He came out of the olive plantation and plunged into a plantation of lemon trees. The ground on which they were planted sloped gently upwards nearly to the top of the wall so that not more than three feet of it rose above the top of the slope. He set the young girl on the top of the wall, gripped her wrists, lowered her over it to the full length of his arms, and let her drop; then he dropped the violin-case over the wall and let himself drop from it.
“Splendid!” said Ralph to himself. “He must have hidden a car at the end of the lane which runs along this side of the wall. Then, having spied upon the girl and then captured her, he is returning to the point from which he started and will drop her, inert and helpless, on to the seat of the car.”
Running on, Ralph learned that he had been right. He saw a large open car at the end of the lane. The abductor of the girl lost no time: he laid her on the seat, cranked up the car, jumped in beside her, and started.
The lane was ploughed up in deep ruts. The car bumped along, needing all the driver’s attention. Ralph caught up to it, sprang on to the back, slipped over the hood and crouched down under a rug which was hanging over the back of the driver’s seat. The [[89]]driver, all his attention given to getting the car over this awkward piece of ground, had heard nothing.
Three minutes brought them to the end of the garden wall on to the high road. Before accelerating, the man took hold of the girl’s neck with a sinewy and powerful hand and growled:
“If you stir, you’re lost. I’ll wring your neck as I wrung the other girl’s—you know what that means.” He laughed a sinister laugh and added: “Besides, you’ve no more desire to call for help than I have. What?”
Country folk were walking along the footpath; they saw a man and a girl taking a joy-ride in a car. It skirted Nice and turned off towards the mountains.
Ralph had no difficulty in piecing together the facts, or in understanding the meaning of the ruffian’s words. In the midst of this confusion of events, none of which seemed connected with any other, he grasped the fact that the man was the third of the train-robbers on the express, the man who had wrung the neck of the other girl, that is to say of Constance Bakersfield.
“That’s as clear as paint,” he said to himself, “it doesn’t require any more thinking out. And here’s another proof that there is a connection between this burglary at the Villa and the coup of the three train-robbers. Undoubtedly Marescal was right in maintaining that the English girl was killed by mistake. [[90]]But all the same all these different people were on their way to Nice with the same object in view; the burgling of the Villa B. It was William, the obvious writer of the letter signed ‘G,’ who planned the burglary, William who was a member of both gangs, William who was the confederate of the English girl in the burglary and was at the same time seeking the solution of the enigma of which he speaks in his postscript. As clear as paint it is. Consequently when the English girl was murdered William had to execute alone the burglary he had planned. He brings with him his friend with the green eyes since the burglary demanded a confederate; and he would have brought off his coup if the third train robber who was keeping an eye on the pair of them, had not snatched the spoil from him and seized the opportunity also to carry off little Green Eyes. With what object? Are he and William rivals in love? But for the moment we won’t ask any more questions.”
Some miles further on the car turned to the right. Ralph knew this country well. It scaled the slopes which lead to the curious village of Falicon, descended by a steep, abruptly zigzagging road, then turned on to the Levens Road, by which one can reach the gorges of the Var, or the region of the high mountains. And then?