‘No!’ she repeated. ‘I’m not going to give them any opportunity to go back on the bargain.’
I swung the long black nose of the Cad into San Diego High-way.
‘All right, but it’s the wrong way to play it.’
She didn’t answer.
There was a lot of traffic belting along the Highway, and it took me some minutes before I could swing the car across to the dirt track leading to the mine. We went bumping over the uneven surface of the track. It was dark and forlorn up there, and the headlamps bounced off great clumps of scrub and dumps of rubbish. Although only a few hundred yards or so off the main Highway, once on this track it was as lonely and as dark as the inside of a tomb.
Ahead of me was the entrance to the mine. One of the high wooden gates had been blown off its hinges. The other still stood upright, but only just. I pulled up before the gateway. The headlights sent a long, searching beam along the cracked concrete driveway that led directly to the head of the shaft.
We could see the shed. It was not more than seven feet high; a rotten, derelict building where probably at one time the time-keeper had sheltered while he checked in the miners.
‘Well, that’s it. Now you wait here. If anything happens get out of the car and run for it.’
She was staring at the shed as if she expected to see Dedrick come out of it. Her face looked as if it was carved out of ice.
I got out, opened the rear door and collected the three par-cels. Holding them under one arm, I loosened the .38 in its holster and set off down the driveway towards the shed.