red by him but undoubtedly Harrison Smith
had won the second. The blocked up keyhole told its own tale. He knew
the door very well and it would be half an hour's work to break it
down, also he knew the padlock having bought it himself. The Hispano
Suisa would have to be abandoned.

He did not waste time cursing, but instead leapt the shale wall and
took to the fields. A little footpath lay among the trees at the
meadow end and Anthony Barraclough made for it with all possible
dispatch jumping a brook and forcing his way through a fringe of thorn
and bramble. There had been no rain for some weeks and the going was
dry, a circumstance he noted with satisfaction, for your average
Cornish footpath is as much a waterway as a thoroughfare for
pedestrians. It was half a mile to his destination, a spot where the
path converged with the high road and as he ran, Barraclough covered
his face with his hand to avoid the swinging branches. A gap in the
trees gave a view of the village and as he flashed across it increasing
speed to avoid the risk of being seen he had a momentary glimpse of a
Ford car with two men in it stopping at the gate he had recently opened.

"How in blazes they found out beats me," he gasped.

A sickening fear assailed him that his second line of escape might also
have been blocked and, at the thought, he put out every ounce of speed
he possessed. It was better to know the worst at once. The path
widened out into a cart track and through an aisle of trees the white
patch of the high road came into view.

A casual passer-by would never have noticed the low built pigsty that
butted on to the hedge, its roof and sides being almost completely
masked with brushwood and bramble vine.

Barraclough could not resist an exclamation of joy as he noted that the
big piles of carelessly thrown kindlings were apparently untouched. He
kicked away great bundles of them with his foot, produced a key and
opened a small solid door. The relief was almost unbearable, but he
did not linger to offer up prayers of thanksgiving.

The motor bicycle flashed bravely as he dragged it out into the sun,
turned on the petrol and set the controls. He shoved the gear lever
into second, lifted the exhaust and pushed, and the willing little twin
fired its first spluttering salvo as he bumped out of the rutted lane
into the main road.

Concentration on the single object of getting away had dulled his ears
to other sounds, for no