Leaving Bell to put out the searchlight and follow me down, I immediately left for the gallery, making what haste I could: but, after the glare of the lamp, I was as good as blind, and the light of the candles which were burning in the shaft and the oubliette, was too feeble to guide my steps.
However, at last I was down, to find Hanbury at the middle embrasure, peering into the night.
His report was disquieting indeed.
“There’s someone across the river: I saw the flash of a torch.”
I do not think either of us doubted that the fat was now in the fire: for that anyone but one of the thieves would be using an electric torch about the quarry, or, indeed, for twenty miles round, was most improbable.
The time was half past ten; and Mansel was due to arrive at eleven o’clock.
Now where he would berth the Rolls we could not tell, beyond that it would be at some place within five hundred yards of the spot we had used as a quay: but, since there were but two roads—the one running south from Villach and into the other, which followed the river along—for the thieves to mark her arrival would be most easy; and, once they had seen her stop and her occupants separate, the most maladroit attack could hardly fail.
There was, therefore, but one thing to do, namely, to try to reach Mansel before the Rolls had entered the danger zone; and, since he was always punctual yet never hurried, it was perfectly plain that, if we were to be in time, we had not one moment to lose.
In a twinkling, our plans were laid.
Hanbury, who was a good runner, was to make the attempt: having swum the river and landed a little downstream, he was to strike across country and head for the Villach road. Bell and I were to follow, but, when we had crossed the river, we should approach the quarry and try to locate the thieves, so that, if Hanbury failed, at least we should be able to offer some other support. Rowley was to be left in charge of the oubliette.
Hanbury was gone in an instant, for he was lightly clad and waited for nothing: but for Bell and me to go unarmed would have been idle, and, since we must wrap up our pistols to save them from getting wet, we stripped and did the same with our clothes, before descending the shoot.
We were soon across the water, and, having made the bank at a place where a gurgling brook ran into the river, were able to dress in its gully without much apprehension of being seen or heard.
Indeed, the night itself was an invisible cloak: I never remember darkness so impenetrable: and there was not a breath of air.
I then did my best to consider what manner of ambush the thieves would determine to lay, but could only decide that the track which led to the quarry and the junction of the two roads were, for the moment, the two most probable points: we, therefore, crossed the road and began to move towards the junction, in the hope of hearing some sound which would help us to a better understanding of what was afoot. The track which led to the quarry ran out of the Villach road.
We had come, so far as I could judge, to within fifteen yards of the junction, when I heard the murmur of a voice a little way off. I at once stood still, the better to hear whence it came, but even as I did so, it ceased. After straining my ears in vain, I went cautiously on, to be instantly checked by a rope, stretched breast-high across the road, and stout enough to stop or disable a car that sought to pass by. This discovery shook me, for it showed that the thieves not only knew what to expect, but intended to take no chance of losing their prey. However, I was thankful to have made it: and, since Bell had with him his knife, we immediately severed the rope and let it lie.
It now seemed certain that, if we went on, past the junction, we should come to another rope, for to bar but one of two doors would have been out of reason: it was also equally clear that we had now come to the verge of the danger zone, and that this lay, roughly triangular, about the junction, with its base running directly from rope to rope, and its apex lying somewhere upon the Villach road.
Since I had no plan of action, to open the road, if we could, seemed plainly the first thing to do: and, with this intent, we picked our way to the river and started to hug its edge, in order to give the junction as wide a berth as we could.
We had reached a point opposite the junction, and, from where I was standing, I could see the pale smear which the Villach road made upon the black of the night, when I felt Bell’s fingers close upon my arm. I suppose his grip was telltale, for, though he breathed no word, in that instant I certainly knew that the worst had happened, and that Hanbury had lost his race.
So we stood, still as death, for five seconds: then I heard the brush of a tyre, as it rounded a hairpin bend.
I have heard it said that, though the approach of a crisis is apt to scatter the wits, its sudden descent will sometimes whip them back into a battle array. So it was with me at that moment: for, though for a quarter of an hour I had been groping feverishly, my disorder suddenly left
