The Phantom Motor | Page 3

from the tail axle, but he could not make out the figures. Dust and a swaying car conspired to defeat him. But he did see that there were four persons in the car dimly silhouetted against the light reflected from the road. It was useless, of course, to conjecture as to sex for even as he looked, the fast receding car swerved around the turn and was lost to sight.
Again he rushed to the telephone; Bowman responded promptly.
'That car's gone in again,' Baker called. 'Ninety miles an hour. Look out!'
'I'm looking,' responded Bowman.
'Let me know what happens,' Baker shouted.
With the receiver to his ear he stood for ten or fifteen minutes, then Bowman hallooed from the other end.
'Well?' Baker responded. 'Get 'em?'
'No car passed through and there's none in sight,' said Bowman.
'But it went in,' insisted Baker.
'Well it didn't come out here,' declared Bowman. 'Walk along the road till I meet you and look out for it.'
Then was repeated the search of the night before. When the two men met in the middle of The Trap their faces were blank - blank as the high stone walls which stared at them from each side.
`Nothing!' said Bowman.
'Nothing!' echoed Baker.
Special Constable Bowman perched his head on one side and scratched his grizzly chin.
'You're not trying to put up a job on me?' he inquired coldly. 'You did `see a car?'
'I certainly did,' declared Baker, and a belligerent tone underlay his manner. 'I certainly saw it, Jim, and if it didn't come out your end, why - why -'
He paused and glanced quickly behind him. The action inspired a sudden similar caution on Bowman's part.
`Maybe - maybe -' said Bowman after a minute, 'maybe it's a- a spook auto?'
'Well it must be,' mused Baker. 'You know as well as I do that no car can get out of this trap except at the ends. That car came in here, it isn't here now and it didn't go out your end. Now where is it?'
Bowman stared at him a minute, picked up his lantern, shook his head solemnly and wandered along the road back to his post. On his way he glanced around quickly, apprehensively, three times - Baker did the same thing four times.
On the third night the phantom car appeared and disappeared precisely as i t had done previously. Again Baker and Bowman met half way between posts and talked it over.
'I'll tell you what, Baker,' said Bowman in conclusion, 'maybe you're just imagining that you see a car. Maybe if I was at your end I couldn't see it.'
Special Constable Baker was distinctly hurt at the insinuation.
'All right, Jim,' he said at last, 'if you think that way about it we'll swap posts tomorrow night. We won't have to say anything about it when we report.'
'Now that's the talk,' exclaimed Bowman with an air approaching enthusiasm. 'I'll bet I don't see it.'
On the following night Special Constable Bowman made himself comfortable on Special Constable Baker's camp-stool. And he saw the phantom auto. It came upon him with a rush and a crackling-chug of engine and then sped on leaving him nerveless. He called Baker over the wire and Baker watched half an hour for the phantom. It didn't appear.
Ultimately all things reach the newspapers. So with the story of the phantom auto. Hutchinson Hatch, reporter, smiled incredulously when his City Editor laid aside an inevitable cigar and tersely stated the known facts. The known facts in this instance were meager almost to the disappearing point. They consisted merely of a corroborated statement that an automobile, solid and tangible enough to all appearances, rushed into The Trap each night and totally disappeared.
But there was enough of the bizarre about it to pique the curiosity, to make one wonder, so Hatch journeyed down to Yarborough County, an hour's ride from the city, met and talked to Baker and Bowman and then, in broad daylight strolled along The Trap twice. It was a leisurely, thorough investigation with the end in view of finding out how an automobile once inside might get out again without going out either end.
On the first trip through Hatch paid particular attention to the Thomas Q. Rogers side of the road. The wall, nine feet high, was an unbroken line of stone with not the slightest indication of a secret wagon-way through it anywhere. Secret wagon-way! Hatch smiled at the phrase. But when he reached the other end - Bowman's end - of The Trap he was perfectly convinced of one thing - that no automobile had left the hard, macadamized road to go over, under or through the Thomas Q. Rogers wall. Returning, still leisurely, he paid strict attention to the John Phelps Stocker side, and when he reached the other end - Baker's end - he was convinced