The chauffeur stood up, evidently trying to peer into the darkness beside the road. Billy’s heart beat loudly. He was so near that he could have almost reached out his hand and touched the rear wheel of the car.
There was something about this automobile that awoke in Billy Speedwell a feeling of suspicion. It was too dark for him to see the color of the automobile exactly; but he was apprehensive.
“Sudds’ place is farther along,” exclaimed the chauffeur, sitting down. “He ought to be on the lookout somewhere. We’ll run on slow, and then back again if we don’t pick him up.”
“All right,” growled the second man.
They were both looking forward and away from Billy. The boy, shaking with nervousness, but willing to risk much to prove to himself that his suspicion was right, crept out of the shadow behind the car. The machine started and Billy leaped lightly up behind, and clung to the back of the large, folded canopy top of the tonneau.
The car rolled on smoothly—almost silently; her engine throbbed steadily. They turned the bend and Billy knew that the dwelling of Abram Sudds, a granite mansion set high on the bank beside the road, was in sight, although he could not see it.
The car purred on. Billy clung desperately, afraid to drop off now, for he would be revealed the instant he came out of the shadow of the automobile’s folded-back top. Impulsively he had jumped into trouble, and without a thought for the wrecked auto he was watching, and in which his brother and himself had invested five hundred dollars!
But the mystery of this car, and the men in it, had taken hold of him strongly. As they ran slowly past the Sudds property Billy glanced about for the man whom the two in the car evidently expected.
There was no one in the road. They ran on to the next house and there the chauffeur turned slowly. There was a street light here and its dim radiance shone for an instant on the side panels of the car as it turned. Billy, craning his neck around the corner of the car to look, saw the light flash upon the shiny varnish.
The car was painted maroon! There had been two maroon cars in the neighborhood of Riverdale within the past few days. Billy was very sure indeed that this car did not belong to Mr. Briggs!