They stopped at Ballarat for lunch; Bryce refilled the petrol tank, and then they set out on the long stretch to Ararat. Though no definite statement exists, they passed the night at the latter town, for Cumshaw afterwards told his son that they reached Landsborough about 10.30 the following morning. Beyond Landsborough the track became very trying for the car, and somewhere towards the evening of the second day the machine was hidden away securely in one of the many gullies that abounded in the neighbourhood. Then the hardest part of the journey began. Child's play though it might have been to Cumshaw, who, for all his years, had a constitution such as it is given to a few men to possess, it certainly must have been a matter of infinite torture to Bryce, handicapped as he was with his weak-heart and his wheezy lungs.
They spent the next few days in working across to the spot where Bradby had been killed thirty odd years before. As they drew near to the place Cumshaw became more self-contained and uncommunicative than ever. The sight of the old scene seemed to have depressed him marvellously. Bryce watched him with increasing attentiveness; he noticed that he picked out the road as if he had been used to it from childhood. There were times when Bryce turned suddenly on him and caught a glimpse of a hard-set jaw and a mouth about which strong lines of determination had woven themselves. Yet, as soon as Cumshaw fancied he was observed, the mask of his face melted into a smile, and the sombre eyes sparkled with a humor that somehow seemed too real to be assumed.
"You seem very familiar with the place, Cumshaw," Bryce remarked one morning.
"I told you I was," Cumshaw answered, his unfathomable eyes searching his employer's face.
"How long is it since you were here last?" Bryce asked.
At the question all expression vanished from the other's face, leaving it as immobile as a carven image of stone. "I have been here many times," he said evasively.
"Um!" said Bryce in that peculiar way of his, and he looked the other up and down contemplatively. "I didn't think anyone had been here since Bradby was shot."
Bryce made the remark in the most casual and innocent way; he hadn't the faintest notion in the world that what he had said was like a bombshell bursting beneath the structure of Mr. Cumshaw's composure. He was intelligent enough to realise that it was more than probable that Cumshaw possessed knowledge of that almost forgotten episode which was not shared with anyone else, but he had not the least suspicion that his casual utterance would hit home so shrewdly as it did.
Mr. Cumshaw stared at him as if he could not believe his ears. For once he made no attempt to disguise his emotions beneath the mask of stoicism. He saw laughter in the other's eyes, the jovial laughter of a man who has always known the sweets of victory, and he jumped to the natural though erroneous conclusion that Bryce had fathomed his connection with the late Mr. Bradby. For all that he did not abandon his defences without some show of resistance.