I nodded.
“Good,” breathed Mansel. “As you go, please release the tape and pocket the nail: and remember, take your time.”
“I will,” I said.
Then I turned and left him, and started to crawl back towards the house.
It was, I suppose, some thirty minutes later that Hanbury and I rounded the southwestern shoulder of the sentinel peak to see the closed car below us on a grass-grown track, close to a ruinous byre. Of this the walls were standing, and had been rudely loop-holed: but the roof was gone. Still, the place made a good blockhouse, and the ground about it was clear, affording a field of fire. The track was wet and muddy, because of all the water which we had drawn from the well: and, further east, the ground to the north of the track had the look of a bog. Two or three blankets were lying spread out in the sun, and bottles and papers and tins made a disorderly litter about the spot. A door of the car was open, and on this hung somebody’s coat: a couple of empty glasses stood on the running-board.
We had just observed all this when Punter and the innkeeper came plodding into view, the latter dragging the hurdle, as though he were tired of life. Arrived at the byre, Punter lay down on the ground, while the other began to pluck some stones from what was left of a pen by the side of the byre. He worked slowly enough in all conscience, yet too fast, I suppose, for Punter, for, when the hurdle was laden, the latter stared upon its burden and then, as though the sight shocked him, covered his eyes and lay back upon the ground. Indeed, so ludicrous was his demeanour that Hanbury and I began to shake with laughter, and, when his unfortunate companion began to gesticulate in manifest apprehension of the trouncing this delay would provoke, we could have roared with mirth. Punter, however, took no notice at all, and at last the other sat down and put his head in his hands.
Before they moved again, our plans were laid.
From what we remembered of the combe, there would come a moment when Punter, mounting the slope, could see Rose Noble, yet have the car in his eye. At that moment we were to sally upon the car. I was to start her engine and, as though by accident, sound the electric horn, while Hanbury was to attack her petrol-tank. Directly we heard the cries sure to be raised, we were to fire at random, and I was to run up the track and Hanbury down. Once out of sight we were to take to the woods and make our way back to the castle, I by way of the shrine and Hanbury, who was fleeter of foot, by the line we had come.
The plan was simple enough, and, I think, sound: in fact, as I shall presently show, it served its purpose: but this it did at a price which we did not expect to pay, for I had just started the engine, after sounding the horn, and was watching Punter’s frenzy upon the brow of the rise, when two hands closed upon my windpipe with a grip so savage that I was unable to breathe, much less utter a sound. Be sure I fought like a madman, but the man behind me was strong and had the advantage. His thumbs were braced against the back of my neck, which might have been in a vice, and, having once got such a hold, for him to prevent me from leaving the driver’s seat was very easy. It seemed a long time before I heard cries raised, and then the noise of a shot. This sounded faint, and blurred, for the blood was pounding in my head, and I knew I was losing consciousness. Then I heard more cries, which seemed confused and distant, and I was still trying to determine what they might mean, when my senses left me.
“What do you know?” said Rose Noble.
I was sitting up on the ground, with my back to the near fore wheel of the closed car. The hubcap was hurting abominably, but about this I could do nothing, because I was lashed to the spokes and could not move. Rose Noble was sitting on a box a few feet away, and, immediately opposite me, Ellis was leaning against the jamb of a doorway, framed by a high stone wall, with a cigar in his mouth. For a moment or two I could not make out where I was: then I saw that the car had been moved to the farther side of the byre, which now stood between it and
