hunched shoulder of the bend to the white of bone. George accepted the omen with aplomb, and switched off his lights altogether. He went round the curve on faith and moonlight, hugging the dark side.
The car that had just heaved itself out of the ditch opposite and turned was drawn up now, somewhat farther ahead than George had estimated, engine running, wheels barely turning, close to the grass verge. On the verge itself, faintly outlined by the roof-light through the open door, one man was stooping with his arms about the end of a long, unwieldy bundle, which he was thrusting into the rear seat of the car. Someone else was already in there ahead of it, hauling it in.
A limp, dead weight, all too recognisable as the feet were dragged aboard and the door slammed on them. The inside light blinked off, blinked on again as the front passenger door opened to let the last man leap aboard, blinked out once again as the car, broad and powerful, soared into speed and shot away.
Three to one, counting the man at the wheel; four, taking into account the young one whose job it was to whip away the hired Dodge somewhere into Germany, and no doubt get it a new paint job and a changed registration before daylight to-morrow. Much chance Francis Killian had had, George thought grimly, drawing a bead on the receding rear lights, with his foot flat to the floor and his lights still off. If they were, as he hoped, still undetected, they might as well stay that way as long as possible. The road surface, thank God, wasn’t bad at all, and the fitful moonlight made the edge of the grass show up like a kerb; and there was nothing meeting them, and at this hour of the night, with luck, there might be nothing all the way to the crest and the frontier. The lights ahead would indicate the bends, and give him a chance to use his sidelights without being spotted. With luck! With, in fact, a lot more luck than Francis Killian had had.
At the moment the chief trouble was that the big car in front was gaining rapidly.
‘Mercedes, I think!’ yelled the young Austrian in his ear, peering excitedly after the shape ahead. His name was Werner Frankel, and he had been assigned to George as escort and assistant because he had received the whole of his primary education and most of his advanced education in English, as a refugee with his family during and after the war, ‘We shan’t overhaul
There was no arguing with that; they would be lucky if they could even keep those diminishing tail-lights in view.
‘Any hope of a telephone up here?’ asked George, keeping his foot down hard, and his eye on the distant spark.
‘Yes, an inn, half a mile ahead. You won’t see it, but I’ll tell you.’ They were both thinking on the same lines, and it was pleasing to find that they both knew it, without any waste of words. ‘Drop me off there, and try to hang on to him.’
‘Sure? You know these roads better than I do.’
‘You don’t speak German,’ said Werner unanswerably.
George would have managed to make himself understood somehow, but Werner wouldn’t even have to try, and delay was what they could least afford.
‘You’ll call the German police, too? They might pick up the Dodge before they get it into hiding.’ Nobody was going to be able to identify it afterwards, that was plain. ‘And the frontier, in case. Though I doubt if they’ll risk the frontier… not on the road.’
‘At night it could be a very nominal check… they might. If they try some other way over, it has to be a rough one. You’ll have a better chance of staying with him.’
‘And the other side? What choice of roads?’
‘After Scheidenau, it has to be Bregenz or Langen. I’ll call both. Pity we weren’t near enough to get a number, but a Mercedes in a hurry… black or dark blue?… I’d say black.’
‘And the Dodge you know.’ A cigarette-end in the dark, the sole trace of the Mercedes, vanished round one more bend ahead. George switched on dipped headlights, and made up a little of the lost ground while there was a ridge of rock between them.
‘The Dodge I know. Slow round this bend, my inn’s on the right. You’ll see a track going off uphill.’
George saw the pole first, the telephone wire sliding away from the road. He braked to a halt where the climbing path began, and Werner was out like a greyhound. ‘Good luck!’ He waved and darted away into the dark; and George ranged through the Volkswagen’s willing gears and set off doggedly after the vanished Mercedes.
And now he was on his own, and any communing he was going to do would be done strictly with himself. But give Werner ten minutes with that telephone, and there would be large numbers of invisible allies turning out to his aid. He could use as many as he could get. The outfit that could plant four men and that kind of car to pick off Francis Killian had plenty of resources at its disposal. The thing began to look promisingly big. Big, thorough, and highly sensitive to any display of curiosity. Now which of those calls Killian had made to-day in Regenheim could have caused Them—whoever
No doubt about now Werner would be reeling off the whole list to the German police, and leaving them to do the rest. If he was fast enough they might be able to stop the Dodge in Felsenbach, before some discreet garage doors closed on it somewhere—those double doors in Regenheim, perhaps?—and three or four waiting experts fell on it and transformed everything on it or in it that was transformable, and sent it out again to be palmed off on some innocent sucker the other side of the country. George had known the whole job done inside four hours, even in England, and in comparison with these big boys with the whole of Europe open to them the English were mere amateurs.
And if the car was meant to vanish without trace, ten thousand to one so was Francis Killian. Like anybody else who got too nosy about this complicated corner of Central Europe, about anonymous graves and mysterious disappearances. Like Robin Aylwin himself? Like Peter Bromwich? Hang on tightly enough to this one, thought George, picking up the distant spark and breathing again, and you may find out what happened to the others.
He wished he knew whether the men in that car knew he was there on their tail. His impression was that they did not, for though they were moving briskly, and had left him well behind, the fact remained that with their power they could have been much farther ahead of him had they wished. It looked as if speed, though important and desirable, was not the first consideration. They wouldn’t wish to storm the frontier post as if they were in flight from the law; and if, on the other hand, they intended to evade Customs altogether, perhaps they had to look for a way not familiar to them. The crossing between Scheidenau and Felsenbach was a quiet one at any time, surely practically dead at night; but that might be a mixed blessing. Bored Customs men might take more interest in a car passing through than would those who had a constant stream of traffic. No, George’s best bet was that they wouldn’t go near the post. There are more ways over any hill frontier than are covered by the authorities.
