It was now quite dark, and in the cool night air I began, before I had reached the lodge, to wonder whether I had not been misled altogether by some hallucination. Bradley Rymer brought to my memory the tragic case of his brother, and I asked myself for a moment if the long and late hours of a country practice were unbalancing me. But I looked back towards the house as I took the track over the turf, and the scene through which I had passed returned too vividly to leave me in any doubt. I could see Bradley Rymer clearly as he opened and shut the drawer of his writing-table. I could hear his voice raised in bitter reproach to Violet and the click of the typewriting machine. No, I had not been dreaming.
I had walked about a hundred yards down the slope when a sharp whistle of two notes sounded a little way off upon my right, and almost before I had stopped a man sprang from the grass at my very feet with a guttural cry like a man awakened from a doze. Had I taken another step I should have trodden upon him. The next moment the light from an electric torch flashed upon my face, blinding me. I stepped back and put up my hand to my eyes. But even while I raised my hand the button of the torch was released and the light went out. I stood for a moment in utter blackness, then dimly I became aware of some one moving away from in front of me.
"What do you want?" I cried.
"Nothing," was the word spoken in answer.
I should have put the fellow down for one of the gipsies who infest those Downs in the summer, and thought no more about him, but for one reason. He had spoken with a pronounced German accent. Besides, there was the warning whistle, the flash of the torch. I could not resist the conviction that Bradley Rymer's house was being watched.
I walked on without quickening my pace, for perhaps a hundred yards. Then I ran, and as fast as I could, down to the village. I did not stop to reason things out. I was in a panic. Violet was in that house, and it was being watched by strangers. We had one policeman in the village, and he not the brainiest of men. I got out my bicycle and rode fourteen miles, walking up the hills and coasting down them until I reached the town of Reading. I rode to the house of the Chief Constable, whom I happened to know.
"Is Captain Bowyer in?" I asked of the servant.
"No, sir; he's dining out to-night."
"In the town?"
"Yes, sir."