Mile after mile went by and there was no sign of men.
At Mr. Clutterbuck's age this kind of thing is dangerous; the lack of food told upon him; the anxiety told upon him still more. He worried Fitzgerald with continual questions; when they would be in; what direction they were following; whether he could perceive any glimmer of London before them.
To these questions his secretary only replied by nervous jerks of the head as he drove on straight through the darkness. His anxiety was betrayed by the forward bend of his body and the anxious tightening of his brows. He had hoped, perhaps, before he had sent the telegram to be in time. That was now past praying for, but they might at least turn the confusion of the meeting into a success if only they could make the lights of London by nine. He pushed the car to its utmost limits of speed, careless of the thick blackness and of the perpetual windings of the lanes which he followed with singular confidence.
They passed over a railway line, but there was no station in sight; they went on and passed another in the same fashion, then a broad river.
At last the motion showed them they were taking yet another long hill. There was no hedge upon either side, open fields, down; and a bitter wind driving across them filled the night. It was even too dark to perceive more than the ghosts of the clouds, when, at what seemed the loneliest part of this lonely countryside the machine stopped suddenly, and Charlie Fitzgerald, in a voice of weary despair, muttered half to himself and half to his companion:
"If it's the king-bolt, we're done!"
He took one of the lanterns from the front of the car, put it down upon the ground where it would illumine the complicated works beneath, and lying flat upon his back on the road, he began to inspect the damage. Mr. Clutterbuck, stooping anxiously with hands on knees, interrogated him from time to time, but received only disjointed replies in which king-bolts, the differential, the clutch and Beeton's Patent played a confused part.
After some few minutes of this investigation Charlie Fitzgerald reappeared, replaced the lamp, and said in a solemn manner:
"We're cooked!"