He turned abruptly and nodded to the man in the ulster who tapped on the window behind him. The car jerked to a standstill, and the man in the ulster half rose and put his hand down on the latch which opened the door beside him. At the same moment Moeller said something to Banat. Banat grinned.
In that second Graham acted. His last wretched little bluff had been called. They were going to kill him, and did not care whether he knew it or not. They were anxious only that his blood should not soil the cushions he was sitting on. A sudden blind fury seized him. His self-control, racked out until every nerve in his body was quivering, suddenly went. Before he knew what he was doing, he had pulled out Mathis’s revolver and fired it full in Banat’s face.
Even as the din of the shot thudded through his head, he saw something horrible happen to the face. Then he flung himself forward.
The man in the ulster had the door open about an inch when Graham’s weight hit him. He lost his balance, and hurtled backwards through the door. A fraction of a second later he hit the road with Graham on top of him.
Half stunned by the impact, Graham rolled clear and scrambled for cover behind the car. It could, he knew, last only a second or two now. The man in the ulster was knocked out; but the other two, shouting at the tops of their voices, had their doors open, and Moeller would not be long in picking up Banat’s gun. He might be able to get in one more shot. Moeller, perhaps …
At that moment chance took a hand. Graham realised that he was crouching only a foot or so away from the car’s tank, and with some wild notion of hindering the pursuit should he succeed in getting clear, he raised the revolver and fired again.
The muzzle of the revolver had been practically touching the tank when he pulled the trigger, and the sheet of flame which roared up sent him staggering back out of cover. Shots crashed out, and a bullet whipped by his head. Panic seized him. He turned and dashed for the trees, and the slope shelving away from the edge of the road. He heard two more shots, then something struck him violently in the back, and a sheet of light flashed between his eyes and his brain.
He could not have been unconscious for more than a minute. When he came to he was lying face downwards on the surface of dead pine needles on the slope below the level of the road.
Dagger-like pains were shooting through his head. For a moment or two he did not try to move. Then he opened his eyes again and his gaze, wandering inch by inch away from him, encountered Mathis’ revolver. Instinctively he stretched out his hand to take it. His body throbbed agonisingly, but his fingers gripped the revolver. He waited for a second or two. Then, very slowly, he drew his knees up under him, raised himself on his hands and began to crawl back to the road.
The blast of the exploding tank had scattered fragments of ripped panelling and smouldering leather all over the road. Lying on his side amid this wreckage was the man in the workman’s cap. The mackintosh down his left side hung in charred shreds. What was left of the car itself was a mass of shimmering incandescence, and the steel skeleton buckling like paper in the terrific heat was only just visible. Farther up the road the driver was standing with his hands to his face, swaying as if he were drunk. The sickening stench of burning flesh hung in the air. There was no sign of Moeller.