His Prey Was Man

Chapter I.—At Bay.-4

“All right,” he nodded curtly, “come inside,” and the stranger, proceeding into the living room of the cottage, seated himself in the one chair which was there. He pointed to an upturned packing case by the window. “You sit there,” he ordered. “We can talk better sitting down.”

Frowning heavily, the gamekeeper did as he was requested. Then he asked sharply, “But you tell me who you are and where you come from.”

The stranger shook his head. “Never mind who I am,” he replied, “but if you like you can think of me as Joe. Flash Joe they used to call me in Chicago where I've come from, but I've left there a couple of years, and over here I've got a respectable name.” He smiled a grim smile. “You wonder what my trade is? Well, I'll tell you.” He almost shouted out his next words as if he didn't mind who heard him. “I'm a gun-man, Brother, a professional killer, and Mrs. Hilary is paying me to fix you up if you give her any more trouble. Understand?”

Then before the gaping and astonished gamekeeper could realise what was happening, he saw himself covered with a wicked-looking little automatic which the man had whipped out of one of his pockets. The latter chuckled unpleasantly. “Yes, and I'll kill you without turning a hair if I find you're not going to listen to reason. Understand, I say? It's nothing to me to hole a man if I'm certain I won't be found out, and I'm quite certain of that now. Notice my gloves? That means I've come all prepared. No fingermarks to be found anywhere! ‘Colonel Hilary's gamekeeper found shot in lonely cottage, miles away from anywhere’.” His eyes bored like gimlets into those of Vance. “Are you taking in what I'm telling you?”

The gamekeeper leaned heavily against the wall and his voice was husky. “You'd not dare to murder me,” he said with an effort at a confidence he did not feel. “Strangers are few round here, and you'd be remembered afterwards. Anyone might hear the shot, too.”

His visitor scoffed. “You think so? Then you listen to this,” and in a few seconds he had produced a silencer and affixed it on to his pistol. His eyes roved round the room. “Ah, watch the handle of that saucepan,” and, following instantly upon his words came a slight spitting sound and the saucepan crashed on to the floor with its handle shattered into pieces. “And there goes that box of matches on the shelf there! Oh, that's nothing! I could pip you in your eye, every time at twenty paces. I'm pretty handy with my gun, I am, and the guy at the other end's not got a dog's chance, whoever he is.”

His lips curved to a sneer. “Now, you big, blackmailing bully, you heard what little noise my gun makes, and you're a fool if you think you'll be safe from it anywhere. No, I'll follow you wherever you go, in a disguise you won't see through, and the first second I get you alone, I'll plug you in your stomach or your liver.” His eyes glared. “Those are nasty painful deaths for they can't stop the bleeding inside you.” He gritted his teeth together. “Yes, if Colonel Hilary gets any anonymous letter about his wife I shall know it has come from you, and, with your tatooed hands and big lumpy body, you'll be pretty easy to pick out wherever you try to hide.”

The gamekeeper's face was livid under its tan and his forehead was all pricked out in little beads of sweat. With all his bold appearance, he had a thick streak of cowardice in him and he had no doubt the man before him was what he was making himself out to be—an assassin to be hired.

His visitor nodded viciously. “I'm not particular what I do. I've been brought up in a rough school. You just look here,” and in a trice he had bared a muscular arm up to the elbow. “See those scars, one, two, three; two bullets from guns and a dig with a knife! And I've got three scars on my body, one in my side where my heart was missed by the eighth of an inch, another where I got a bullet through my lung and the last from a stab in my side.” He nodded again. “So I've sometimes had to take a dose of trouble myself.”

He dropped his voice and spoke very quietly now. “You've been a fool, Vance, a darned silly fool. You might have gone on touching that pretty lady for a few pounds at a time for years and years to come if you hadn't made her desperate by asking too much all of a sudden and made her think of me. I'd sat once as a model for her and some other young ladies who painted, and she knew what I'd been and where to find me.” He spoke in crisp and businesslike tones. “Now, Vance, have you got any money in the house?”

The gamekeeper did not seem to take in what he said. “What money do you mean?” he asked with his face all puckered in a frown.

“Money to go away with,” was the sharp reply, “for you've got to clear out to-night or to-morrow. You've got to go straightaway and you're to take yourself right out of this part of the country. You haven't any? Well, here's a fiver for you, and you're to go off without saying a word to anyone. Understand?” The speaker went on very sternly. “If it ever gets to Mrs. Hilary's ears that you've spoken a word to anyone, to anyone, mind, about Sutton Coldfield, then she's making it worth my while to plug you off.” His jaws snapped together. “And I'll do it with pleasure.”

The gamekeeper's face was the picture of black fury, and he neither spoke a word nor even glanced in the direction of the five-pound note lying on the table. His eyes were all for the man who threatened him.

The latter rose to his feet and spat on to the floor. “That's what I think of you, Vance,” he said with the utmost scorn. “I've killed men in my time and killed for money, but I've never tortured a defenceless woman and so I'm a hell of a sight a better man than you. Damn you.” He spat on the floor again and then was just going out of the door when he remarked casually, “Oh, by the bye, it wasn't Mrs. Hilary who had that baby up at Sutton Coldfield. It was her sister and she is shielding her. They are as alike as two peas.” He spat for the third time. “Damn you, once again.”

The door banged behind him and he was gone.

Larose, for of course it was he, walked quickly away in the direction from which he had come, for the first hundred yards or so, however, keeping a backward glance over his shoulder to make sure he was not being followed. He had noted the double-barrelled gun in the cottage and was thinking it best not to neglect a reasonable precaution.

“But no,” he told himself when at length the cottage was well behind him, “I knew I was right in thinking that he wasn't that kind of man. When it came to a showdown he had no pluck at all.” He chuckled. “Oh, yes, I frightened him! He's ignorant enough to believe gun-men can be picked up for the asking and I don't think he'll bother the little lady any more. He's a big, blustering coward and the threat to his own dirty skin will have frightened him more than the threat of any appeal to the police.”

He picked up his car where he had hidden it in a by-lane about a mile away, and drove off in a roundabout way to Rondle Hall. Jean had told him that her husband would not be home until seven o'clock and that she would be keeping a look-out for him, Larose, in the grounds.

He found her waiting for him, and when he told her the gamekeeper was leaving the district and that she would never be seeing him again, her relief and thankfulness were so apparent that he felt recompensed at once for the trouble he had taken.

“At any rate,” he said, “his going out of the district will prevent his spreading the scandal by word of mouth among the people here and I don't think he'll send your husband any anonymous letter. For one thing, for a little while he'll probably be too frightened that I shall come after him and, for another, I don't think he's the type to make any trouble where he's going to get nothing out of it.”

“But I shall tell my husband now,” said Jean.

Larose shook his head. “No, take my advice and don't, at any rate for the present.” He frowned. “It's rather puzzling to know exactly what is wisest to do, but as our great object is to save Colonel Hilary any distress, I think we are justified in waiting a little while.” He nodded. “If he has, eventually, to be told, I'll take the blame for preventing your speaking sooner.”

Now Larose had been right in thinking he had frightened the man badly, but he was quite wrong in imagining the latter would now be reconciled to leaving his victim alone. On the contrary, his fury that she had escaped him was soon spurring the gamekeeper on to some hard thinking as to what way he could spite her. He had not altogether given up the idea, either, that he could not yet make money out of the secret he possessed, for if he were not going to use the information himself then he might, perhaps, be able to sell it to someone to whom it could be valuable.

His thoughts turned at once to a London solicitor in Theobald's Road who had once defended his brother when the latter had been charged with receiving a stolen motor car. His brother had been guilty, right enough, but, thanks to the promptings of this unscrupulous man of law, he had lied so plausibly that he had obtained an acquittal.

Vance remembered a lot of things he had heard afterwards about this solicitor. It was said he would do anything for money and that when, in the course of his defending them, he had come into the possession of the secrets of any well-to-do breakers of the law, he would make use of his knowledge to extort money, as a matter of sheer blackmail.

“The very man,” nodded Vance. “I'll go and see to-morrow. I'll make out I've come because I am being threatened by that gunman and I'll pretend to ask his advice. Then I'll see if I can't touch him for a bit.” He nodded again. “Yes, he might make thousands out of it.”

The following morning, soon after three o'clock, he left his cottage and, locking the door behind him, proceeded to make his way through the Hilary woods in the direction opposite to that of North Walsham. He was minded to pick up the early morning train at a station some seven miles away, where he was not known. He had brushed his boots and tidied himself up a bit, but he was carrying his gun upon his shoulder. As he moved away from the cottage he gave a furtive glance round, but there was nothing suspicious to be seen and he was quite easy in his mind that no one was in hiding there to watch him.

As long as he was on the Hilary land he kept his gun with him, but just before stepping out of the woods on to the high road he secreted it under some bushes, intending to pick it up again when he was returning home that evening. Then, after another quick look round to make sure he was not being observed, he set off at a smart pace upon his journey.