CHAPTER XXI.
THE BLACK VELVET TOQUE
Across Morsted Fen the day was breaking red and sullen. The brimming dykes, fringed with bare pollards, and the long sheets of water spread out across the lush meadows, threw back the fiery radiance of the sky from their gleaming surface. The tall poplars about the Dyke Inn stood out hard and clear in the ruddy light; beyond them the fen, stretched away to the flaming horizon gloomy and flat and desolate, with nothing higher than the stunted pollards visible against the lurid background.
Upon the absolute silence of the scene there presently broke the steady humming of a car. A great light, paled by the dawn, came bobbing and sweeping, along the road that skirted the fen’s edge. A big open car drew up by the track and branched, off to the inn. Its four occupants consulted together for an instant and then alighted. Three of them were in plain clothes; the other was a soldier. The driver was also in khaki.
“They’re astir, Mr. Matthews,” said one, of the plain clothes men, pointing towards the house, “see, there’s a light in the inn!”
They followed the direction of his finger and saw a beam of yellow light gleaming from among the trees.
“Get your guns out, boys!” said Matthews. “Give them a chance to put their hands up, and if they don’t obey, shoot!”
Very swiftly but very quietly, the four men picked their way over the miry track to the little bridge leading to the yard in front of the inn. The light they had remarked shone from the inn door, a feeble, flickering light as of an expiring candle.
Matthews, who was leading, halted and listened. Everything was quite still. Above their head the inn sign groaned uneasily as it was stirred by the fresh morning breeze.
“You, Gordon,” whispered Matthews to the man behind him—they had advanced in Indian file—“take Bates and go round to the back. Harrison will go in by the front with me.”
Even as he spoke a faint noise came from the interior of the house. The four men stood stock-still and listened. In the absolute stillness of the early morning, the sound fell distinctly on their ears. It was a step—a light step—descending the stairs.