"Shot by Captain Cherriton. Murderer escaped, running north by east."
CHAPTER XXXIV
John having disposed of Mrs. Beecher Monmouth returned to Heatherpoint Fort. Within the fort gates the ground quivered and vibrated. Far below him the Solent was alive with the sweeping beams of Throgmorton's cunning emergency lights. John could see flashes of fire from Ponsonby Point, from Scoles Head, and from a new secret battery beyond Windsor Fort. His time was emphatically not his own, he had received orders to leave the fort on a new mission. Within five minutes he had passed the rear defences and the barbed wire of the fort, and was out upon the downs. He sprinted forward over the short springing turf, and soon came to the cliff edge and the narrow path that descended the chalk to South Bay.
As he reached the cliff edge and looked down an amazing panorama smote his eyes. Dover lights—tremendous, blinding blue-white illuminations—floated upon the surface of the water shedding forth almost painful rays of light. The yellow of the sand in the little bay became a ghost-like floor in this radiance. Sinclair, he knew, was down there busy at his telephone, but it was not Sinclair nor the drama of the scene that occupied his thoughts; he was thinking not of them, but of a slip of paper Throgmorton had handed him bearing the message of his own death, and of Throgmorton's words, "Somebody was murdered."
"Yes," thought John, "somebody who was mistaken for me."
His mind projected itself upon the scene in Cherriton's cottage, and the thing he had suspected from the very first instant revealed itself fully. Bernard Treves had escaped in his second effort to free himself from his enforced detention at St. Neot's, and, of course, the first thing he had done was to search out the whereabouts of Cherriton and Manners in order to obtain the drugs that were a passion with him. He had gone to the cottage, Cherriton had received him, and had clearly shot him in cold blood....
John turned his mind away from the possibilities Treves's death had created for himself. After all, he was sorry. Treves's broken and enfeebled will had been too much for the young man to contend against. He had failed—death had come upon him suddenly and terribly, but perhaps, after all, it was for the best....
His thoughts turned to Colonel Treves.... As was to be expected, and inevitably the delicately beautiful vision of Elaine rose before him.... Her life of bondage was at an end.... Then John drew himself up and took himself severely to task. These thoughts were not for him. In this hour of drama, of tragedy, he must not let his thoughts dwell upon her. There were decencies, and he was a man of honour; nevertheless, in the depths of his heart, something moved, a dim obliterated ray of hope flickered into life....
To the music of the guns he continued his descent of the chalk path. Where the damp penetrated it was slippery beneath his feet, nevertheless he went quickly with steps that must have been noiseless. The path reached the beach some distance away from the scene of activity, of which Sinclair was the centre. And as John came within thirty or forty feet of the shore, he saw below him, at the bend of the path, a man crouching. The man was huddled in a sheltered corner, intent upon some occupation invisible to John, who halted and looked down upon him with some curiosity. The silent figure was in khaki, and his shoulder and half his cap were visible. He was deeply absorbed, and John was able to go forward and descend two or three turns of the path without being observed.
Presently, walking softly on the narrow path in the cliff's face, he came full into view of the stranger, whose presence was concealed by the projection of a cliff from the pitiless Dover flares.