Free Four Strange Women by E.R. Punshon Page B

A tremendous tribute to the workmanship put into the car.
    They drew up. The colonel jumped out. Bobby followed, rubbing the back of his head where it had come more than once in contact with the hardest part of the car’s roof. Sergeant Rich said very fervently:—
    â€œThank God.”
    Biddle was looking at his tyres. He said proudly:—
    â€œNot a sign of a puncture.”
    Before them, at a little distance, was a kind of bay, or inlet, in the forest, surrounded on three sides by trees. It lay low and seemed damp. An odd place, Bobby thought, to choose for camping, especially so late in the season, and even though the caravan, from Lord Henry Darmoor’s description, was apparently of an expensive type and presumably fitted with every possible comfort. Two or three cars were standing near, the rays from their lamps converging on the centre of the glade, so that it was like an island of light in the midst of that enormous sea of darkness, darkness intense and primaeval as in the days of long ago. The lamp rays were focused on a dark, shapeless mass that lay crumbled there. Men were moving to and fro around it. Near one of the cars lay on a stretcher, covered by a rug, something that had no longer human form, but that Bobby knew instinctively had once been the habitation of a living soul. Even those busy in this far and silent glade, going about their various errands, occupied with their different duties, lessened their haste as they passed near. Two men, separating from the others, came across to meet the colonel. He greeted them as Mr. Oxley and Inspector Morris. He introduced Bobby, whom they both greeted civilly enough but with a certain reserve, which, Bobby feared, concealed some hostility, though he hoped not very deep-seated but only the instinctive hostility always felt when a new-comer joins the pack. Not improbably they resented his sudden appearance as their chief’s confidential assistant. Still, that was something he had known he might have to reckon with.
    Oxley, the superintendent, was beginning his report. There was not in it very much that was enlightening. Information had been received of the discovery of the burnt out caravan. Evidently the fire was not recent. It must have taken place two or three days before, possibly even longer. Impossible to say for certain. It had plainly been very fierce while it lasted. The caravan was drawn by a small trailer, perhaps there had been an extra petrol store to account for that. People sometimes kept by them more than was either prudent or permitted. As far as was known, the fire had not been seen by any one. Certainly no report had been received. If it had happened in daytime, the flames would not have been clearly visible; and any smoke seen might have been taken for the burning of rubbish on one of the small scattered farms or holdings in the neighbourhood. Not that there were many of these, for it was a thinly inhabited district. In any case so fierce a fire as this had plainly been, must have burnt itself out very quickly. The discovery had been made by a Mr. Eyton, a journalist on the staff of the Midwych and District News —not to be confounded with that much more important paper, the Midwych Herald . Mr. Eyton had been cycling through the forest and had come upon the scene of the fire. He had rung up from a public-house near, and had waited to guide the police to the spot. He had made a statement and then had gone off to write his report for the next issue of his paper. It was, the superintendent remarked in a slightly offended tone, what journalists called ‘a scoop’, and Mr. Eyton had flatly refused to wait Colonel Glynne’s arrival, apparently thinking it more important to get his story through, not only to his own office but to one of the big London papers, for which he acted as occasional correspondent and in which he hoped this time to ‘hit the front page’.
    â€œI did think of detaining him, sir,”