theory is that he was making for a certain cottage, where, from information received, I know the fellow had previously obtained a quantity of explosives. I mean to collar those fellows this afternoon. The time's ripe."
"Single-handed?" inquired the sub.
"If necessary."
"I'd like to have a cut in with you, Entwistle," said Farrar impetuously.
"It's hardly your job," rejoined the Secret Service man dubiously. "There may be a tough sort of scrap."
"In which case two are better than one——"
"Provided each knows his job and doesn't bungle," added Entwistle. "All right, then; it's a bargain. Not a word to the others, mind. I am keeping my friend Peter quite in the dark. Do you understand an automatic?"
"Most makes," admitted the sub.
"Then have this," said his companion, handing him the weapon belonging to the Hun. "I've taken the precaution to set the safety-catch."
"How about you; aren't you armed?" asked the sub.
Entwistle smiled grimly "Trust me," he replied briefly.
At length the two men came within sight of "The Old Croft," outside the gate of which a throng of curious villagers still lingered, while in the carriage drive a motor-car was standing—an indication that the doctor from Trebalda had arrived.
Just as Entwistle and Farrar gained the door the medical man appeared. "How is the patient, doctor," inquired Entwistle.
"Progressing favourably," was the reply.
"Fit to be moved?"
"The day after to-morrow."
"Not to-day?"
The doctor regarded his questioner curiously.
"Why this hurry?"
"I'm in charge of him," declared the Secret Service man.
"I happen to know Mr. Middlecrease as a resident of Trebalda," observed the medical man drily; "and I was not aware that he was in any one's charge."
"Look here," exclaimed Entwistle, drawing the doctor aside. "You've forced my hand, so to speak. This man, Middlecrease, is under arrest as a noted German spy. Naturally I don't want the Greenwoods to know anything about it at present; and still less do I want them to have a Hun in their house, especially as he might take it into his head to vanish during the night."
"Bless my soul, you surprise me!" ejaculated the doctor. "What do you want me to do?"
"To order his removal to a nursing establishment in Trebalda," replied the Secret Service man. "I'll keep my eye on him there. Also, I know I can rely upon your silence."
"Very good," was the reply. "I'll send a motor ambulance along at—what time?"
"Say eight," rejoined Entwistle. "That will leave ample time for our little adventure, Mr. Farrar."