"It's all right," said Lennox. He almost pushed me into the tonneau,
where I tumbled into a big broad-shouldered Irishman, and swung up
himself to the front seat. "This is Doctor Haverill; he's coming
along. Haverill, this is Mr. Keary, the county sheriff, and
Inspector McWade."
The chauffeur let in the clutch and the big car swung forward in the
direction of Dutchman's Hill.
"And now, Haverill," Lennox said, turning to me, "you wanted to be in
it, and you're in it. These gentlemen are accompanying me to the
Bend with a warrant for the arrest of the man known as Aaron Menning."
"Ah!" I looked at the burly Irish inspector beside me, and the
conviction of yesterday grew clear in my mind. "For assault on
George Freeman!"
"No," said the sheriff, speaking for the first time. "For the
manslaughter of his brother on the seventeenth of last March."
XVII
A MIDNIGHT CHASE
We swept on at a steady pace, through a silence broken only by the
throbbing of the engine and the hissing whir of tires over the dust.
On either side of the road the woods stretched black and inscrutable.
Just before we came to Dutchman's Hill Lennox said a word to the
chauffeur, and he paused to extinguish the two headlights.
Thereafter we drove more slowly.
A few paces beyond the bridge, at the beginning of the hill, the car
stopped suddenly. Something had gone wrong with the engine, and
while the chauffeur got out to attend to it Lennox and the sheriff
took the opportunity to walk back to the bridge we had just crossed.
"Have to get a light on it," the chauffeur said, unhooking one of the
side lamps. "The blame thing might have held out a bit longer! We
ain't far from Dutchman's Hill, by all accounts."
"This is Dutchman's Hill," I said.
"It is, eh?" He glanced at the inspector; who was holding the lamp
for him. "Well, they say one cuss leads to another, and be darned if
I don't give this place a worse name than it's had yet!"
Alone in the car, I leaned back against the cushions, speculating as
to the chance that had drawn me into this midnight adventure and what
its outcome would be--the climax, for aught I knew, of all the
summer's mysteries. Of Lennox's part in it I could but guess, but
the experience of the last forty-eight hours gave me a confidence in
him that overrode all earlier impressions. Mentally I contrasted the
vision of Crowfoot, alert, cool-headed, decisive, with the Lennox of
my first evening's arrival, and marvelled at the grip he had brought
to bear on himself in the two months' interval.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account