Any doubt as to the respective pace of the two cars was settled in the next minute. Slowly but surely the distance between them lessened, until in the bright moonlight it was possible to make out the bare head and broad shoulders of "Spike" Cooper as he crouched in the seat alongside the driver, staring back over the swaying tonneau. "Look out for that devil!" shouted the Inspector. "He'll start shooting directly we're close enough." Clutching his own pistol in his hand, he leaned forward over the dashboard, his eyes glued on the motionless figure ahead. Nearer and nearer they drew, the mud and gravel flying from beneath their wheels, the roar and throb of the engine seeming to beat time to the mad rhythm of the chase. Suddenly, with a warning cry, Marsden raised his weapon. There was a simultaneous spurt of flame from both cars, and with a vicious thud something buried itself in the padded seat just beside Colin's shoulder. Crack! Crack! Crack! A second bullet ripped its way along the front mud guard, and then, with a kind of stupefying and unimaginable abruptness, the end came. Colin was just conscious of a shower of sparks from beneath the steel-studded tires as the car in front of him swerved violently across the road. By some instinctive movement his hand shot out toward the brake lever, and almost at the same second came a deafening and appalling crash that seemed to strike him in the face like a blow from a fist. CHAPTER TWELVE "That's done it," remarked the Inspector bitterly. He was standing in the car which Colin had just pulled up, staring down over a heap of stones at the black mass of broken wreckage which reared itself fantastically amongst the grass. "I should think it was about the finish," said Colin quietly. "What on earth made them skid in that extraordinary way?" "I suppose I hit Fenton by mistake," said the Inspector. "Just like my cursed luck. He must have driven straight into it and gone clean over the top. It's a hundred to one they're both dead." "We'll soon find out, anyhow," was Colin's answer, and, opening the door as he spoke, he jumped down into the roadway. A few strides brought him alongside the fallen car, where, in the pitiless moonlight, every detail of the tragedy stood out with horrible distinctness. Almost the first sight that met his eyes was the bodies of Fenton and Cooper, the former pinned down under the débris amid a cloud of escaping steam, and the other sprawled full length on the bare ground. It was very obvious that nothing could be done for Fenton. The top of his skull had been smashed in like an eggshell, and, after just pausing to glance at the injury, Colin hurried over toward the prostrate figure of his companion.