Part 23 (1/2)

Our pa.s.senger swore something and then groaned.

”Hush, darling!” said Pyecroft, ”or I'll have to hug you.”

The main road, white under the noon sun, lay broad before us, running north to Linghurst. We slowed and looked anxiously for a side track.

”And now,” said I, ”I want to see your authority.”

”The badge of your ratin'?” Pyecroft added.

”I'm a constable,” he said, and kicked. Indeed, his boots would have bewrayed him across half a county's plough; but boots are not legal evidence.

”I want your authority,” I repeated coldly; ”some evidence that you are not a common drunken tramp.”

It was as I had expected. He had forgotten or mislaid his badge. He had neglected to learn the outlines of the work for which he received money and consideration; and he expected me, the tax-payer, to go to infinite trouble to supplement his deficiencies.

”If you don't believe me, come to Linghurst,” was the burden of his almost national anthem.

”But I can't run all over Suss.e.x every time a blackmailer jumps up and says he is a policeman.”

”Why, it's quite close,” he persisted.

”'Twon't be--soon,” said Hinchcliffe.

”None of the other people ever made any trouble. To be sure, _they_ was gentlemen,” he cried. ”All I can say is, it may be very funny, but it ain't fair.”

I laboured with him in this dense fog, but to no end. He had forgotten his badge, and we were villains for that we did not cart him to the pub or barracks where he had left it.

Pyecroft listened critically as we spun along the hard road.

”If he was a concentrated Boer, he couldn't expect much more,” he observed. ”Now, suppose I'd been a lady in a delicate state o' health-- you'd ha' made me very ill with your doings.”

”I wish I 'ad. 'Ere! 'Elp! 'Elp! Hi!”

The man had seen a constable in uniform fifty yards ahead, where a lane ran into the road, and would have said more but that Hinchcliffe jerked her up that lane with a wrench that nearly capsized us as the constable came running heavily.

It seemed to me that both our guest and his fellow-villain in uniform smiled as we fled down the road easterly betwixt the narrowing hedges.

”You'll know all about it in a little time,” said our guest. ”You've only yourselves to thank for runnin' your 'ead into a trap.” And he whistled ostentatiously.

We made no answer.

”If that man 'ad chose, 'e could have identified me,” he said.

Still we were silent.

”But 'e'll do it later, when you're caught.”

”Not if you go on talking. 'E won't be able to,” said Pyecroft. ”I don't know what traverse you think you're workin', but your duty till you're put in cells for a highway robber is to love, honour, an' cherish _me_ most special--performin' all evolutions signalled in rapid time. I tell you this, in case o' anything turnin' up.”

”Don't you fret about things turnin' up,” was the reply.

Hinchcliffe had given the car a generous throttle, and she was well set to work, when, without warning, the road--there are two or three in Suss.e.x like it--turned down and ceased.