'You haven't seen Miles?' demanded Simon, with one foot on the step.
'Not a sign.'
'And you haven't; heard anything?'
'Only you. I thought--'
'Damnation!' said the Saint, in his gentle way.
He looked up and down the road, listening intently, but he could hear nothing. Then he swung onto the running board.
'He's sure to have struck the road somewhere,' he said crisply. 'Teal, hustle yourself round the other side. . . . Can you put this thing along, Nigel?'
'I'll do my best.'
'Off you go, then.'
Teal climbed onto the step at the other side, and the car started again with a jerk, and gathered speed. Teal leaned over to be pessimistic.
'He'll see us coming a mile away if he is on the road,' he said.
'I know,' said the Saint savagely. 'Perhaps you'd rather run.'
He did not care to admit how pessimistic he himself felt. He was certain that Hallin must make for the road sooner or later; but he also knew that Teal's remark was perfectly justified. In fact, if it had been merely a question of capturing a fugitive, the Saint would have given it up forthwith. But there was another reason for the chase, and this very reason also gave it a faint chance of success. It was Perry who made the Saint speak of it.
'He told me Moyna wasn't far away,' Perry said. 'Have you any idea what he meant?'
'What he said,' answered the Saint grimly. 'He brought Moyna with him, but he didn't take her to the cottage. I don't know where he took her; but I'll bet he told you the truth. She won't be far away.'
Perry said, in a strained voice: 'Oughtn't we to be looking for her, instead of chasing him?'
'We're doing both at the same time,' said the Saint quietly. 'Wherever she is, that's where he's gone. Miles Hallin is going to have his life.'
'I--I can hardly believe it, even now,' said the youngster huskily.
Simon's hand rested on his shoulder.
'I hope you won't see it proved,' he said. 'But I know that Hallin has gone to find Moyna.'
Teal cleared his throat.
'He can't have got as far as this, anyway,' he remarked.
'Right as usual, Claud Eustace.' The Saint's voice was preternaturally calm. 'He must have gone down the hill. Turn the car round, Nigel, and we'll try the other line.'
Teal understood, and held his peace. Of course Hallin might easily have gone up the hill. He would have stepped off the road, and they might have passed him. , . . But Perry could b% spared the argument. . . . And yet Teal did not know how sincerely the Saint was clinging to his hope. Simon himself did not know why he should have clung to the hope as he did, against all reason; but the faith that spurred him on was above reason. The Saint simply could not believe that the story would end--the way Teal thought it must end....
'This is where we started from.' The Saint spoke to the lad at the wheel in tones of easy confidence. 'We could stop the engine and coast S3 down, couldn't we? Then wed hardly make any noise...'
They went on with no sound but the soft rustle of the tires. Simon did not have to mention the headlights. Those would give their approach away even more surely than the drone of the engine; but Simon would have invented any fatuous remark to save Perry's nerves.
They reached the bottom of the hill, and Teal was the first to see the police car standing by the road where they had left it. He pointed it out as Perry applied the brakes.
'He can't have come this way, either,' Teal said. 'If he had, he'd have taken that car.'
'I wonder if he saw it,' said the Saint.
He dropped off into the road, and his flashlight Spilled a circle of luminance over the macadam. The circle moved about restlessly, and Teal stepped from the car and followed it.
'Looking for footprints?' inquired the detective sardonically, as he came up behind the Saint; and at that moment the light in the Saint's hand went out.
'Blood,' said the Saint, very quietly.
'That's a nasty word,' murmured Teal.
'You everlasting mutt!' Simon gripped his arm fiercely. 'I wasn't swearing. I was telling you something!' He turned. 'Nigel, turn those, headlights out!'
The detective was fumbling with a matchbox; but the Saint stopped him,
'It's all right, old dear,' he drawled. 'This gadget of yours is till working. I just thought we'd better go carefully. Hallin's been past here. He didn't take the car, so he can't have had much farther to go.'
'But what's this about blood? Did you use a knife?'
'No,' said the Saint, smiling in the darkness. 'I hit him on the nose.'
Moyna Stanford had been awake for a long time.
She had roused sickly from a deeper sleep than any she had ever known; and it had been more than half an hour before she could recall anything coherently, or even find the strength to move.
And when her memory returned--or, rather, when she had forced it to return--she was not much wiser. She remembered meeting Miles Hallin at Windsor station. He had insisted on driving her back to London, and she had been glad to accept the invitation. In Slough he had complained of an intolerable thirst; they had stopped at a hotel, and she had been persuaded to join him in an early cup of tea. Then they had returned to the car. . . .
She did not know how long she had slept.
When she awoke, she was in darkness. She lay on something soft, and, when she could move, she gathered that it was a bed. She had already discovered that her wrists and ankles were securely bound....
Presently she had learned one or two other things. That it was night, for instance, she learned when she rolled over and saw a square of starlight in one wall; but her hands were tied behind her back, and she could not see her wrist watch to find out what hour of the night it might be. Then she lay still, listening, but not the faintest sound broke the silence. The house was like a tomb.
She had no idea how long she lay there. She did not cry out--there would be no one to hear. And she could see no help in screaming. Later, the sound of a car passing close by told her that she was not far from a road--a country road, or there would have been more cars. There was never such a silence in London. Later still--it was impossible to keep track of time--she scrambled off the bed and hobbled slowly and laboriously to the window. It was very dark outside; she could see nothing but a black expanse of country, in which no particular features were distinguishable, except that the' horizon was ragged against the dimness of the sky, as if it were formed by a line of hills. She might have been anywhere in England. The window was open, and she stood beside it for a long while, wondering if another car would pass, and if the road would be near enough for anyone in the car to hear her if she called; but no other car came. After a time she struggled back to the bed and lay down again; it was difficult and wearying for her to stand with her feet tightly lashed together, and her head was swimming all the while.
Then the drug she had been given must have put forth one final kick before it was finished with her; for she awoke again with a start, though she had no recollection of falling asleep. The sky through the window looked exactly the same: she was sure that she had only dozed.
She was shivering---she did not know why. Strangely enough, when she had first awoken she had been aware of no fear; that part of her brain seemed to have stayed sunken in sleep. But now she found herself trembling. There was a tightness about her chest; and she waited, tense with a name-less terror, hardly breathing, certain that some distinct sound had roused her.
Then the sound was repeated; and she would have cried out then, but her throat seemed paralyzed.
Someone was coming up the stairs.
A faint light entered the room. It came from under the door and traced a slow arc around half the floor. The creak of another board outside sent an icy qualm prickling up her spine; her mouth was dry, and her heart pounded thunderously. . , . The next thing would be the opening of the door. She waited for that, too, in the same awful tenseness: it was like watching a card castle after a sudden draught has caught it; she knew what must come, it was inevitable, but the suspense was more hideous than the active peril. . . . The rattle of a key in the lock made her jump, as if she had been held motionless by 'a slender thread and the thread had been snapped by the sound, .
