On we sped, for Lockwood was a good driver and now was spurred on by an anxiety that he could not conceal.  Yet his hand never faltered at the wheel.  He seemed to read the signs at the cross-roads without slackening speed.  In spite of all that I knew, I found myself compelled to admire him.  Alfonso sat back, for the most part silent.  The melancholy in his face seemed to have deepened.  He seemed to feel that he was but a toy in the hands of fate.  Yet I knew that underneath must smoulder the embers of a bitter resentment.

It seemed an interminable ride even at the speed which we were making.  Twelve miles in the blackness of a country night can seem like a hundred.

At last as we turned a curve, and Lockwood’s headlights shone on the white fence that skirted the outer edge of the road as it swung around a hill that rose sharply to our left and dropped off in a sort of ravine at the right beyond the fence, I felt the car tremble as he put on the brakes.

A man was waving his arms for us to stop, and as we did, he ran forward.  He peered in at us and I recognized Burke.

“Whe-where’s Kennedy?” he asked, disappointed, for the moment fearing he had made a mistake and signalled the wrong car.

“Coming,” I replied, as we heard the driver of the other car sounding his horn furiously as he approached the curve.

Burke jumped to the safe side of the road and ran on back to signal to stop.  It was then for the first time that I paid particular attention to the fence ahead of us on which now both our own and the lights of the other car shone.  At one point it was torn and splintered, as though something had gone through it.

“Great heavens, you don’t mean to say that they went over that?” muttered Lockwood, jumping down and running forward.

Kennedy had joined us by this time and we all hurried over.  Down in the ravine we could see a lantern which Burke had brought and which was now resting on the overturned chassis of the car.

Lockwood was down there ahead of us all, peering under the heavy body fearfully, as if he expected to see two forms of mangled flesh.  He straightened up, then took the lantern and flashed it about.  There was nothing except cushions and a few parts of the car within the radius of its gleam.

“Where are they?” he demanded, turning to us.  “It’s Whitney’s car, all right.”

Burke shook his head.  “I’ve traced the car so far.  They were getting ahead of me, when this happened.”

Together we managed to right the car which was on a hillock.  It sank a little further down the hill, but at least we could look inside it.

“Bring the lantern,” ordered Kennedy.

Minutely, part by part, he went over the car.  “Something went wrong,” he muttered.  “It is too much wrecked to tell what it was.  Flash the light over here,” he directed, stepping over the seat into the back of the tonneau.