MacKeenon, alone, could answer this riddle. He turned his chin slightly and studied the cold face of the Scotch inspector. There was no light in his eyes. He sat half on the edge of the seat. His toes touched the rug on the tonneau floor. He was prepared to
spring or clap on a pair of nippers. He was the personification of British watchfulness and sagacity.
The detective had played his hand, five years before, in taking advantage of information. He had told the truth on the witness dais, as he knew it. He had not enlarged on the damning evidence. It had been large enough. Down in his heart Fay did not blame MacKeenon for testifying as he did. It had sent him away, but then it was part of the game. It was an added corollary to the ancient axiom: “A sleuth can make a thousand mistakes and yet may get his quarry—the quarry dare not afford to overlook the smallest trifle.â€�
Noon passed. Night drew its shade across the eastern world. The long, black motor car hurtled on without being stopped, without question from the decorated officers who regulated the traffic.
There was a hidden magic in the H.M.S. plates which hung from the front axle and the rear trunk rack. There was a keen hand at the wheel who knew the turns and the signals. He drove as if the weight of an empire depended on getting to his destination.
Chester Fay, letting slip a hundred chances for escape, found himself in the gripping clutch of the unknown which lay before him. MacKeenon had a plan in the back of his long Scotch head. Its very uncertainty gripped the cracksman in a passive nip of steel.
The inspector would talk, yes. Fay believed that he would discuss the weather, the earth and the
heaven above, without betraying the one thing which was hurling them eastward at racing speed.
This thing was the reason for taking a prisoner out of the living hell of Dartmoor before the long years of penance had been up. It was unusual; it was extraordinary save in the case where a crook squealed and turned Crown’s evidence.
The Scotch inspector most certainly knew that he had no such man to deal with!