ction at eleven o'clock at night, so that his only danger was in
failing to remain on the twisting road.

* * * * *

Finally, near the crest of a particularly steep hill, two flaring red
lights warned him his quarry was applying the brakes of her car. He cut
his engine long enough to hear the coupe's motor die, then he swung his
wheel to the right and coasted to a halt on the soft shoulder of the
road.

Under cover of bushes and trees, naked of foliage at this time of the
year, Kirk worked his way silently ahead until he could make out the dim
figure of the girl as she dragged the pair of bags from the boot.
Without a backward glance, she turned away from the road and an instant
later was lost to sight among the trees.

There was nothing of the frontiersman in Lieutenant Martin Kirk, but
fortunately the same was true of Alma Dakin. Where anyone accustomed to
moving across natural terrain could have lost the officer with ease, in
her case he need only pause briefly from time to time and use his ears.

At last the seemingly interminable forest ended and the girl sank
wearily down on an upended suitcase. Kirk, perspiring freely under the
folds of his topcoat, halted in the shelter of a tree bole, and waited.

Beyond where the girl sat was a large natural clearing covered with a
fringe of winter grass. The silence was close to being absolute; only
the faint keening of a chill wind and the restless creak of barren
branches kept it from becoming unbearable.

Gradually his eyes became more and more accustomed to the absence of
light worthy of the name, and he began to identify objects as something
more than formless shadows. Alma Dakin appeared to be much closer to
him than he had realized. He eyed her slim back malevolently, and when
she lighted a cigarette, the wind bringing the odor of tobacco to his
nostrils, he could cheerfully have strangled her for adding to his
torture.

Time crawled by. An hour by reckoning was ten minutes by the illuminated
dial of his wristwatch. His leg muscles began to twitch under the strain
of holding the same position. Twice he managed to hold at bay explosive
sneezes; he worried at being able to do so again.

The last five minutes before 12:30 was like being broken on the rack. He
caught himself straining his ears for the sound of a motor, of a faint
humming--of anything to indicate Orin was arriving. Nothing--and at
12:30 still nothing.

Martin Kirk