Desmond gave a little sigh. “Safe!” he murmured, and patted that comforting bulge in his overcoat. They had, indeed, he told himself, made a clean escape, shaken old Clubfoot right off their track. Since leaving the theatre they had seen nothing of him or of any of his men. If this were the last episode in the master spy’s career, it had ended, the young man reflected, in his signal discomfiture. Desmond felt his heart swell within him as the icy night air smote his cheek and, hundreds of feet below, the dim chessboard of the Low Countries swayed and heeled over beneath the moon. Perched demurely on his knee, the girl remained very still. Speech was impossible; the deafening roar of the propellers saw to that—but Desmond’s quick intuitiveness told him she was uneasy. Perhaps she was nervous, he told himself; night-flying is always something of an ordeal. The channel was yet a silvery streak below them when the pilot, crouched over the wheel in front, turned and made a vague gesture with his gauntleted hand. With his huge goggles and furry helmet he looked like some gesticulating goblin. He seemed to be pointing downwards. At the same moment the rush of air increased, a long black ridge, far below at first, seemed to rise and rise at them while, with a suddenness that was pain, the roar of the propellers abruptly ceased. “Engine missing!”—the pilot’s voice came to them in a muffled roar—“hang on! Forced landing!” Out of the blackness, sweeping up at them with hideous velocity, a light winked and blinked. Coughing and spluttering, the engine picked up again. Suddenly they were bumping wildly over the fleeting ground past a handful of stunted trees and bushes and, in hard, black silhouette against the moon, the dark shapes of some scattered houses. The engine was shut off again and they careered to a standstill, the machine trembling to the gentle jar of the earth. The pilot heaved himself up in his cockpit and pushed the goggles back from his eyes. “Sorry,” he said, and began some technical explanation to which Desmond Okewood paid no attention. His thoughts were busy with the next step. He did not relish the idea of wandering about the country-side at dead of night with some hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of jewels in his overcoat pocket. He looked at his watch. Its hands marked ten minutes to one on the luminous dial. “Have you any idea where we are?” Desmond asked. “I am positive,” he added, “that I saw a light as we were planing down, but there’s no sign of it now.” The pilot, who had jumped down and was fussing with the landing-wheels, turned round.