Mr. Teal cleared his throat.
"Just a minute, Mr. Nulland," he said. "There are one or two small questions you might be able to help us with before you go."
The young man's restless eyes travelled about the room.
"What are they? I don't know anything."
"Have you ever met a man named-----"
"Look!"
It was Irelock's voice, sharp and unnatural. Wheeling round to look at him, the Saint saw that his face was tense and startled, his weak eyes in their tortoiseshell frames staring rigidly at the window.
"What is it?" snapped Teal.
"A man looked in-just now-with a mask on his face. I saw him"
Teal put his gum away in the side of his mouth and waded towards the casement with surprising speed for a man of his flabby dimensions, but Simon was even quicker. His hand dropped on the detective's shoulder.
"Wait for it, Claud! You may be just ballast at Scotland Yard, but you're the light of my life-and I'd hate you to go out too soon. Switch off those lights, somebody!"
It was Lord Ripwell who carried out the order; and the Saint's voice went on speaking in the dark.
"Okay, souls. Now you can get on with it. But try to remember what I told you about standing in front of lighted windows-and watch your step outside. Will someone show me the way to the back door?"
"I will," barked Ripwell eagerly.
He grabbed Simon by the arm and hustled him into the hall. Irelock called out: "Shall Ken and I take the front?"
"Do that," said the Saint, and slipped out his automatic as he followed Ripwell into the kitchen.
"I wish I knew where that damned revolver of mine was," said his lordship plaintively, as he shot back the bolt of the trades door.
The Saint smiled.
"Since you haven't got it, you'd better let me go first. And put down that cigar-it's a swell target."
He slipped out into the cool darkness, thumbing down the safety catch of his gun with an absurd feeling of unreality. The night was moonless, and the sky was a film of deep grey, only a shade lighter than the dull black of the earth and the trees. A stir of the air that was too soft even to be called a breeze brought the mingled scents of the river and damp grasses to his nostrils: everything was so suddenly quiet and peacefully commonplace after the boisterous confusion of their dispersal that he almost put his gun away again and laughed at himself. Such things did not happen. And yet-he would have liked to know why Kenneth Nulland was afraid, and what his reaction to the name of Ellshaw would have been Crack!
The shot crashed out from the front of the house, and a shout followed it. He heard the roar of an engine, and all the feeling of unreality vanished. As he raced up the strip of turf under the shadow of the wall he heard a shrill cry for help, in what sounded like Kenneth Nulland's voice.
Crack!
A tongue of flame split the blackness ahead, and he heard Lord Ripwell gasp at his heels. He whipped up his gun and fired at the flash-there was no danger of mistaken identity there, for on the analysis they had held a short while ago he was the only one of the party who was armed. Therefore the other gun belonged to one of the raiding party-however many of them there were. It spoke again, and the thunder of his second shot rang out on the reverberations of the first, but it was blind shooting with a hundred chances to one against a hit.
Someone ran over the grass and plunged through the cupressus hedge into the road, and the car's engine roared louder. Simon tore recklessly in pursuit, and came out into the gravelled lane as the flaring headlights leapt towards him. A man lurched out of the darkness and struck at him, catching him on the shoulder; and the Saint spun round and caught the striking wrist. The forefinger of his other hand took up the resistance of the trigger.
"Are you ready to die?" he said softly.
"Oh, Lord!" ejaculated Martin Irelock.
Simon let him go, and turned round again as the red tail light of the car whirled round the near corner.
"Hell!" He dropped the gun in his pocket. "Maybe I can catch them with my car."
He ran over the drive and leapt into the seat of the Hirondel. There was not a sound when he pressed the starter button, and he slid his hand along under the dash and felt wires trailing loose. It would take precious minutes to get out a light and re-connect them, and by that time the chase would be hopeless. With a sigh he opened the door and stepped down again; and then a match flared some distance away, and he heard Teal's voice.
"Give me a hand, someone."
He went back to the corner of the house; and saw that the man who lay on the ground, with Teal bending over him, was Lord Ripwell.
V THE match flickered out, and Teal struck another. Ripwell's eyes were open, and he was breathing painfully.
"Don't bother about me-I'm not hurt. Just a scratch. I'll- be all right. Did you get-any-of those villains?"
"I'm afraid not," said the Saint grimly.
They picked him up and carried him into the house. The bullet had passed through his chest just below the right shoulder-there was an ugly exit wound which had smashed his shoulder-blade, but the internal injuries were probably clean.
"I forgot to-put down-the cigar," he said with a twisted mouth, when they had settled him on his bed.
The Saint understood. Ripwell had been running just behind him and a little to one side when the first shot that he saw was fired. Simon realised now that he had heard him gasp when the bullet struck, but in the excitement of the moment he had not recognised the sound.
"Where's the nearest doctor?" asked Teal, turning to Irelock.
It was only then, when they were all gathered in the same room, that Simon realised that they were still one short of their number.
"Where's Ke----"
He started the question without thinking, and could have bitten his tongue the next moment; but he broke off too late. Ripwell struggled up on his elbow and stared from face to face, finishing the name for him in his clear commanding voice.
"Kenneth! Where's Kenneth?"
There was an answer in Irelock's pale strained features, at least enough answer for the Saint to read, even before the secretary began to stammer: "He's-he's gone"
"Gone to see if he can catch Inspector Oldwood on his way here, hasn't he?" Simon caught him up in an instant, with cold blue eyes cutting off the truth with a flash of steel. "We'd better go and grab this doctor, and we may meet them."
He dragged Irelock out of the room and ran him down the stairs. In the hall he faced him, taking out a cigarette and straightening it between steady brown fingers.
"What has happened to Kenneth?" he asked.
"They got him." Irelock was trembling slightly, and his grown-up Kewpie face looked older and tensely hard. "We opened the front door, and somebody fired at us. Got me in the arm-only a graze." He pulled up his sleeve to show a raw straight furrow scored at an angle across his wrist. "I ran out and got hit in the stomach-not with a bullet that time, but it almost laid me out. I heard Ken yell for help, and then 1 heard people running away. I ran after them, and then I caught you. You remember. But they must have got Ken."
Simon flicked his thumb over his lighter, and drew his cigarette red in the flame.
"I only heard one shot before they started potting at me. Have you got a torch?"
They went out and searched the garden with an electric flashlight which Irelock produced from the kitchen. Inspector Oldwood arrived and challenged them while they were doing it, but relaxed when he recognised Ripwell's secretary. He had come from the opposite direction to that which the escaping car had taken, and he had seen no one on the road near the cottage. Certainly he had not seen Nulland.
One or two startled villagers and a handful of young people from adjacent bungalows, attracted by the noise and the shooting, were revealed at the gate in the fringe of the torchlight; and Oldwood pressed them into the search while Irelock went back into the house to telephone for a doctor. There was not a great deal of ground to cover, and two of the holiday bungalow party had torches. In twenty minutes the last of the searches had drifted back to the front drive.