"No!" roared Peter, "I did something a whole lot better than that. I had one of the men write a hot political story about the Gazette and the change of management and the sudden rise of Reform. There's news in that, don't you see?—and it was the Stanhope-Varney story, too—the real one. When I left the office, they were selling it like hot cakes, all over the country—all over the world—"
"Hold on!" said Varney, sharply. "Here's Hammerton, I think—bringing in a whole lot better story than yours!"
The road here was straight as a string stretched tight. Far down it, they saw a single small light, dancing towards them a foot or two above the ground.
Peter threw off his clutch, clapped on his brakes and stopped short. Varney slid out of the seat and stood waiting in the black inkiness beside the unlighted car. In the sudden stillness they could hear the rattle of the bicycle chain and even the crunch of the hard-blown tires, spinning rapidly over the road. Now the light was perhaps a hundred yards away.
"Blow!" hispered Varney.
The horn's honk cut the silent air hoarsely. Instantly the speed of the oncoming light was checked. It advanced steadily, but much more slowly, as though the rider sensed that his road might be blocked, but could not yet determine where the hidden obstacle might be.
"Hello!" called a lusty young voice suddenly. "Who's there?"
There was no answer. The light came on more slowly still. Now it was fifty yards away, now twenty, now ten. Varney stepped out of the blackness, directly in front of it, and seized both handle-bars in fingers that gripped like a vise. The shock of the sudden stopping all but cost the rider his seat.
"May I detain you one moment, please, Mr. Hammerton?"
The little light of the bicycle lamp was all concentrated downward. Above that round yellow ray, faces were unrecognizable in the pitchy blackness. The voice, however, was unmistakable. Hammerton was off the back of his wheel in the wink of an eye, on a sudden desperate bolt for the woods.