The Chase of the Golden Plate by Jacques Futrelle Read Free Book Online

or didn’t run away with somebody in an automobile. Anyhow, something happened to her , because she’s missing. The gold plate is stolen, and the gold plate is back. I know that , thank Heaven! And now, knowing more about this affair than any other single individual, I don’t know anything .”

PART II
    THE GIRL AND THE PLATE

CHAPTER I
    Low-bent over the steering wheel, the Burglar sent the automobile scuttling breathlessly along the flat road away from Seven Oaks. At the first shot he crouched down in the seat, dragging the Girl with him; at the second, he winced a little and clenched his teeth tightly. The car’s headlights cut a dazzling pathway through the shadows, and trees flitted by as a solid wall. The shouts of pursuers were left behind, and still the Girl clung to his arm.
    â€œDon’t do that,” he commanded abruptly. “You’ll make me smash into something.”
    â€œWhy, Dick, they shot at us!” she protested indignantly.
    The Burglar glanced at her, and, when he turned his eyes to the smooth road again, there was a flicker of a smile about the set lips.
    â€œYes, I had some such impression myself,” he acquiesced grimly.
    â€œWhy, they might have killed us!” the Girl went on.
    â€œIt is just barely possible that they had some such absurd idea when they shot,” replied the Burglar. “Guess you never got caught in a pickle like this before?”
    â€œI certainly never did!” replied the Girl emphatically.
    The whir and grind of their car drowned other sounds—sounds from behind—but from time to time the Burglar looked back, and from time to time he let out a new notch in the speed-regulator. Already the pace was terrific, and the Girl bounced up and down beside him at each trivial irregularity in the road, while she clung frantically to the seat.
    â€œIs it necessary to go so awfully fast?” she gasped at last.
    The wind was beating on her face, her mask blew this way and that; the beribboned sombrero clung frantically to a fast-failing strand of ruddy hair. She clutched at the hat and saved it, but her hair tumbled down about her shoulders, a mass of gold, and floated out behind.
    â€œOh,” she chattered, “I can’t keep my hat on!”
    The Burglar took another quick look behind, then his foot went out against the speed-regulator and the car fairly leaped with suddenly increased impetus. The regulator was in the last notch now, and the car was one that had raced at Ormonde Beach.
    â€œOh, dear!” exclaimed the Girl again. “Can’t you go a little slower?”
    â€œLook behind,” directed the Burglar tersely.
    She glanced back and gave a little cry. Two giant eyes stared at her from a few hundred yards away as another car swooped along in pursuit, and behind this ominously glittering pair was still another.
    â€œThey’re chasing us, aren’t they?”
    â€œThey are,” replied the Burglar grimly, “but if these tires hold, they haven’t got a chance. A breakdown would—” He didn’t finish the sentence. There was a sinister note in his voice, but the Girl was still looking back and did not heed it. To her excited imagination it seemed that the giant eyes behind were creeping up, and again she clutched the Burglar’s arm.
    â€œDon’t do that, I say,” he commanded again.
    â€œBut, Dick, they mustn’t catch us—they mustn’t!”
    â€œThey won’t.”
    â€œBut if they should—”
    â€œThey won’t,” he repeated.
    â€œIt would be perfectly awful!”
    â€œWorse than that.”
    For a time the Girl silently watched him bending over the wheel, and a singular feeling of security came to her. Then the car swept around a bend in the road, careening perilously, and the glaring eyes were lost. She breathed more freely.
    â€œI never knew you handled an auto so well,” she said admiringly.
    â€œI