jerked back on his heels, then pitched forward on his face and began to crawl towards the landing stage, dragging himself with insect movements nearer to the killer. The little man was like a crushed beetle and as harmless, for his unused pistol had gone spinning out of his hand. Kretchmann sprang from the well of the yawl onto the deck and fired again twice at the crawling man. Andrew left the cover of the car and dashed towards the landing stage. He was as safe in that moment as he might have been in a tank, for Kretchmann hadn’t seen him. But Haller had and scrambled from the yawl to meet him. Haller was eager, too eager. His foot slipped from under him as he touched ground. For an instant he was down on his knees; then, from the starting posture of a runner, he hurled himself forward. Andrew, in the moment of advantage, swung his club and caught Haller on the head. He saw the man spin and topple and fall back into the well of the yawl, but before he could lift his club again he took a blow on his own head from the butt of Kretchmann’s empty revolver.
For a fraction of a second his mind was a blank. He must have closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was struggling with Kretchmann, clawing and punching. His club was gone. He had only his hands, and his one thought was to avoid a second blow from the butt of the revolver. Wrestling, they reeled onto the landing stage, but by some miracle they stopped short of pitching into the creek. As they turned in frantic scuffle, Andrew caught a glimpse of the fallen Jolly-Face on the edge of the creek. The little man was motionless now. He lay prone with his head on one side and his face a smother of blood. Andrew was borne past him as Kretchmann made an effort. The two were off the landing stage. Then they tripped and, falling together, rolled in the sand.
Andrew broke away and got to his feet. Kretchmann had lost the revolver now, and came at him with wild, slugging blows, making him retreat. Then Kretchmann’s left fist landed fairly, and Andrew went down, dazed and hurt and convinced that his jaw was broken; convinced, too, that the end would be brief and cruel. Kretchmann’s boots would break his body, or Kretchmann’s revolver butt would batter his brains out.
But none of these things happened. Panting, almost breathless, Kretchmann moved towards the car. Andrew dragged himself round and lifted his hammering head to look. The picture was hazy, as though his eyes wanted co- ordination. Then it sprang into sharp definition, and he struggled to his feet to face a new fear.
Ruth was there. She had come down the knoll from the mill and stood in the path of the killer. She bent down, reaching for something on the ground. The effect of casualness in the movement gave fantasy to the horror in Andrew’s mind. She might have been recovering a fallen penny or picking a buttercup, but when she rose again she had the automatic pistol in her hand and a finger on the trigger. She pointed it, but Kretchmann leaped at her and brushed her aside with a sweeping blow. He was reckless of death now. Perhaps he disbelieved in it. Twice the pistol had been dashed from a threatening hand, and he was alive, going forward. He threw no glance at the girl on the ground, nor was he to be detained by any thought of the unconscious Haller in the well of the yawl. He got into the car, started the engine, and drove slowly up the knoll and past the windmill.
Andrew ran to the girl the moment she fell, but she was picking herself up before he reached her.
“Ruth!” he called. “Ruth, are you hurt?”
“I’m all right,” she answered. “Get the car! The pistol!”
He saw the automatic in a clump of grass, and sprang for it. He ran up the knoll and took aim at the rear wheels of the retreating car. Kretchmann, driving slowly as if the springs were unsafe, was still within range. Andrew was a good shot with a pistol. He was confident when he pulled the trigger. He pulled it a second time. Nothing happened. The magazine was empty. It had not been loaded.
Kretchmann was out on the marsh, still driving slowly. The day had faded into dusk and lights were coming on in the bungalows round Britsea Halt. Kretchmann would soon have the cover of night, but the police would send out an alarm if the stolen car was reported.
Leaning against the windmill were the battered bikes that had been hired or purchased.
Andrew looked round. He must take care of his wounded ally and find out if Haller was alive or dead. Ruth would have to go to Britsea Halt and telephone…
Ruth was kneeling beside Jolly-Face.
Kretchmann, halfway to the faint smudge that was the garbage tip, pushed on. Suddenly, from behind the smudge, a pair of headlamps glared along the track and came forward in haste. The lights picked up the stolen car, and it was obvious then that there would be no room to pass on the track. Kretchmann pulled up. He knew what was coming while Andrew still wondered. He left the car and ran for it, and Andrew saw other figures running, giving chase. There was little choice of direction for the fugitive. He ran back towards the creek, thinking, perhaps, that he might reach the dunes behind the mill, but when Andrew sped along the track to head him off, he turned across the marsh. The end, then, was inevitable. He floundered into a deep pool, and the pursuers hauled him out, a dripping prisoner.
Inspector Jordaens was the first to speak. “So, Dr. Maclaren, we find that you do not stop at theories. It is fortunate that we arrived in time, or Kretchmann would have slipped through our hands. As it is, we have lost Haller.”
“You’ve lost nothing,” Andrew retorted. “Haller is waiting for you. I–I looked after him. How did you get here?”
Jordaens was mollified. He almost produced a smile. “I do not quite understand it myself,” he confessed. “You must ask your friend Mr. Botten.”
Charley Botten was hurrying along the track, panting a little.
“Thank heaven you’re all right,” he told Andrew. “Where’s Ruth? Safe, I hope?”
He took Andrew’s assurance with relief, and went on. “I feel it’s all my fault for letting you come out here. I got very worried. I began to think of that man in the garbage dump. I tried to raise Nimcik at his hotel, and he wasn’t there. I suspected last night that he was in England because of the Kusitch business. He told me he had a clue to some lost loot. I didn’t want to say anything about him till you’d seen this fishing craft. After lunch I got more and more worried. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. I called up Detective Sergeant Stock.” Charley paused for breath. “It was just as well we went over that map last night. We didn’t have to lose any time.” He paused again. “I suppose you haven’t seen anything of Nimcik?”
Andrew composed a question, but did not ask it. He knew who Nimcik was. He said: “I’m afraid it’s not so good. He tackled Kretchmann and Haller with an empty pistol.”
Charley nodded. “I’ve heard him say a gun is a handy weapon till it’s fired. He wouldn’t want any trouble with foreign police.”
“He’s in trouble anyway. Kretchmann shot him.”
They went over the knoll and down to the landing stage. Nimcik was sitting up, with Ruth supporting him.
“He’ll have to go to hospital quickly,” she said. “The one in the head looks like a scalp wound but there’s another in the shoulder. Not too serious but he’s losing a lot of blood.”
Detective-Sergeant Stock came over the knoll in a hurry. He was obviously excited. He looked bewildered, too.
“What’s the meaning of it all?” he demanded. “Do you know what’s in the car that Kretchmann was driving?”
Andrew, attending to Mr. Jolly-Face, looked up.
“Pig iron,” he said. “They took it from the yawl. Pig-iron ballast.”
“Pig iron!” Stock exclaimed. “It’s bar gold! The car’s full of gold!”
Mr. Jolly-Face smiled faintly. “Gold,” he said. “A hundred thousand pounds worth of gold. It is now a matter for my legation.”
Inspector Jordaens came from the yawl, having assured himself that the still dazed Haller was safe. He stooped near the edge of the landing stage and picked up an object from the sand.
“This is what I want,” he asserted. “The revolver that shot Kusitch. One little test with the microscope, and my case is complete. Did someone say something about gold?”
Fourteen
Mr. Milan Nimcik, of the Yugoslav Special Investigation Bureau, said a lot about gold, as, propped up in a hospital bed, he talked to his old colleague, Mr. Botten, and to his new friends.
