The girl said no more and they set off in silence across the moonlit grass. In front of them a black shape loomed immensely out of the darkness. As they drew nearer, Desmond saw, to his astonishment, that it was an aeroplane, a huge machine with metal wings on which the moonbeams glinted. Desmond stopped. “What’s that plane doing here?” he demanded. The pilot shrugged his shoulders. “They’re trying out machines all the time,” he replied. “We’re getting too much to the left,” he added. “We want to bear more to the right or we’ll miss the gate!” But Desmond was walking in the direction of the machine. “I say!” the pilot called out. “They don’t like strangers monkeying about with . . .” Desmond heard no more. He had reached the machine. Mary Brewster was just behind him. It was a tremendous machine and its immense spread of wing quite dwarfed them. A blast of warm air smote them on the cheeks. “Why,” cried Desmond, “the engine’s warm. This machine has been out this very night . . .” He turned swiftly round to the girl. As his eyes fell on her face, it blanched with terror. “Behind you! . . .” she gasped; but, before he had time to defend himself, a cloth fell across his face from the back and was pulled taut, an iron grip clutched his throat and he was borne to the ground. A guttural voice said close to his ear: “A sound and I blow out your brains!” Out of the darkness rang a woman’s scream. CHAPTER XX IN WHICH MISS MARY BREWSTER SPEAKS HER MIND Blind and helpless, gagged and bound, his eyes bandaged, Desmond felt himself lifted up and carried swiftly along. Presently he heard the sound of the sea and his bearers’ feet grinding on shingle. Then through his bandage he was conscious of a brilliant light. He was flung violently down and the cloth removed from his face. Silhouetted against the garish light of an acetylene hurricane lamp in the cheaply furnished living-room of a seaside bungalow, Clubfoot stood before him. A hideous tweed cap pulled down until it rested on the tips of his large projecting ears lent him a horribly grotesque appearance. He looked like a great ape dressed in man’s clothes. Mary Brewster, trussed up even as Desmond was, reclined in a chair. She had lost her hat and her soft brown hair was disordered by the wind. Her small face, pale and piquant, was enigmatic in its absolute serenity. “He has not got the jewels, either, Herr Doktor!” said a voice. Desmond could not turn to see the speaker. He glanced down at the pocket of his overcoat where the packet had been. The parcel had vanished. It had certainly been there when they had set out to walk to the bungalow. Had that rascally pilot stolen it? It didn’t matter much now what had become of it. Clubfoot snarled out an order in German. Rough hands brutally searched the Englishman’s clothes. Clubfoot looked on impassively. “Nothing!” reported the voice.