Arriving there without incident, I was about to send in the man acting as my chauffeur to make inquiries when a small auto coming from the rear of the house suddenly shot past us down the driveway and headed towards Houston.
Though its lights were blinding I knew it at a glance; it was Edgar’s yellow Stutz. He was either in it and consequently on his way back home, or he was through with the car and I should find him inside the club-house.
Knowing him well enough to be sure that I could do nothing worse than to show myself to him at this time, I reverted to my first idea and sent in the chauffeur to reconnoiter and also see if any message had been left for James E. Budd—the name under which I thought it best to disguise my own.
He came back presently with a sealed note left for me by Clarke. It conveyed the simple information that Edgar had picked up another car and another chauffeur and had gone straight on to Morrison. I was to follow and on reaching the outskirts of the town to give four short toots with the horn to which he would respond.
It was written in haste. He was evidently close behind Edgar, but I had no means of knowing the capacity of his car nor at what speed we could go ourselves. However, all that I had to do was to proceed, remembering the signal which I was to use whenever we sighted anything ahead.
It was a lonely road, and I wondered why Edgar had chosen it. A monotonous stretch of low fences with empty fields beyond, broken here and there by a poorly wooded swamp or a solitary farmhouse, all looking dreary enough in the faint light of a half-veiled gibbous moon.
A few cars passed us, but there was but little life on the road, and I found myself starting sharply when suddenly the quick whistle of an unseen train shrilled through the stagnant air. It seemed so near, yet I could get no glimpse of it or even of its trailing smoke.
I felt like speaking—asking some question—but I did not. It was a curious experience—this something which made me hold my peace.
My chauffeur whom I had chosen from five others I saw lounging about the garage was a taciturn being. I was rather glad of it, for any talk save that of the most serious character seemed out of keeping with these moments of dread—a dread as formless as many of the objects we passed and as chill as the mist now rising from meadow and wood in a white cloud which soon would envelop the whole landscape as in a shroud.
To relieve my feelings, I ordered him to sound the four short blasts agreed upon as a signal. To my surprise they were answered, but by three only. There was a car coming and presently it dashed by us, but it was not Clarke’s.