'We'll start right away,' he said. 'You know the rules and you know the penalties—the rules are only the same as your own employees have to obey, and the penalties are really much less severe. Wake up, Flager—you're off!'
The third switch snapped into place, and Flager grabbed blindly at the steering wheel. Almost at once the picture faltered, and a red light glowed on top of the screen.
'Damn you!' bellowed Flager. 'What are you doing this for?'
'Partly for fun,' said the Saint. 'Look out—you're going to hit that car!'
Flager did hit it, and the strop whistled through the darkness and curled over his back. This shriek tortured the echoes; but Simon was without mercy.
'You'll be in the ditch in a minute,' he said. 'No. . . . Here comes a corner. . . . Watch it! . . . Nicely round, brother, nicely round. Now mind you don't run into the back of this cart—you've got plenty of room to pass. . . . Stick to it. ... Don't hit the cyclist. . . . You're going to hit him. . . . Mind the fence—you're heading straight for it —look out. . . . Look out!'
The strap whacked down again with a strong and willing arm behind it as the red light sprang up again.
Squealing like a stuck pig, Sir Melvin Flager tore the lorry back on to its course.
'How long are you keeping this up for?' he sobbed. 'Until Monday morning,' said the Saint calmly. 'And I wish it could be a month. I've never seen a more responsive posterior than you have. Mind the cyclist.'
'But you're making me drive too fast!' Flager almost screamed. 'Can't you slow the machine up a bit?'
'We have to average over thirty miles an hour,' answered the Saint remorselessly. 'Look out!'
Sir Melvin Flager passed into a nightmare that was worse than anything he had thought of when he first opened his eyes. The mechanical device which he was strapped to was not quite the same as the cars he was used to; and Simon Templar himself would have been ready to admit that it might be more difficult to drive. Time after time the relentless leather lashed across his shouder-blades, and each time it made contact he let loose a howl of pain which in itself was a reward to his tormentors.
After a while he began to master the steering, and long periods went by when the red light scarcely showed at all. As these intervals of immunity lengthened, Flager shrugged his aching back and began to pluck up courage. These lunatics who had kidnapped him, whoever they were, had taken a mean advantage of him at the start. They had fastened him to an unfamiliar machine and promptly proceeded to shoot it through space at forty miles an hour: naturally he had made mistakes. But that could not go on for ever. He had got the hang of it at last, and the rest of it seemed more or less plain sailing. He even had leisure to ponder sadistically on what their fate would be when they let him go and the police caught them, as they undoubtedly would be caught. He seemed to remember that the cat-o'-nine-tails was the punishment invariably meted out by the Law for crimes of violence. Well, flogging him with that leather strap was a crime of violence. He brooded savagely over various tales he had heard of the horrors of that punishment. . . .
The red light had glowed, and the strap had swung home again. Flager pulled himself together with a curse. It was no good getting careless now that he had mastered the machine. But he was beginning to feel tired. His eyes were starting to ache a little with the strain of keeping themselves glued watchfully to the cinematograph screen ahead. The interminable unwinding of that senseless road, the shirr of the unseen projector, the physical effort of manipulating the heavy steering wheel, the deadly monotony of the task, combined with the heavy dinner he had eaten and a long sequence of other dinners behind it to produce a sensation of increasing drowsiness. But the unwinding of the road never slackened speed, and the leather strap never failed to find its mark every time his wearying attention caused him to make a mistake.
'You're
