Two constables stepped out of the ranks. Sir Clinton took them aside and gave them some special instructions.
“Now, you’d better get to your places,” he said, turning to the squad again. Remember, not a sound. I’m afraid you’ll have a long wait, but we must take things as they come.”
As the squad was led off into the night, he moved over to where the Inspector was standing.
“I want something out of the car,” he said. The Inspector followed him and waited while Sir Clinton switched off the headlights and the tail lamp. The Chief Constable felt in a locker and handed something to Armadale.
“A pair of night-glasses, Inspector. You’ll need them. And that’s the lot. We’d better get to our position. There’s no saying when the fellow may begin his work.”
Rather to the mystification of the Inspector, Sir Clinton struck across the grass instead of following the avenue up to the house. After a fairly long walk they halted under a large tree.
“A touch of fantasy was what I recommended to you, Inspector. I think a little tree-climbing is indicated. Sling these glasses round your neck as I’m doing and follow on.”
“Quite mad!” was the Inspector’s involuntary comment to himself. “I suppose, once we get up there, he’ll come down again and tell me I needed exercise.”
He followed the Chief Constable, however; and was at last directed to a branch on which he could find a safe seat.
“Think I’m demented, Inspector?” Sir Clinton demanded with the accuracy of a thought-reader. “It’s not quite so bad as that, you’ll be glad to hear. Turn your glasses through that rift in the leaves. I was at special pains to cut it yesterday evening, in preparation for you. What do you see?”
The Inspector focused his glasses and scanned the scene visible through the fissure in the foliage.
“The front of Ravensthorpe,” he answered.
“Some windows?”
“Yes.”
“Well, one of them’s the window of the museum; and this happens to be one of the few points from which you can see right into the room. If the lights were on there, you’d find that we’re looking squarely on to the door of the safe.”
With this help the Inspector was able to pick out the window which evidently he was expected to watch.
“It’ll be a slow business,” Sir Clinton said in a bored tone. “But one of us has got to keep an eye on that window for the next hour or two at least. We can take it in turn.”
They settled down to their vigil, which proved to be a prolonged one. The Inspector found his perch upon the branch anything but comfortable; and it grew more wearisome as the time slipped past.
“Fantasy!” he commented bitterly to himself as he shifted his position for the twentieth time. “Cramp’s more likely.”
But at last their tenacity was rewarded. It was during one of the Inspector’s spells of watching. Suddenly the dark rectangle of the window flashed into momentary illumination and faded again.
“There he is!” exclaimed the Inspector. “He’s carrying a flash-lamp.”
Sir Clinton lifted his glasses and examined the place in his turn.
“I can see him moving about in the room,” the Inspector reported excitedly. “Now he’s going over towards the safe. Can you see him, sir?”
“Fairly well. What do you make of him?”
The Inspector studied his quarry intently for a while.
“That’s the otophone, isn’t it, sir? I can’t see his face; it seems as if he’d blackened it. . . . No, he’s wearing a big mask. It looks like . . .”
His voice rose sharply.
“It’s Marden! I recognize that water-proof of his; I could swear to it anywhere.”
“That’s quite correct, Inspector. Now I think we’ll get down from this tree as quick as we can and I’ll blow my whistle. That ought to startle him. And I’ve arranged for that to be the signal for a considerable amount of noise in the house, which ought to give the effect we want.”
He slipped lightly down the branches, waited for the slower-moving Inspector, and then blew a single shrill blast on his whistle.
“That’s roused them,” he said, with satisfaction, as some lights flashed up in windows on the front of Ravensthorpe. “I guess that amount of stir about the place will flush our friend without any trouble.”
He gazed through his glasses at the main door.
“There he goes, Inspector!”
A dark figure emerged suddenly on the threshold, hesitated for a moment, and then ran down the steps. Armadale instinctively started forward; but the cool voice of the Chief Constable recalled him.
“There’s no hurry, Inspector! You’d better hang your glasses on the tree here. They’ll only hamper you in running.”
Hurriedly the Inspector obeyed; and Sir Clinton leisurely hung up his own pair. Armadale turned again and followed the burglar with his eyes.
“He’s making for the old quarry, sir.”
“So I see,” Sir Clinton assured him. “I want the fellow to have a good start, remember. I don’t wish him to be pressed. Now we may as well get the chase organized.”
Followed by the Inspector, he hurried towards the front of Ravensthorpe.
“I think that’s a fair start to give him,” he estimated aloud. Then, lifting his whistle, he blew a second blast.
Almost immediately the figures of Cecil Chacewater and Michael Clifton emerged from the main door, while a few seconds later the police squad rounded the corner of the house.
“Carry on, Inspector!” Sir Clinton advised. “I leave the rest of the round-up to you. But keep exactly to what I told you.”
Armadale hurried off, and within a few seconds the chase had been set afoot.
“We must see if we can wipe your eye this time, Mr Clifton,” the Chief Constable observed. “It’s a run over the old ground, you notice.”
Michael Clifton nodded in answer.
“If you’d let me run him down I’d be obliged to you,” he suggested. “You’ve given him a longish start, certainly; but I think I could pull him in.”
Sir Clinton made a gesture of dissent.
“Oh, no. We must give him a run for his money. Besides, it wouldn’t suit my book to have him run down too early in the game.”
The fugitive had reached the edge of the pine-wood as they were speaking, and now he disappeared from their sight among the arcades of the trees.
“The moon will be down in no time,” Cecil pointed out as they ran. “Aren’t you taking the risk of losing him up in the woods there? It’ll be pretty dark under the trees.”
He quickened his pace slightly in his eagerness; but the Chief Constable restrained him.
“Leave it to Armadale. It’s his affair. We’re only spectators, really.”
“I want the beggar caught,” Cecil grumbled, but he obeyed Sir Clinton’s orders and slowed down slightly.
A few seconds brought them to the fringe of the wood; and far ahead of them they could see the form of the burglar running steadily up the track.
“Just the same as before?” Sir Clinton demanded from Michael.
“Just the same.”
Through the wood they went behind the police squad. At the brow of the hill, where the trees began to thin, Armadale called a halt. They could hear him giving orders for the formation of his cordon. When his men began to move off under his directions the Inspector came over to Sir Clinton.
“He’ll not slip through our hands this time, sir. I’ll beat every bit of cover in that spinney. He can’t get away on either side without being spotted. We’ll get our hands on him in a few minutes now. I suppose he’s armed?”