Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/141

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JUGGERNAUT
117

Yet his congratulations were premature, they were not ten minutes out of the environs of the city when Rose left her seat and knelt behind his, to communicate the intelligence that they were already being pursued by a heavy touring-car, driven by a man, a woman in the seat by his side—Judith the latter, the man an old employee of her father by the name of Marrophat.

Marrophat!

He looked back, recognized this Marrophat as well as Judith, and realized that theirs was the faster machine.

They could overtake the fugitives practically when they would. Why did they not do so at once? They must be awaiting a favourable opportunity. Ah, well, he would——

And then, quite clearly, he recognized the time and the place in the character of the road that lay before him as the car sped like a dragonfly down a slight grade. From the bottom of the grade it swung away in a wide curve, bordered for some distance by railroad tracks on a slightly lower level.

He had guessed the fiendish plan of the other driver only too truly. As they approached at express speed the stretch where the roar paralleled the tracks Alan sought to hug the left-hand side of the road, but in vain.

Roaring, with its muffler cut out, the pursuing