BAFFLED.
Balmayne danced down the lane with impotent fury. Despite her peril and the fear that was in her heart, Hetty smiled. Here was a daring and audacious rascal engaged in some desperate and, no doubt, cunning scheme who was utterly baffled by a mere girl and a hairpin.
Hetty checked the smile, for that might have grown hysterical. She had to brace herself to the effort, an easier task seeing that Gordon Bruce was uppermost in her mind. For him she would have dared and done anything. The woman who was at the bottom of this thing was his deadly enemy. To gain her secrets must help in Gordon's final victory.
Balmayne knelt down there with one of the lamps in his hand. His face was not good to look upon. Leona Lalage watched him eagerly.
"Is it a very bad puncture?" she asked.
"It isn't a puncture at all," Balmayne snarled, "at least not an accidental one. Some mischievous fiend must have passed down the lane just now and done this for pure wickedness. There are two long slashes in the tyres."
"And the mending will be a matter of time?"
"Rather. An expert couldn't do it under an hour. Both those tyres will have to come off. Now what are we to do?"
The Countess clasped her hands together in hopeless rage.
"If I only had that ruffian here!" she said. Her voice was low, she strode backwards and forwards like an angry wolf. "Oh, if I only had him here! I should like you to hold him down so that I----"