The waiter came and Otto gave him two dollar bills and waved away change and got out of the place and back to his car as quickly as he could without running.
He sat in the car without turning on the lights. The quiet and the darkness helped him to think. And, as he thought, the worst of his fear subsided, to be replaced by a great thankfulness that he had happened to overhear the idle words which had shown him the danger in time.
Because it was in time. Altinger could not yet be free; the Machine was not yet in motion—and what he must do was to warn Waldemar and make certain that Clare’s safety was sure and then return to the prepared steps of his plan.
How should he warn Waldemar? Over the telephone? He could, because Waldemar would understand the guarded sort of talk he would have to use. Or should he—better, far better!—make swift alteration in the campaign and carry out the business with the two cars as planned but then drive north-west instead of south and go by Los Robles and deliver the warning in person and . . . and see Clare again as he did so?
Yes: that was it. It was safe and right—and he would see Clare.
He started the car and switched on his lights and drove away, uptown, towards the U-Drive garage.
His nearest way would take him right across the busy intersection of which the office building was the north-east cornerstone. He used this way now, though earlier he had not intended to do so. The light was green, and he shot across the main road and then slackened as he entered the familiar block of June Street and leaned across the seat and peered up, just to check, at Altinger’s window.
It was shaded still—but there was bright light behind the shade!
The car lurched—and he pulled it straight as he sat up with panic wrapping cold fingers around his entrails. Out of the corner of his eye, he tried to see the doorway to the office building, but the car was too far past by now and he dared not check nor stop. He drove on, slowly increasing speed. His mind raced, trying against deadly fear to be cold and direct and certain.
Altinger could neither have worked himself loose nor attracted attention: someone, by some frightful mischance, had gone to the office, and now Altinger was free! How long had he been free?
The clock on the dashboard said eight-thirty. He had left Altinger and the office building at twenty-five minutes past six and looked back from the corner and seen the lank, unlighted window. So that, conceivably, Altinger could have been free for over two hours! And an hour for Altinger, working at pressure, was half a day for other men!
He must find a telephone. At once he must find a telephone—as soon as he had made sure and doubly sure that he was not followed. He began, driving as fast as he dared, to weave a maze about the hilly streets. He turned left three times and right a couple; then four times right and one left and then straight ahead and around a block and back upon his own tracks. And then he found a narrow street which rose more steeply than the others and turned into it and drove uphill and then stopped and pulled in to the curb and watched in his rear mirror for pursuers.
But there were none. There were no cars at all—and very soon he slipped in his gear and climbed the hill and turned west and reached a more populous district and put the car into a park beside a petrol station and ran to a chemist’s upon the other side of the street and shut himself into the telephone booth and put through a long-distance call to Los Robles.
He waited for age-long minutes.
“Hehlo!” said the operator. “Hehlo: on your call to Palitos three-one, sir, there seems to be trrouble on that line! We cannot make a connection. . . .”
Otto put the receiver back upon its hook. His stomach felt like water and it seemed, difficult to breathe. He slammed open the door of the booth and ran out of it and across the road for his car.
13 PALITOS—HIGHWAY—MONTEREY
He reached the highway crossroads outside the little rural town of Palitos in something over two hours. He drove with a coldly maniac precision of speed—and his self, it seemed to him, was always ahead of the flying wheels.
But he still thought. He did not drive into the village, but turned off before he reached it, along the narrow but well-paved branch road to Hudson. He was not followed: he made sure of that.
He was heading for the entry to Los Robles’ acres which Clare had shown him only a week ago. It was a hidden one—and only she and Waldemar used it. There was no gate, but a section of seemingly immovable fencing which one could lift and swing aside when one knew the trick. There was no track which was visible from the road, but as soon as one had bumped over the slight rise in the rolling pasture-land there was—and it stretched, narrow and winding but in good weather easily navigable, up and down over the waves of the foothills and thus into the oaks and through them to the house.
He swung the fence outward and drove through it and stopped the car again and replaced the fence. He jumped into the car again and started off in second—and heard, somewhere near him but out of his sight, a whinny of surprise and fear from a horse’s throat and the thudding of galloping hoofs.
He reached the top of the rise—and stopped the car. He did not know whether it was at that moment or a few seconds earlier that he first noticed the glow in the sky; the pink, upward-spreading glow which was deepening to led against the silver-tinted blackness of the natural night.
He stared through the spotted windshield at the glow, and he seemed to cease living with everything except his mind. If they had fired Los Robles, it meant only one thing: they already had Clare. . . .
He sat without moving. His hands gripped the wheel and were numb with the force of the grip. His mind was alive to agony—but it would not make thoughts.
He did not know whether to go on or turn back. And his mind would not think. It only felt.
He switched off the engine. Something in his head was saying: ‘Make certain! Make certain!’ He got out of the car after he had switched off the lights and walked a few strides away from it. The long thick grass whispered around his legs.
And then it happened. He was staring towards the black belt of trees and the glow above them when there was a movement near him in the long grass and he jumped back and whipped a hand to his hip-pocket for the Lüger.
A figure rose from the grass and came steadily, too steadily, towards him—a slight, small, trousered figure which was not a boy but Clare.
He could not believe his eyes. He stared through the faint moonlight, his hand still tight around the pistol-butt. He knew—but he dared not know.
She came right up to him. There was an unnatural precision about her walk. Her face showed ash-grey in the silver light. He did not move. She came close to him, very close. She did not speak. She did not make any sound.
He touched her. He put an arm about her shoulders and tried to read her face and saw it only as a mask. He said:
“You are hurt?” and then could not get any more words to come from his mouth.
“No,” she said, and that was all.
“Your father?” He had to force his lips to move.
She said: “He’s dead. They killed him.” Her voice was flat, without any tone-gradation. It was not like her voice. She said:
“There were a lot of men. They came to the house. We were having dinner. I’d cooked it because the servants are out to-night. They wanted to take me away. Father killed one of them. Then they shot him—through the head.” Her voice was still flat and level, without trace of emotion. “I got away—while the commotion was on when they shot father. I dropped out of a closet window and they didn’t see me. I slipped into the stable and took Pedro out. I got on him bareback and went off fast before they could stop me. I went the other way first and then doubled around when I was sure they couldn’t hear me. Your car frightened Pedro and he dumped me and ran off.”