and unimaginative man might cling to the comfort of that faint sound in the same way that the mind of a child might cling to the light of a candle as a comfort against the gathering terrors of the night. The Saint's lip curled cynically at the flight of his own thoughts. . . .
And then, as the car turned a bend in the drive, he saw the girl, and trod fiercely on the brakes.
The tires shrieked on the macadam and the engine stalled as the big car rocked to a standstill. It flashed through the Saint's mind at that instant, when all sound was abruptly wiped out, that the stillness which he had imagined before was too complete for accident. He felt the skin creep over his back, and had to call on an effort of will to force himself to open the door and get out of the car.
She lay face downwards, halfway across the drive, in the pool of illumination shed by the glaring headlights. Simon turned her over and raised her head on his arm. Her eyelids twitched as he did so; a kind of moan broke from her lips, and she fought away from him, in a dreadful wildness of panic, for the brief moment before her eyes opened and she recognized him.
'My dear,' he said, 'what has been happening?'
She had gone limp in his arms, the breath jerking pitifully through her lips, but she had not fainted again. And behind him, in that surround of stifling stillness, he heard quite clearly the rustle of something brushing stealthily over the grass beside the drive. He saw her eyes turning over his shoulder, saw the wide horror in them.
'Look!'
He spun round, whipping the gun from his pocket, and for more than a second he was paralyzed. For that eternity he saw the thing, deep in the far shadows, dimly illumined by the marginal reflections from the beam of the headlights--something gross and swollen, a dirty grey-white, shaped rather like a great bleached sausage, hideously bloated. Then the darkness swallowed it again, even as his shot smashed the silence into a hundred tiny echoes.
The girl was struggling to her feet. He snatched at her wrist.
'This way.'
He got her into the car and slammed the door. Steel and glass closed round them to give an absurd relief, the weak unreasoning comfort to the naked flesh which men under a bombardment find in cowering behind canvas screens. She slumped against his shoulder, sobbing hysterically.
'Oh, my God. My God!'
'What was it?' he asked.
'It's escaped again. I knew it would. He can't handle it----'
'Has it got loose before?'
'Yes. Once.'
He tapped a cigarette on his thumbnail, stroked his lighter. His face was a beaten mask of bronze and granite in the red glow as he drew the smoke down into the mainsprings of his leaping nerves.
'I never dreamed it had come to that,' he said. 'Even last night, I wouldn't have believed it.'
'He wouldn't have shown you that. Even when he was boasting, he wouldn't have shown you. That was his secret . . . And I've helped him. Oh God,' she said. 'I can't go on!'
He gripped her shoulders.
'Carmen,' he said quietly. 'You must go away from here.'
'He'd kill me.'
'You must go away.'
The headlamps threw back enough light for him to see her face, tear-streaked and desperate.
'He's mad,' she said. 'He must be Those horrible things . . . I'm afraid. I wanted to go away but he wouldn't let me. I can't go on. Something terrible is going to happen. One day I saw it catch a dog . . . Oh, my God, if you hadn't come when you did----'
'Carmen.' He still held her, speaking slowly and deliberately, putting every gift of sanity that he possessed into the level dominance of his voice. 'You must not talk like this. You're safe now. Take hold of yourself.'
She nodded.
'I know. I'm sorry. I'll be all right. But----'
'Can you drive?'
'Yes.'
He started the engine and turned the car round. Then he pushed the gear lever into neutral and set the hand brake.
'Drive this car,' he said. 'Take it down to the gates and wait for me there. You'll be close to the highway, and there '11 be plenty of other cars passing for company. Even if you do see anything, you needn't be frightened. Treat the car like a tank and run it over. Ivar won't mind--he's got plenty more. And if you hear anything, don't worry. Give me half an hour, and if I'm not back go to Ivar's and talk to him.'
Her mouth opened incredulously.
'You're not getting out again?'
'I am. And I'm scared stiff.' The ghost of a smile touched his lips, and then she saw that his face was stern and cold. 'But I must talk to your uncle.'
He gripped her arm for a moment, kissed her lightly and got out. Without a backward glance he walked quickly away from the car, up the drive towards the house. A flashlight in his left hand lanced the. darkness ahead of him with its powerful beam, and he swung it from left to right as he walked, holding his gun in his right hand. His ears strained into the gloom which his eyes could not penetrate, probing the silence under the soft scuff of his own footsteps for any sound that would give him warning; but he forced himself not to look back. The palms of his hands were moist.
The house loomed up in front of him. He turned off to one side of the building, following the direction in which he remembered that Dr Sardon's laboratory lay. Almost at once he saw the squares of lighted windows through the trees. A dull clang of sound came to him, followed by a sort of furious thumping. He checked himself; and then as he walked on more quickly some of the lighted windows went black. The door of the laboratory opened as the last light went out, and his torch framed Dr Sardon and the doorway in its yellow circle.
Sardon was pale and dishevelled, his clothes awry. One of his sleeves was torn, and there was a scratch on his face from which blood ran. He flinched from the light as if it had burned him.
'Who is that?' he shouted.
'This is Simon Templar,' said the Saint in a commonplace tone. 'I just dropped in to say hullo.'
Sardon turned the switch down again and went back into the laboratory. The Saint followed him.
'You just dropped in, eh? Of course. Good. Why not? Did you run into Carmen, by any chance?'
'I nearly ran over her,' said the Saint evenly.
The doctor's wandering glance snapped to his face. Sardon's hands were shaking, and a tiny muscle at the side of his mouth twitched spasmodically.
'Of course,' he said vacantly. 'Is she all right?'
'She is quite safe.' Simon had put away his gun before the other saw it. He laid a hand gently on the other's shoulder. 'You've had trouble here,' he said.
'She lost her nerve,' Sardon retorted furiously. 'She ran away. It was the worst thing she could do. They understand, these creatures. They are too much for me to control now. They disobey me. My commands must seem so stupid to their wonderful brains. If it had not been that this one is heavy and waiting for her time----'
He checked himself.
'I knew,' said the Saint calmly.
The doctor peered up at him out of the corners of his eyes.
'You knew?' he repeated cunningly.
'Yes. I saw it.'
'Just now?'
Simon nodded.
'You didn't tell us last night,' he said. 'But it's what I was afraid of. I have been thinking about it all day.'
'You've been thinking, have you? That's funny.' Sardon chuckled shrilly. 'Well, you're quite right. I've done it. I've succeeded. I don't have to work any more. They can look after themselves now. That's funny, isn't it?'
'So it is true. I hoped I was wrong.'
