A DAY later. It was ten o’clock at night. Bertha was busy serving the crowd of customers with drinks, when a lad came into the bar and asked for Miss Summerhayes. Bertha spoke to him. He said a gentleman outside wished to speak to her on a matter of great importance. Without hesitation Bertha took her hat and went to the door. Here she was accosted by a bushy-whiskered man, who demanded in a gruff voice if she was Miss Summerhayes?
“Yes, to be sure. But what’s the matter?”
“A Mr. Norris sent me for you. He is very ill, and must see you at once. Look, I have a cab; there is no time to lose, hurry in!”
Before she had time to think Bertha was in the vehicle, and it was plunging off at a rapid rate. Bertha was full of questions, and her interrogations came so quickly one after the other that for a time her companion had an excuse for not replying.
“What is the matter with him? What has happened to dear old Pro? He seemed all right yesterday. I never remember his being sick before.”
“It’s what they call a stroke,” the bushy-whiskered man replied gruffly.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” sighed Bertha hysterically. “Tell the man to drive fast! But where is he going? This is Oxford Street—not the way to Church Hill. I tell you he has made a mistake! Stop!” And Bertha tried to lift the little door in the roof of the cab above her head.
“That’s all right,” said her companion; “we’ll be there in a few minutes. The Professor was at a friend’s house up at Darlinghurst.”
For the time Bertha’s suspicions, now aroused, were silenced, but soon the horse, who was travelling at great speed, arrived at Darlinghurst, and without turning off the main road, continued his course to Paddington.
“We have passed Darlinghurst. You are deceiving me! Stop the cab, or I will cry out!”
“It’s all right, I tell you! Just keep quiet for a few minutes.”
But Bertha, fairly alarmed, and noting some passers-by at hand, stood up in the cab and sang out—
“Help! Help! He—”
The third cry was stifled, for a silk muffler was placed round her head, an odour, strange and unfamiliar, gradually stupefied her senses, and caused her to sink unresistingly on the cushions of the vehicle. The passers-by, alarmed by the cry, had paused a minute, but hearing nothing more, and the cab speeding on, had resumed their walk.
A policeman standing apathetically at a street corner was startled into activity by the furious approach of the hansom. It was clearly a case for a summons, so he rushed into the roadway waving his arms, and cried—
“Stop! Stop!”
But the driver, instead of stopping, cleverly dodged him and his attempt to seize the rein. The horse dashed by, and the enraged constable, who was no mean sprinter, started in pursuit. At least he would find the number.
But the light from the first lamp they passed lit up the back of the cab only to show him the number was hidden.
On sped the cab, with no impediment, for the road at this time of night was clear and deserted.
The policeman to his surprise was fast losing ground, for he was ignorant that the black horse he was pursuing was within a head the winner of the Sydney Cup. On sped the cab, now unpursued, through Paddington, past Woollabra, past the Tea Gardens, and on, on into the darkness, where lamps and houses were few, and scrub lined the road; on till the sound of the ocean beating the high cliffs of Coogee and Bondi was audible in a monotonous roar.
Inside the cab the man with bushy whiskers had removed the muffler, and gazed with a look of gloating reverence on the pale and corpse-like features of Bertha.
“Did I give her too much chloroform?” he said to himself, as he felt her pulse. His look of anxiety passed away. There was still a feeble beat.
“Mine at last!” he cried, with an accent almost of worship, as he raised the lifeless hand to his lips.
“Mine, now and for ever!”
* * * * *
When the night passed and the following morning without bringing news of Bertha, surprise and astonishment began to trouble her friends and employer at the Golden Bar. A message was sent to Professor Norris, who was known to be her friend, but he knew nothing, and he returned with the messenger, his mind filled with dread and dismay.
To Ruby and Florrie the mine of speculation and scandal thus opened up was a veritable God-send. Every caller as he came in was posted up in all the latest particulars. One of the first to be so informed was Alec Booth, and it met him like a knock-down blow. He was, however, soon on his mental feet again, and sifting, by examination, the list of crude rumours with which the two barmaids inundated him, he learned successively, first, that it was a lad (a well-known habitué of the side walk) who had called Bertha out. Next, having found the lad, he heard from him that on the evening before a bushy-whiskered man had driven up in a cab, and giving him a shilling, had told him to go in the Golden Bar and tell a Miss Summerhayes that she was wanted. The lady had come to the door as requested, and after some words with the bushy-whiskered man, which the lad did not overhear, they both got in the cab and drove rapidly away.
This was all the information Alec could gather. Neither a description of the cab or cabman, nor the number of the same was to be had. A hansom in a main Sydney thoroughfare is too common a sight to attract even passing attention. Doubtless if Alec had been endowed with half the imagination of a French detective he would have found his clue ample for the prosecution of an immediate chase. But imagination was distinctly not his forte. He could weave no theory, spin no web of conjecture; only in a vague and ill-defined way he told himself that Bertha’s disappearance was not natural, and probably not voluntary. She was certainly not the sort of girl to elope at a minute’s notice, and even Alec, slight student as he was of feminine human nature, felt that she was above all not the girl to thus abandon her wardrobe.
Mixed with these feelings, that Bertha had met with foul play, were a host of jealous doubts. Of her own accord she had stepped into this cab. Why had she done so? Passion boiled up in the man, and he raged impotently. At last his mind received an inspiration.
“Why not go to Soft Sam?”
He acted on the thought at once, and in a few minutes found himself in the Domain at the old gentleman’s accustomed seat.
As Alec approached a group of children he heard the familiar voice calling out amongst them—
“Now, knuckle down properly; don’t fudge.”
It was Sam teaching his pupils the mysteries of marbles, and Alec had to wait some few minutes while a chubby youngster of six was inducted into the mysteries of holding his blood-alley in the most scientific and approved method.
“Well, my lad,” said Soft Sam at last, “what’s the trouble?”
Then Alec told him all he knew of Bertha’s disappearance; how eager he was to seek her out, and how helpless he felt himself to do so.
“More trouble about that girl! Why can’t you leave them alone? Mark my words, you’ll come a cropper over them before you are done. But there, what’s the use of talking, the pairing season is death to common-sense.”
“But where has she gone, Sam? Where shall I find her?”
“That depends on who has done the job. He may be a tradesman, in which case you may as well say ‘good-bye’; or only a botch of an amateur, in which event you have a very good show. Advertise in this evening’s paper for the cabman. Offer ten pounds reward and no questions asked, and you will probably get an answer.”
“But suppose the man has been squared, is it likely he will give himself for a sum like that?”
“That depends, as I said at first, who put up the job. Let us suppose it was a mug’s plant. He would probably give the cabby a fiver for the night’s work, and he is not the average cabman if he would not tell where he drove to for a tenner, particularly if you undertake to ask nothing else, and keep the cops out of the affair.”
Alec jumped at the suggestion at once, and he was just in time to get the following notice in the second edition of the Evening Times—
TEN POUNDS REWARD.—If the cabman who drove a lady and gentleman from the Golden Bar last evening will call on Alexander Booth, King Street, he will receive the above. No foolish questions asked.
Alec went to his office and waited there impatiently for further developments. About six o’clock a seedy-looking man sidled into the office and asked for Mr. Booth. He was shown into the inner room, and Alec, at the first glance, felt that something was coming.
“Are you the cove wot advertised?”
“That’s me,” said Alec. “Are you the cabman I want?”
“No, I’m not the bloke; but I think I could find him, or what you want to know, if it was worth my while.”
“Do you know where he drove his cab last night?”
“Perhaps. Is that all you want to know?”
“That’s all. I’ll give a fiver down, and another fiver when you take me to the house. And I want no other questions answered.”
“That’s the kind of talk! You can ante up the blunt, and we will start right away.”
Eagerly Alec Booth counted out five notes to the man, and then together they left the office, and jumping into a cab at the door, drove rapidly towards the eastern suburb.
It was a long, silent drive. Alec, as he had promised, asked no questions, and the man by his side volunteered no remark, except from time to time to give the requisite notice to the driver.
Up Oxford Street, along the Old South Head Road, mile after mile, past Paddington, Woollabra, the Tea Gardens, and then out in the scrub towards the sea to the open stretch of desolate ground round about Bondi. The houses were getting fewer, and at last at a signal the cab pulled up.
“Here we are, boss. That’s the crib there across the paddock,” and the man pointed to a little cottage a few rods away, and standing back from the road. “Now you can brass up.”
A doubt crossed Alec’s mind. It might be “a have.” But he resolved to chance it. Ten pounds would neither make him nor break him; so paying the guide, who quickly walked off, he bade the cabman to wait for him, vaulted over the fence, and strode towards the house that had been pointed out.
The place appeared to be unoccupied, yet there was not the usual notice, “This House to Let,” in the window. The front gate was fastened, but was easily stepped over. There were blinds to the windows of the front rooms, but otherwise from an outside view they appeared to be empty.
Alec knocked at the door, a loud resounding knock.
There was no answer, no sound of movement within.
He tried the door. It was a common two-inch, fastened by a common lock. Without thought of possible consequences, in case his information was unreliable, Alec put his shoulder to the door, and putting forth his great strength, was pleased to find the staple give way.
An empty passage, an empty house, quiet, desolate. Yet stay! One of the four doors before him was fastened. He turned the handle. It was also locked. Impatient, eagerly he shouted out—
* * * * *
The day following the abduction was one of nervous excitement to Huey Gosper. He called in at the Golden Bar, and feigned a very natural astonishment at the great piece of news Ruby had for him. He quite supported her opinion that “The Squatter” must be at the bottom of it. “The Squatter” was evidently “gone” on her; he was the possessor of untold wealth. What more likely than that he had used the power of his money to serve his own ends.
So spoke Ruby, and her tone was neither one of great commiseration for Bertha, or great condemnation to her supposed abductor. Perhaps the prospect of being carried off under these conditions did not appear so terrible to her.
Huey wandered about the town restlessly. He took an unaccustomed number of drinks, but they failed to act as a sedative. He answered a large number of letters addressed to “The Tinman,” but if his correspondents were pleased with the tips he sent on this occasion they were mortals easily satisfied. One question was ever uppermost in his mind, “What should he do next?” His plan, while yet in perspective, had appeared simple enough. Disguised he would cage her, and later, in his own proper person, he would come to her rescue with a tale of how he had discovered that Alec Booth was her abductor. In this way he hoped to gain the gratitude of Bertha, and the overthrow of his enemy.
He would go the following morning. It would look suspicious to go too soon. This was his plan, and he had only to wait quietly; but quiet he could not be.
How was Bertha getting on in that lonely house? Could he trust the cabman? Was there some fault in his plan, some weak point in the tale he meant to tell? So his mind dwelt and doubted. It was about six o’clock in the evening that, carelessly turning over the evening paper, he came to the following—
TEN POUNDS REWARD.—If the cabman who drove a lady and gentleman from the Golden Bar last evening will call on Alexander Booth, King Street, he will receive the above. No foolish questions asked.
“My God!” cried Huey, “I have no time to lose! That devil will be on my track. Why did I trust the cabman? Why did I not follow Soft Sam’s advice, always to work alone? Never mind, there is time yet. To-night or to-morrow morning, what does it matter, I will take some tools and be off.”
In five minutes a bundle already prepared was in his hand, and he was seated in a cab, speeding rapidly to the eastern suburbs. He was nearly at his destination when he signalled the driver to stop. Getting out he bade him wait. Proceeding on foot he came to the solitary cottage. Avoiding the front entrance, he walked along the side fence, climbed it, and approached a window covered on the outside with venetian shutters.
“Are you there, Bertha?” he whispered, poking a stick through the shutters and tapping the glass.
No answer.
“Are you there, Bertha?” he cried, still louder.
Still no response. With a cloud of anxiety on his face he hastily took a short crowbar from his bundle, prized open the shutters, prized open the window, and stepped in. With one glance he had eyed every nook and corner of the room.
It was empty.
“Damnation!” cried Huey, as he passed through the open door into the hall, where the front entrance itself was open to the world. “The bird has flown, and the sooner I disappear the better.”
Three minutes later he was in the cab again, raging with disappointed hopes, full of doubt as to what had happened. Had the cabman “split”? Had Alec, with that cursed luck of his, foiled him again? Or had Bertha, more ingenious than he had thought her, and despising the written warning he had left, effected her own deliverance. Clearly he had failed, but while he had life and liberty he would try again, and Bertha should be his—yes, she should be his, or he would swing for her!
* * * * *
When Alec Booth called the name of Bertha at the inner door, he was gladdened to hear the sound of feet on the floor, and a welcome voice cry—“Alec! Is that you, Alec? Save me!”
With one strong drive from his shoulder the door burst in, and there, standing with tear-stained face and imploring eyes, in the midst of a daintily-furnished room, was Bertha Summerhayes.
“At last! Thank God!” exclaimed Alec. “How did you get here?”
She almost fell into his arms. Her eyes lighted up with joy, and her bosom heaved with emotion.
“Oh, take me away from this! Take me away! It feels to me like a tomb!”
And Alec noted as he looked about that the room must have been in semi-darkness before the opening of the door, for the lattice shutters of the window were closed.
“Have you anything to take?” inquired Alec, as Bertha almost pushed him forward in her eagerness to hasten away.
“No, there is nothing. Yet, stay a moment, there is that paper on the table; take that, it may be of use; it may help to explain. But come, do come! I shall faint if I stop in this place a minute longer!”
Alec picked up and placed in his pocket a written paper that lay on the table, and, careless of further concern about the house, quickly left it with Bertha on his arm, and it was not till they were seated side by side in the cab that Miss Summerhayes seemed to draw her breath freely.
As the cab bowled along, they were too busy with mutual congratulations to remark, on another road parallel to their own, a second cab hastening in the direction from which they had just come. Without recognition these two cabs passed each other not four hundred feet away, the riders in each having their eyes closed to that which would have interested them so much.
It was in disjointed fragments that Bertha related her experience, and, pieced together, Alec found it came to this—
She was enticed into the cab by a bushy-whiskered man, who said he had been sent to take her to Mr. Norris, who was seriously ill. The cab, she remembered, came up Oxford Street, when she pointed out that they were going in the wrong direction. The man then told her that Mr. Norris was at a friend’s house at Darlinghurst, but very soon the cab passed that place, and then she called out and wanted to stop the cab or summon assistance. After that she could remember nothing till she came to her senses, feeling very sick and faint, in the room where Alec had found her.
Looking about in the half-darkened room she found a written paper on the table, the same that Alec had in his pocket. Alec took it out and read as follows—
“Miss Summerhayes is warned for her own safety to make no effort to escape or noise of any kind, as it will only force those who watch her to do again what was done in the cab. On these conditions no harm shall happen to you.—A FRIEND.”
“Reading that made you keep quiet, I suppose,” said Alec.
“Yes,” said Bertha. “I did not want to be smothered again, and I was terrified almost to death, sitting there alone all day, not knowing what was to happen next. Perhaps they were going to murder me, or throw me over the cliffs, for I could hear the noise of the surf. But noise in the house I heard none, till you came and broke open the door. How did you find me out?”
Then Alec gave his account, how he had gone to Soft Sam, and acting on his advice, had advertised for the cabman, how a man had replied, and in spite of his assertion to the contrary, most likely the cabman himself. The rest Bertha knew.
“How can I ever thank you enough, Mr. Booth?” said Bertha, as she stepped once more on the pavement fronting the Golden Bar. “How can I ever thank you enough for your kindness and courage?”
“Give me this hand to keep and take care of,” replied Alec with a sudden burst of emotional fervour, “and no scoundrel in the future shall dare to touch you!”
Bertha did not answer him as she stepped lightly to the doorway; then, half turning her head, she threw him one word as she disappeared.
“Perhaps!”