“Go down to the town and telephone to Gordon,” he said, and his voice was strangely calm.
In a quarter of an hour Ray Bennett jumped off his old bicycle at the door of Maytree Cottage, to tell his grave news.
“The ’phone line has been cut,” he said tersely. “I’ve ordered a car to be sent up from the garage. We will try to follow the tracks.”
The machine had arrived when the blazing head-lamps of Dick’s car came into view. Gordon knew the worst before he had sprung to the ground. There was a brief, unemotional consultation. Dick went rapidly through the kitchen and followed the tracks until they came back to the road, to find Elk going slowly along the opposite side, examining the ground with an electric lamp.
“There’s a small wheel track over here,” he said. “Too heavy for a bicycle, too light for a car; looks to me like a motor-cycle.”
“It was a car,” said Dick briefly, “and a very big one.”
He sent Ray and his father to the house to change; insisted on this being done before they moved a step. They came out, wrapped in mackintoshes, and leapt into the car as it was moving.
For five miles the tracks were visible, and then they came to a village. A policeman had seen a car come through “a little time ago”—and a motor-cyclist.
“Where was the cyclist?” asked Elk.
“He was behind, about a hundred yards,” said the policeman. “I tried to pull him up because his lamp was out, but he took no notice.”