SEATED in the dickey, while the car bumped along the dark country roads, Paul considered rather miserably the state of mind of the two men in front of him. Adrian’s youthful face had looked wretched and hopeless, very white under his sunburn, as Paul saw him into the front seat. Benvenuto he could make nothing of—for his action in hunting down his best friend seemed totally opposed to his character as Paul understood it, and for the past two days he had preserved most of the time a moody silence, making his motives doubly incomprehensible. Until the moment of Adrian’s capture Paul had felt a secret hope he would get away—or failing that, that Benvenuto would help him towards escape. Now—they were bound for St. Antoine, where Leech might already have returned, thought Paul as he stared into the darkness, and Adrian’s fate as a self-confessed murderer left no room for doubt. He tried to put himself in Adrian’s place—tried to imagine this was the last ride he would take along country roads with the cool night air in his face, the last time he would see the dark Mediterranean glittering in the moonlight, as the car swung back on to the coast road. And all because of a few moments of madness that had shot up somehow in the midst of his ordinary life, when he had been shaken by passion—
Paul shuddered and found his imagination could not follow Adrian’s feelings any further. The night seemed to him to have become sinister; the moon, which had been so beautiful two nights ago while they sat on the lighthouse, now seemed to cast a cold and deadly pallor over the landscape; the rocks and pine trees, outlined very black against the clear sky, looked threatening as the car climbed on and on. They were mounting up to the top of some high cliffs, and Paul knew that from the crest he would see the lights of St. Antoine below him. The road twisted and turned in tortured angles, sometimes tunnelling right through the rocks—the most dangerous road in Europe, he had heard.
Suddenly he leapt in his seat as the sound of a grinding crash came from above somewhere out of sight, and heard men’s voices shouting, and then saw the glare of flame. The car rounded a bend and came to a standstill, and Paul found himself running, Benvenuto at his side, towards the two cars farther along the road. One was drawn into the roadside, its headlamps shining upon the second, which had crashed into a wall of rock and had burst into flames. Two men were dragging something away from it, something which hung limply in their arms as they staggered away from the tongues of fire, something which they laid down upon the road just as Paul and Benvenuto reached them.
“I’m afraid he’s done for.” The voice was English, and Paul, looking up quickly, saw that the speaker was Detective Inspector Leech. The little man knelt down in the road and did what he could for the thing which lay before him. Benvenuto knelt down beside him. “I’m Brown,” he said. “Let me see what I can do.”
“It’s no good, Mr. Brown,” said Leech huskily. “He’s dead, poor devil. I’ve been after him all the way from Monte Carlo, and he knew ’twas only a question of minutes before I got him. Lost his head, I suppose—it’s a nasty road in the dark when you don’t know it—and took that corner too quick.” He got to his feet and turned to Paul. “A lucky thing for you two gentlemen you didn’t meet him head on.”
Benvenuto was still kneeling over the body, fumbling with the clothes on the chest. He rose slowly.
“There’s nothing to be done—he was killed instantly. Justice has been done for you, Leech. Would you like me to send the doctor out from St. Antoine, while you stay by the body?”
Leaving Leech and his chauffeur standing in the road, Paul and Benvenuto walked slowly back towards their own car.
“I didn’t see him very clearly,” said Paul, “but was it—the Slosher?”
Benvenuto nodded.
“Yes. Nasty business. Poor old scoundrel—he didn’t get much of a run for his money, did he? Well, after all, the very least that awaited him was a long term of imprisonment. It was a swift finish.”
They had reached the car and Paul suddenly remembered Adrian. He was still sitting there, sunk back in a corner, his face in shadow. What was Benvenuto going to do? Paul wondered, as he climbed into the dickey; he hadn’t said a word to Leech. As they drove on every detail of the roadside was vividly illuminated by the wreckage of the car, there was a strong smell of burning rubber and oil, and they passed through a zone of scorching heat before rounding a bend into complete darkness. They were descending the hills to St. Antoine, and another quarter of an hour brought them to the town. Benvenuto drove through the back streets and stopped at the door of his own house, where he got down and came round to speak to Paul.
“I’m going in for a minute—if you’ll wait in the car I’ll drive you down to the café.”
He took Adrian into the house and joined Paul a few minutes later.
“God! what a day. And it’s not over yet, believe me. Look here, what you’d better do is this: Go and get some food—if you’re as hungry as I am you need it—and then in half an hour call for Adelaide and bring her along to the studio. You’ve been most forbearing, Paul, and I’m grateful to you, and I hope that to-night matters will clear up. We’re going to have a difficult time, and I shall want your support. Here we are—see you later.”