of the offside wheel and its jagged fragments ripped out the heart of
the tire. On the instant of the accompanying blow-out the grey car
shied like a frightened horse and swerved off the road, hurtling
headlong into a clump of trees. The subsequent crash was like the
detonation of a great bomb. Deep shadows masked that tragedy beneath
the trees. Lanyard saw the beam of the headlights lift and drill
perpendicularly into the zenith before it was blacked out.

He turned and yelled in the ear of Jules: "Slow down! Take your time!
They've quit!"

Liane Delorme rose from her cramped position on the floor, and stared
incredulously back along the empty, moonlit road.

"What has become of them?"

Lanyard offered a vague gesture."... tried to climb a tree," he replied
wearily, and dropping back on the rear seat began to worry the cork out
of the last pint bottle of champagne.

He reckoned he had earned a drink if anybody ever had.

XX

THE SYBARITES

Without disclaiming any credit that was rightly his due for making the
performance possible, Lanyard felt obliged to concede that Liane's
Delorme's confidence had been well reposed in the ability of Jules to
drive by the clock. For when the touring car made, on a quayside of
Cherbourg's avant port, what was for its passengers its last stop of
the night, the hour of eight bells was being sounded aboard the
countless vessels that shouldered one another in the twin basins of the
commercial harbour or rode at anchor between its granite jetties and
the distant bulwark of the Digue.

Nor was Jules disposed to deny himself well-earned applause. Receiving
none immediately when he got down from his seat and indulged in one
luxurious stretch, "I'll disseminate the information to the terrestrial
universe," he volunteered, "that was travelling!"

"And now that you have done so," Liane Delorme suggested, "perhaps you
will be good enough to let the stewards know we are waiting."

If the grin was impudent, the salute she got in acknowledgment was
perfection; Jules faced about like a military automaton, strode off
briskly, stopped at some distance to light a cigarette, and in effect
faded out with the flame of the match.

Lanyard didn't try to keep track of his going. Committed as he stood to
follow the lead of Liane Delorme to the end of this chapter of intrigue
(and with his mind at ease as to Monsieur Dupont, for the time being at
least) he was largely indifferent to inter