Men of Affairs Part 64

"You're right," said Anthony. "Got your gun--give it to me."

"What for?"

"Because that car is going to stop whether it wants to or not."

Flora clapped her hands ecstatically.

"Oh, let me hold 'em up," she pleaded.

"No fear. You've risked enough already. Run round the bend and meet 'em. If they won't pull up for you they will for me."

He took the pistol from Flora and planted himself squarely in the middle of the road.

"Off you go." And she went.

Through the darkness ahead came patterns of light making black lace of the twigs and branches. He heard Flora cry "Stop--stop," and the squawk of a Claxon horn. But still the car came on. It swung round the curve and made directly for him, flooding him in light from the heads.

It wanted some nerve to stand there, but nerve was a quality possessed by Anthony Barraclough. He never moved an inch and in his left hand held the pistol levelled at the approaching car.

"I'll fire," he cried.

He saw the driver s.n.a.t.c.h at his brakes, the steel studs tore up the surface of the road as the car, a small two-seater, came to a standstill within a foot of where he stood.

Then happened an amazing thing. A woman sprang out and ran toward him crying:

"Anthony--you!"

His eyes were dazzled by the head lights, but his memory for voices was not dulled. He leapt back a clear five feet and presented the pistol full in her face.

"I know you," he said. "You're Auriole Craven. But if you or any of that d.a.m.n crowd try to stop me----"

"No, no, no," she cried. "I'm with you--not against. What on earth are you doing here?"

"Doing? I'd almost done it. Smashed up in the final sprint. I want a seat in your car. Must get to London tonight."

"To London. No. It wouldn't be safe--it wouldn't be fair."

"Fair! You don't understand--don't realise--there are millions of pounds at stake."

"I don't care if there are hundreds of millions," she retorted. "The car is only a two-seater and slow at that. There are two of us already and----"

He interrupted her impatiently, with an order to chuck out her pa.s.senger--minor considerations had no weight with him--everything, everybody must be sacrificed to the need of the moment.

"Minor considerations?" said Auriole bitterly. "You speak as if you'd carried the game alone, as far as it has gone. But it was my pa.s.senger--the man you want to chuck out--who made it possible. The man who was tortured while you were free to----"

She did not finish the sentence for even as she spoke Richard Frencham Altar stepped shakily from the car and came toward them. The extraordinary resemblance between the two men wrung a cry of amazement from Flora.

"Barraclough?" said Richard rocking on his heels. "Pretty extraordinary meeting like this on the finishing straight. How goes?"

"Good G.o.d, man!" said Anthony. "They put you through it."

"That's all right," said Richard. "Never mind paying a price if you win the game."

"Get back into the car," Auriole pleaded. "You'll be caught again."

But he put her aside.

"Wait a bit--wait a bit. Looks as if my job isn't finished yet.

What's the trouble here?" and he nodded at the wrecked car.

It was Flora who poured out the story of the chase and ultimate smash and at the very moment of explanation the lights of Harrison Smith's Ford flashed for a moment upon the sky line to reappear a second later creeping down the avenue of trees on the hillside.

"Look, look," she cried.

To Anthony Barraclough it was a novel experience to act on another man's orders. In that instant of gathering danger Richard Frencham Altar became captain of the situation. He literally flung Anthony into the car and refused to listen to Auriole's protests.

"We're players of a game, aren't we?" he said, "and we're going to play it to a finish. I think, too, it 'ud do me good to have one clean smack at 'em before I'm through."

He hardly knew how it came about that he and Auriole kissed one another--somehow they found time for that and as the car moved away she leant out to say:

"You dear brave wonderful Sportsman."

Then he and Flora were alone in the road watching the red rear lamp disappear into the night.

"You've got some pluck," said Flora. As she helped him into the cloak that Anthony had thrown aside. "Going to wait and hold 'em up?"

"May as well. That little two seater would never have carried four.

Got a gun by any chance?"

"No, he had mine. Didn't he give it to you?"

"He did not, so that's that. You better make for those trees."

"If you think I'm going to desert," began Flora stoutly.

"You're going to obey orders, my dear. Go on--push off."

There was a quality in his voice that compelled obedience.

"Oh, I hate you," said Flora. "Please, please let me stay."

But he was inexorable.

"They'll be here in a minute. Go!" he ordered.

And to hide her tears of rage and mortification Flora went.

Richard glanced over her shoulder at the oncoming lights.