Teal understood perfectly,
"So there you are'" Nigel Perry flung open the door of the cottage as Hallin's car pulled up outside. ."I was wondering what on earth to do. Moyna isn't here--"
"She isn't far away," Hallin said.
He climbed stiffly out of his seat. Perry could not see his face clearly in the gloom, but something in Hallin's tone puzzled him. And then Hallin took him by the arm with a laugh.
"Come inside," he said, "and I'll tell you all about it."
Inside, in the lighted room, Hallin's heavy features seemed drawn and strained; but of course he had just driven nearly a hundred and sixty miles at his usual breakneck pace.
"Heavens, I'm tired!"
He sat down and passed a hand across his forehead. His eyes strayed towards the decanter on a side table, and the younger man hurried towards it.
"Thanks," Hallin said.
"I've been bothered to death, Miles!" said Perry, boyishly, splashing soda water into the glass. "I didn't dare leave the place, in case Moyna arrived and found nobody here, and I didn't know how to get in touch with you."
"And now I expect you're wondering why I'm here at all.'
"I am."
Hallin took the tumbler and half emptied it at a gulp.
"That's better! . . . Well, everything's gone wrong that could go wrong."
"Don't you know any more than you knew at lunchtime?"
"I don't know any more, but--well, I've told you it all. Moyna rang me up--she said she was in frightful trouble--your office number was engaged, and she couldn't wait. She'd got to get out of London at once. I asked her where she was going, and she didn't seem to have any idea. I said I'd leave the key of my place in Wales with my valet--"
"But you gave it to me!"
"I've got more than one key, you idiot! Anyway, she jumped at the chance; and I promised to send you by the first train. It was much later when I started to think that I might be able to help you, whatever your trouble was--and I got out the car and came straight down."
"But I can't understand it!" Perry couldn't sit down; his nerves were jangled to bits with worry. "Why should Moyna have to run away out of London? She couldn't be mixed up with any crime--"
Hallin took another pull at his drink. ""I wish I could be as sure of that as you are."
"Miles!"
"Oh, don't be silly, Nigel. D'you think I'd believe she was in on the wrong side? There are other ways of being mixed up in crime."
"What did you mean when you said everything had gone wrong?"
Hallin lighted a cigarette.
"I discovered something else on my way here," he said.
"You said Moyna wasn't far away--"
"I don't think she is. I'll tell you why. As I came up the hill, I had to stop for a moment to switch over to the reserve petrol tank. While I was out of the car I heard someone speaking over an improvised telephone beside the road. He said:
'Hallin's just come by.' Then he said: 'I'll leave him to you. I'll be waiting for Templar--' "
"Templar?"
"That's what he said."
"But he must have known you were there."
"He must have thought I couldn't hear. It was a pure fluke that I could. I moved a couple of steps, and I couldn't hear a sound. Some trick of echoes, I expect. However, I followed the sound, keeping in the line it seemed to move in, and I almost fell over the man. He fired at me once, and missed; and then I got hold of him. He--went over the cliff. You remember--it's very steep there."
"You killed him?"
"Of course I did," said Hallin shortly, "unless he can fall two hundred feet without hurting himself, It was him or me--and he was armed. I got back into the car and drove on. Farther up the road a man stepped out and tried to stop me, but I drove right at him. He fired after me twice, but he didn't do any damage. And that's all."
Perry's fists clenched,
"By heaven, if that man really was waiting for Templar--"
"Why shouldn't he have been? Remember all that's happened. We don't know what Templar's game is, but we know his record."
"But he was pardoned a long time ago."
"That doesn't make him straight. A man like that--"
Perry swung around. He caught at Hallin's arm.
"For God's sake, Miles--we've got to do something."
Hallin stood up.
"That's why I came to fetch you," he said.
"But what can we do?"
"Get back to that telephone--find where the line leads to^''
"Could you find the place again?"
"I marked it down."
"But those men who fired at you--
"We can go another way. I know all the roads around here backwards. Are you game?"
Perry set his teeth.
"You bet I am. But--if you'd had a gun or something--"
Hallin looked at him for a moment. Then he went to the desk, unlocked a drawer, and took out two automatics. One he gave to Perry, the other he slipped into his own pocket.
"That's a good idea," he said. "Now are you ready?"
"Yes--come on!"
It was Perry who led the way out of the cottage, and he had already started the car when Hallin climbed in behind the wheel.
They moved off with a roar, and Perry leaned over and yelled in Hallin's ear,
"They'll hear us coming!"
Hallin nodded, and kicked the cut-out over. The roar was silenced.
"You're right," he said.
They tore down the hill for a quarter of a mile, and skidded deliriously round a right-angle turn; then they went bucketing down a steep and narrow lane, with the big car brushing the hedge on either side.
"This is the only way to get round them," Hallin said. .
The huge headlights made the lane as bright as it would have been at noon; even so, it was a nightmare path to follow at that pace. But Hallin was a perfect driver. Presently the lane seemed to come to a dead end; Hallin braked, and put the wheel over;
and they broadsided into a clear road.
"It's close here," Hallin said.
The car slackened speed; after a few moments they almost crawled, while Hallin searched the side of the road. And then he jammed on the brakes, switching off the engine and the lights as, he did so.
"This is the place."
He met Perry in the road and led off at once. For a few yards they went over the grass; then they threaded a way between rocks and low stunted bushes. On his right, Perry heard a distant murmur of water. Then Hallin stopped him.
"It was just here."
Perry heard the scrape of a match; and then he saw.
They stood beside a slight bump of ground; and there was a shallow cavity in the side of it, which seemed to have been worn away under a flat ledge of stone. And in the cavity was a telephone.
The light went out.
"I've got an idea," Hallin said.
"What is it?"
"Suppose you took the place of the man I heard at the telephone--spoke to the man at the other end --told them some story? I'll follow the wire. I don't think the other end is far away. Give me ten minutes, and then start. You could distract their attention--it'd give me a chance to take them by surprise."
"But I want to get near the swine myself!"
"You shall. But to start with-- Look here, you know you aren't used to stalking. I could get up to them twice as quietly as you could."
Perry hesitated; and then Hallin heard him grop- ^ ing down into the hollow.
"All right." The youngster's voice came up from the darkness. "Hurry along. Miles, and shout as soon as you can."
"I will. Just ten minutes, Nigel."
" Right-ho!"
Hallin moved away.
He did not follow any wire. He knew Just where he was going.
In ten minutes he was squatting beside a heavily insulated switch. Beside him a trellised metal tower reached up towards the stars. It was one of many that had not long since sprung up all over England, carrying long electric cables across the country and bringing light and power to every corner of the land.