For a moment the men grouped about the gate stared at this intervention. Then, without taking any further notice of their quarry, they turned and ran. A word to the fire chief explained the situation. Another engine was coming, at breakneck speed, and firemen were men for whom Frogs had no terror.
Whilst Hagn was being carried to one of the waiting wagons, Dick looked at his watch; it was six o’clock. He went in search of his car, fearing the worst. Hagn, however, had made no attempt to put the car out of gear; probably he had some plan for using it himself. Three minutes later, Dick, dishevelled, grimy, bearing the marks of Hagn’s talons upon his face, swung out into the road and set the bonnet of the car for Gloucester. He could not have gone faster even had he known that his watch was stopped.
Through Swindon at breakneck speed, and he was on the Gloucester Road. He looked at his watch again. The hands still pointed to six, and he gave a gasp. He was going all out now, but the road was bad, full of windings, and once he was nearly thrown out of the car when he struck a ridge on the road.
A tyre burst, and he almost swerved into the hedge, but he got her nose straight again and continued on a flat tyre. It brought his speed down appreciably, and he grew hot and cold, as mile after mile of the road flashed past without a sign of the town.
And then, with Gloucester Cathedral showing its spires above the hill, a second tyre exploded. He could not stop: he must go on, if he had to run in to Gloucester on the rims. And now the pace was painfully slow in comparison with that frantic rush which had carried him through Berkshire and Wiltshire to the edge of Somerset.
He was entering the straggling suburbs of the town. The roads were terrible; he was held up by a street car, but, disregarding a policeman’s warning, flew past almost under the wheels of a great traction engine. And now he saw the time—two minutes to eight, and the gaol was half a mile farther on. He set his teeth and prayed.
As he turned into the main street, with the gaol gates before him, the clocks of the cathedral struck eight, and to Dick Gordon they were the notes of doom.
They would delay the carrying out of the death penalty for nothing short of the reprieve he carried. Punctually to the second, Ray Bennett would die. The agony of that moment was a memory that turned him grey. He brought the bumping car to a halt before the prison gates and staggered to the bell. Twice he pulled, but the gates remained closed. Dick pulled off his sock and found the soddened reprieve, streaky with blood, for his feet were bleeding. Again he rang with the fury of despair. Then a little wicket opened and the dark face of a warder appeared.
“You’re not allowed in,” he said curtly. “You know what is happening here.”
“Home Office,” said Dick thickly, “Home Office messenger. I have a reprieve!”