For a short space Esther believed herself lost. If Holliday found her, which seemed almost inevitable, she knew she would be powerless to put up a defence. It would be a simple matter for him to gag her and drag her back over the few yards of intervening side-walk before anyone could know what was happening. It was not as though there were many people about. She had never seen the street so deserted. An occasional motor passed, but she could detect no footstep save that of the man pursuing her.

She rolled over and lay prone on the damp mould, as close under the hedge as she could squeeze. The hedge itself was barely four feet high, but it presented a certain amount of cover now that it had gone dark. Perhaps if she knew in time that she had been discovered she might manage to dash to the door of the house and ring the bell violently. She gathered her strength for the attempt, then for the first time noticed a sign, "À louer," across the front windows. The place was vacant.

Her one hope lay in remaining stock-still, trusting to the shadows to hide her. This she did, and listening heard Holliday run around the side of the doctor's villa to the spot where she had fallen, then back again and once more out into the street. Here he paused, and she could picture him reconnoitring in every direction. He would know that she could not have gone far, that she must be concealed within a short radius. Unless someone came along the street discovery was merely a matter of minutes.

Her head still ringing from the bumps she had recently received, she felt herself rapidly relaxing, in spite of her danger. The thought of complete abandonment to repose stole over her like a powerful narcotic. It would have been heavenly to let herself go, to fall asleep here or lapse into a faint; she didn't know which it would be. For several seconds she saw the dark garden through a veil of black gauze. Then a voice inside her brain roused her; she braced herself and set her teeth fiercely to dam back the treacherous tide that threatened to swamp her senses. Whatever happened, she must hold on a little longer; she must, she must! … She heard Holliday go down the street in the opposite direction, stop, then after another minute return, more slowly, towards her hiding-place. Another two seconds and he would be on a line with her. Now, through a rift in the hedge she could see his feet, moving undecidedly. Oh, why did no one come? The feet came towards her more and more slowly. Why was he hanging about in that way? At last, at a distance of six feet away from her, he stopped altogether. She could no longer see him, but she felt his presence. She almost knew that he was silently peering through the wall of foliage, endeavouring to probe into the shadows. The suspense grew unbearable, she felt she must scream out, "Here I am! What are you going to do about me?"

Suddenly other steps approached, those of two or three people. She listened eagerly: then she heard voices talking in quite unintelligible French, interspersed with laughter. She visualised a group of returning workmen. Just opposite her one of them spat on the pavement and broke into a snatch of song. Hardly had they passed by when others came—the desert was populated once more. She felt a merciful degree of security. At any rate Holliday would not dare now to come and seize her, or even if he did she had a better chance of creating an effectual disturbance. But where was Holliday? Had he departed, or was he still standing there, searching for her? She could not tell, and she was afraid to move to see better. What seemed an infinitude of time went by; then at last, realising how late it was growing and that she must not waste the precious minutes, she raised her head and took a cautious look through an open patch in the leaves towards the doctor's door. A few minutes ago it had stood open, emitting a bar of yellow light. Now the place was in complete darkness. That argued that Holliday had gone back whence he had come. Dare she rise to her feet and hasten on her way? She knew that she must dare; to stop here longer might easily be fatal to her project.

Yes, he was nowhere in sight, had apparently relinquished the pursuit. She did not stop to wonder why, or if he had anything up his sleeve. Instead she turned out of the gate to the side-walk, her clothing damp and clinging to her, her limbs trembling. She had passed one terror, but she was faced with a second almost as bad. Had the doctor already reached the Villa Firenze? Could she possibly contrive to forestall him? She must at once get to a telephone; it was her one chance.

A telephone—there must be one in this next villa; she would ring the bell and ask. With her knees giving under her at every step she hurried up the walk of a gingerbread pseudo-chalet, vilely prosperous-looking, and pressed her finger firmly on the electric button. There was a shrill peal, echoing throughout the house, but no one came. She rang again and yet again, holding her finger glued to the bell at last and stamping her feet with impatience. At last, after an endless interval, someone approached with a deliberate, shuffling tread, the door was unbarred—there seemed several bolts—and opened half-way to reveal a gim-crack interior in execrable taste and the figure of an old woman with a hard wrinkled face and grey hair smoothly banded under a black cap.

"S'il vous plait, madame," began Esther, half crying with agitation, "Est-ce qu'on peut tÉlÉphoner? C'est trÈs important, madame."

The old face, unsmiling, critical, looked her over from head to foot. Esther for the first time realised her dishevelled appearance, her hatless head. She saw the hard eyes fix themselves in a suspicious stare on a point upon her cheek under the left eye. Mechanically she put up her hand and discovered a needle-like splinter of glass sticking into her face. She had not felt it before: it must have come from the electric-bulb which Holliday's revolver had shattered. There must be a good deal of blood on her cheek….

"Un accident," she murmured apologetically, trying to smile, then repeated desperately, beseechingly: "Le tÉlÉphone, madame——? Je suis trÈs pressÉ——"

The old woman spoke at last:

"On n'a pas de tÉlÉphone ici," she replied with a Belgian accent, and pushed the door to in Esther's face.

Outraged and disappointed, the more so as she had caught sight of the telephone-instrument in the hall, Esther stumbled down the steps and out again to the street, sick at heart over the waste of time and strength, both priceless now. The old witch, the iron-faced creature, eyeing her as if she wanted to steal something! Never mind, she must simply try the house next door.

This proved to be an imposing edifice where one would expect to find several well-trained servants. Yet she rang the bell for three minutes at least without eliciting any response. At length she was on the point of departure, maddened by her fruitless efforts, when she was rewarded by a sound above her head. Looking up she saw that a casement had been thrown open and that a gentleman with his face covered in lather was gazing down upon her—at first angrily, then archly. Quite desperate now she framed her request in what French she could command, scarcely able to wait for the reply. The result was disconcerting. The shaving gentleman became excessively gallant, entreated his fair visitor to remain where she was for a tiny instant until he could descend and admit her, implored her with expansive gestures not on any account to go away and blight his life. As the sweep of the arm and the shrug of the shoulders betrayed only too plainly the fact that the hospitable gentleman was very much in a state of nature, except for the lather on his face, Esther took fright and bolted out of the gate, inwardly execrating the Gallic race and their amorous propensities. One more chance gone, she thought in a panic of dread, five minutes more wasted. Oh! to think a simple matter like finding a telephone should present so many difficulties!

Diagonally across the street loomed a large, modern apartment house of familiar design. Without doubt there would be a telephone there, in the loge of the concierge. Precipitately she darted across the street, narrowly escaping a motor-cycle, and plunged into the court. She could see the loge at the far end, up a flight of three shallow steps. Light streamed out of the wide glass double doors so frequently seen in this type of building; she aimed her faltering steps towards it as to a beacon. Within the doors she saw a brightly lit, stuffy room overcrowded with machine-carved furniture, the central table covered with a red chenille cloth, on which lay a string-bag bursting with vegetables and parcels. No soul was visible, but she spied the telephone against the back wall. She opened the doors and went in, a bell tinkling as she did so. From an inner room issued the sound of voices laughing and gossiping. The door was shut, and no one troubled at all to answer the summons.

She crossed hurriedly to the other door and opened it, disclosing a domestic group, fit subject for one of the Dutch school paintings. There was a neat, compact, black-clad woman with shining, immaculate coiffure, an old, florid, bald-headed man sluggishly fat, and a youth, long-limbed and pale, with the face of an apache and a dank lock of black hair dipping into his eyes. The woman was peeling potatoes and recounting a history, the old man smoked, and fondled a cat, the apache lounged against the chimney with a cigarette dangling from his thin lips. A dog slept on the hearth; there were two love-birds in a green cage upon the wall.

"S'il vous plait, madame——"

The three turned instantly and regarded her, all merriment gone, their eyes shrewd, alien, inquisitorial. She began to feel like a criminal, and struggled stammering in the effort to make her desire known, urgent though it was.

"Bien, mademoiselle, qu'est-ce que vous dÉsirez?" the woman rapped out in staccato accents.

"Madame, s'il vous plait, je veux bien tÉlÉphoner. Je regrette de vous dÉranger, mais c'est tellement important."

She saw the woman's gaze, hard and curious, take in the details of her appearance, from her muddy shoes up to her blood-stained cheek.

"I've had an accident—je viens d'avoir un petit accident," she explained hurriedly. "Il faut que je tÉlÉphone immÉdiatement."

The concierge's face cleared slightly.

"Pour chercher un mÉdecin, sans doute?" she suggested. "Bien—voici le tÉlÉphone."

Gratefully Esther thanked her and took down the receiver in her trembling hand. The operator failed to understand her accent; she repeated the number three or four times without success, and was on the point of bursting into tears when the concierge possessed herself of the receiver and delivered the number for her, crisply and precisely.

"VoilÀ, mademoiselle," she announced in triumph, and returned to her potatoes.

There followed a long wait. From the other room Esther could hear the family group discussing her in subdued voices, her strange aspect, her evident weakness. They hazarded guesses as to how she had received her injuries. The old man was positive that the lady's lover had been chasing her with a knife; the wound on her face was a proof of it, in his opinion.

A series of buzzings, tappings and clinkings came over the wire, with hints of far-distant unintelligible conversation. This continued while with agonised eyes Esther watched the hands of the big clock on the wall creep from five minutes past seven to eleven past. Still no connection. At last the operator, remote and chill as the top of the Tour Eiffel, informed her that there was no reply. With French born of desperation Esther cried, "Sonnez encore! Sonnez toujours! Je suis sÛre qu'il y a quelqu'un la!" Then recommenced the mysterious commotion on the line, which, before, led to nothing.

"Oh, God! oh, God!" she breathed hysterically. "It will be too late, it may already be too late! Oh, God, help me, make them answer!"

She was dimly aware that the apache was lounging in the doorway, using a toothpick and examining her with interest. The voices from the inner room had ceased; everyone was listening, but she did not care. All at once a click louder than those preceding told her she had been put through at last. Hope leapt within her. Alas! It suffered an immediate extinction, when she found herself au courant of a conversation between two people of opposite sexes, a dalliance flirtatious in character, interspersed with laughter and snatches of song. Three times she lowered the hook, three times she raised it to find herself still listening to the idiotic babble—"Tu ne m'aimes pas? Hein? Pourquoi pas?"—laughter—"Quand j'ai regardÉ le couleur de ton nes l'autre soir, j'Étais complÈtement bouleversÉ, j' t'assure!"—"Ah, formidable!" then another shrill cackle. It was beyond endurance.

There was no use trying further. The clock hands touched twenty minutes past, she had thrown away over a quarter of an hour here while at the villa death was closing in surely upon its unsuspecting victim. She dropped the receiver with a groan, turning to the woman, who had just come out.

"Madame, c'est inutile. Je vous remercie."

The woman looked her over again with a softened glance, touched, perhaps, by the tremor that shook her visitor's voice.

"Mademoiselle est souffrante?"

"Non, madame, pas trop, ce n'est pas Ça—mais il y a quelqu'un qui est en danger—quelqu'un qu'il faut prÉvenir. Si je peux trouver un taxi——"

"Gaston! Vite! Cherche un taxi pour mademoiselle. Va!"

With a warmed feeling that these were kindly people after all, Esther watched the young man's long figure slink out of the door like an otter around the bend of a stream.

"Asseyez-vous, mademoiselle," the woman bade her, and pushed forward a chair.

But she could not sit down. She was in a fever of excitement, quivering all over. With one section of her mind she thanked the woman again, with another she looked for the young man's return, with still another she said to herself, "How long will it take me to get to La Californie from here? Has Roger come back? Is the doctor getting the bandage ready for his hand? Oh, if it should already be too late!"

A torturing interval ensued. She left the loge and wandered out to the entrance. Rain had begun to fall, that would make it harder to find a taxi. It would happen, now of all times! Ten minutes passed, then up the street chug-chugged a somewhat battered motor-vehicle with the apache hanging on the step. Yes, it was a taxi, an antediluvian one, but she must not be critical. If a chariot offered one a lift out of hell, one would not stop to inquire its horse-power. The apache helped her in and closed the door. She turned grateful eyes on him through the open window and with an expressive gesture showed him she had no purse.

"Pas de quoi, mademoiselle," he responded gruffly, and her opinion of the French rose several points.

The chauffeur, a septuagenarian who smelled of wine, had a bulbous nose and was so deaf that it took her several seconds to make him understand where she wanted to go. When finally he grasped the address, he tapped his most conspicuous feature with a horny finger, and, his engine having by this time stopped, descended with creaks and groans to crank it up. He was so long over the operation that she began to be alarmed. However, he was not drunk, only senile. Of the two, his taxi was far worse—rickety, spavined, with every evidence of decrepitude. It started with a jerk which threw its occupant off her seat.

"At any rate I'm moving," she told herself with real relief. "I'm getting there at last. That's something."

Any sort of motion might be better than none, yet when she realised the pace at which she must crawl she suffered strong misgivings. To jog along like this when speed was a prime essential! Moreover they did not always jog, frequently they stopped dead still, while the ancient driver fumbled with the gear and eventually hit upon something which sent them forward again with a fresh spasm. It was so completely maddening that after the fifth attack she could bear it no longer. Thrusting her head out of the window she shouted shrilly:

"Vite! Vite! Je suis trÈs pressÉ! Vite!"

She regretted her lack of expletives, but she need not have done so. The sole result, amid mumblings and grumblings, was an abortive spurt which ended in a breakdown more disastrous than any preceding. Minutes were lost while the septuagenarian got down for another cranking up, and then in the old fashion they chugged on again. At this rate it would take them more than half an hour to reach the villa, during which time anything might happen—would happen, in all probability. Still, she resolved not to risk another exhortation to speed, but to trust to luck to send another taxi in her way. She had no money to pay for this one if she abandoned it, but she reflected that she could give the old man her wrist-watch. It was a problem which need not have concerned her. Many taxis whizzed by, but not one was disengaged.

When they mounted the steeper part of the incline the unhappy engine so laboured that each revolution of the wheels threatened to be the last. Still they moved onward with a sort of grim persistence, and it occurred to Esther that if she did not go altogether mad in the interval there might just possibly be a glimmer of hope. They had passed many familiar landmarks; in a sort of fashion they were getting there. She sat on the edge of the lumpy seat, alternately praying and gibbering, her hands clenched, her head throbbing with the sharp pain born of fear.

"Oh, God," she murmured for the twentieth time, "don't let it happen, make him wait till I get there! Oh, God——"

The taxi slowed down with an ominous finality. Again the driver climbed down, fiddled about for several seconds, then with immense deliberation approached and opened the door. "What's the matter? Can't you get on? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" she cried, ready to shake him.

He shrugged his shoulders and blew his red nose on a huge filthy handkerchief. Then with an air of great philosophy he replied:

"Ça marche plus."

"Comment?" she screamed at him, although she had heard only too well.

"Plus d'essence," he explained briefly, spitting into a puddle. "C'est fini."

There it was concisely; she could take it or leave it. No more petrol, and still at least a mile away from the Villa Firenze. As well write "finis" to her whole desperate attempt. How she had got this far without fainting was almost a miracle; if she tried to walk the remaining distance she was quite certain to fall by the wayside. At the moment the one thing that would have brought her some slight relief would have been to slay this old man—and she had no weapon.

Slowly she got out of the mouldy cab and began automatically to unfasten the strap of her watch. At least she must pay her debts….

"Plus dessence… C'est fini…."

The words rang in her brain like a knell.