Flager shook his head.
"I don't care what it is! Listen here, you "
"It's a gadget for testing people's ability to drive," said the Saint smoothly. "When I turn another switch, the steering wheel you have there will be synchronised with the film. You will then be driving over the road yourself. So long as you keep on the road and don't try to run into the other traffic, everything will be all right. But directly you make a movement that would have taken you off the road or crashed you into another car—or a cyclist, brother—the film will stop for a moment, a red light will light up on top of the screen, and I shall wake you up like this."
Something swished through the air, and a broad stinging piece of leather which felt like a razor strop fell resoundingly across Sir Melvin's well-padded shoulders.
Flager gave a yelp of anguish; and the Saint laughed softly.
"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.
Smack! came the leather strap across his shoulders.
"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. . . .
Whack!
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 getting careless about your corners," the Saint warned him tirelessly. "You'll be in the ditch at the next one. Look out!"
The flickering screen swelled up and swam in his vision. There was nothing else in the world—nothing but that endlessly winding road uncoiling out of the darkness, the lights of other traffic that leapt up from it, the red light above the screen, and the smack of the leather strop across his shoulders. His brain seemed to be spinning round like a top inside his head when at last, amazingly, the screen went black and the other bulbs in the garage lighted up.
"You can go to sleep now," said the Saint.
Sir Melvin Flager was incapable of asking questions. A medieval prisoner would have been no more capable of asking questions of a man who released him from the rack. With a groan he slumped back in his seat and fell asleep.
It seemed as if he had scarcely closed his eyes when he was roused again by someone shaking him. He looked up blearily and saw the strange chauffeur leaning over him.
"Wake up," said Peter Quentin. "It's five o'clock on Saturday morning, and you've got a lot more miles to cover."
Flager had no breath to dispute the date. The garage lights had gone out again, and the road was starting to wind out of the cinematograph screen again.
"But you told me I could sleep!" he moaned.
"You get thirty-five minutes every night," Peter told him pitilessly. "That averages four hour a week, and that's as much as you allowed Albert Johnson. Look out!"
Twice again Flager was allowed to sleep, for exactly thirty-five minutes; four times he watched his two tormentors change places, a fresh man taking up the task while the other lay down on the very comfortable bed which had been made up in one corner and slept serenely. Every three hours he had five minutes' rest and a glass of water, every six hours he had ten minutes' rest, a cup of coffee, and a sandwich. But the instant that these timed five or ten minutes had elapsed, the projector was started up again, the synchronisation switch was thrown over, and he had to go on driving.
Time ceased to have any meaning. When, after his first sleep, he was told that it was only five o'clock on Saturday morning, he could have believed that he had been driving for a week; before his ordeal was over, he felt as if he had been at the wheel for seven years. By Saturday night he felt he was going mad; by Sunday morning he thought he was going to die; by Sunday night he was a quivering wreck. The strap fell on his shoulders many times during the last few hours, when the recurrent sting of it was almost the only thing that kept his eyes open; but he was too weary even to cry out. . . .
And then, at the end of what might have been centuries, Monday morning dawned outside; and the Saint looked at his watch and reversed the switches.
"You can go to sleep again now," he said for the last time; but Sir Melvin Flager was asleep almost before the last word was out of his mouth.