“Good,” answered Shelley. “In the car, quickly, gentlemen, if you don’t mind. We’re close to them now, and we shall soon have them.”

Soon they were in the car, and Shelley gave his instructions to the driver. “Drive down to the main road as fast as you can,” he said, “and then stop at the gate.”

The driver complied readily enough, and soon they were at the gate once more. Shelley and Cunningham descended from the car, and examined the road very carefully. At first they did not seem to agree. There was a good deal of head-shaking and discussion. Soon, however, they reached a decision.

“Turn right,” Shelley told the driver as they got back into the car. “Then drive hell-for-leather until we catch them. Don’t care about speed limits; they don’t matter in this case.”

As they swung out into the road, the car took up speed and then raced along the road, the speedometer quivering higher and higher on its dial. Henry Fairhurst held his breath with suppressed excitement. This, he told himself, was the real thing. Sarah would have to believe him now. Never again would she be able to order him about, see that he wore bed-socks and took his aspirin when an influenza epidemic was on. He had been in on the end of a man-hunt, and no one, after this, would be able to order him about any more.

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXII

The End of the Chase

“You think then, sir,” said Cunningham as they rolled along the road, “that this man who has kidnapped Miss Arnell is the murderer?”

“Not a doubt about it,” answered Shelley absent-mindedly, his whole attention being concentrated on the road ahead.

“But why?” Cunningham persisted.

“Why what?”

“Why did he kill those two men?”

“My dear Cunningham, your memory is failing you,” laughed Shelley. “Because he forged the will, and then killed Arnell, under the impression that the two men whose signatures as witnesses he had forged were both dead. When he found that one of them was still alive, he had to be killed in his turn. And that, as in all these double murder cases, was where he slipped up so badly. If he had been content with the murder of Arnell he would probably have got away with it quite satisfactorily. Baker would have been arrested, and tried, and hanged. And everyone would have been satisfied.”

“Except Baker, of course,” added Henry Fairhurst in a voice that was so faint as to be almost a whisper.