Part 31

"The turn's ahead--we'll call it off there," Gerard answered mirthfully. "Give her some oil."

The two cars were rushing down the last half-mile of straight road. Rupert was stooping to reach the oil pump when the pink car made its final attempt to pass and was again forced back, but across his outstretched arm he glanced up to Gerard, and glimpsed the last flying missile as it came.

"Duck!" he shouted harshly, "Look out----"

There was no time for action. As Gerard turned his head, the heavy steel wrench struck him below the right temple. Even Rupert's swiftness was too slow; the driver fell forward across his steering-wheel before the mechanician could snatch it from the inert grasp. With a lurch the speeding Mercury caught in a rut, swerved from the road and, leaping a yard-high embankment, crashed through a row of trees to roll over and over like a broken toy, scattering splintered wreckage over the farmhouse enclosure beyond.

The light breeze of half an hour earlier had freshened and gained strength, the pale-gray sky was changing to delicate blue. When the horrified knot of reporters and motor enthusiasts from the nearby Westbury corner swarmed into the orchard to join the pale-faced farmer already there, the sun emerged brilliantly from a bank of clouds, glinting across the heap of twisted metal and the still figure that lay beneath it, illumining the dishevelled, gasping mechanician who struggled dizzily to rise from where he had been flung to safety, fifty feet from the wreck.

It is difficult for any group of men, however willing, to work without a leader. While the inexperienced rescuers stood hesitating on the verge of action, Corrie Rose in his pink racing costume sprang up the bank, his blue eyes burning in his white face, his lips stained with blood where his teeth had bitten through.

"Get those logs, over there," he commanded savagely. "The car's got to be jacked up. Hurry up--do you want him to die under there? Jump!"

His fiery energy ran through the men with a vivifying shock. Torpor transformed to animation, the grim work was attacked. Under Corrie's brief orders they scattered in search of the logs, a telephone, and such aid as the place afforded. The farmer's wife assumed charge of the semi-conscious Rupert, for whom no one else had time.

Into the prim, staid country parlor they carried Gerard, fifteen minutes later, and laid him on a horse-hair couch under a square-framed lithograph of The Trial of John Knox. A plush photograph album was jostled on its marble table by the driver's shattered mask and a glove upon whose wrist still clung and ticked his miniature watch, the flowered carpet was trampled under the heedless feet and streaked with dull red here and there.

"They stopped here yesterday for some water," sobbed the mistress of the house hysterically. "Oh dear, dear! Pitching apples across the yard at the little dark one, he was, and both of them making fun."

The rattling explosions of a motor cycle sounded from without; the first of the emergency surgeons to arrive ran up the steps and into the room, stripping off his coat while appraising with keen eyes the unconscious patient.

"Get out, everyone," he directed concisely. "Here, I want a helper--you, Rose?"

Corrie, on his knee beside the couch, looked up and dragged himself erect. Gerard's face was no more drawn and colorless than his, but he answered to the call, as half an hour before he had answered the demand of the situation for a guide.

"I'll help," he consented, his voice hoarse. "I deserve it."

Before the surgeon's imperious gesture, the rest of the men were retreating to leave the room, when those nearest the door were suddenly thrust back. Staggering, furious passion blazing in his scratched and pain-twisted face, Rupert burst across the threshold.

"Alive?" he hurled the fierce question. "Alive? What?"

"Yes," snapped the surgeon. "Cut this sleeve, Rose--gently! Clear out, you; the ambulance men will take care of you when they get here."

Rupert's haggard black eyes embraced the scene, and encountered Corrie.

"You----" he snarled, choking, and whirled to face the witnesses, extending one slim shaking hand toward the workers beside the couch. "Here, I ain't supposing but that most of you are chasing headlines for paper rags--print down that Allan Gerard was killed by that man. I'm saying it; Gerard cut him off from getting past, and he pitched a wrench that knocked him out. Go down to the course and you'll get the wrench to Missouri you, on the road. Rose knocked out Gerard and our car ran wild."

The concentrated vehemence and force of the arraignment stupefied even the reportorial instinct. Dazed, the hearers stared from the mechanician's tattered, accusing figure to the pale young driver who offered neither surprise nor defense, but went steadily on with his unsteadying task.

"He wrecked us----" Rupert made a limping step forward. "Well? Did you guess I was reciting this to put you to sleep? Why ain't you taking him out of here? Put his mechanician through the third degree and get his story--who nailed you fast here? Why don't you move?"

The scissors slipped tinkling to the floor from Corrie's grasp. Livid with wrath, the surgeon stood up.

"Get out, all, and take that maniac with you," he stormed. "Not a word; I don't care if Rose has murdered all Long Island, he's some use now. Clear out and leave this room quiet. Quick."

He was obeyed, the nearest men drawing Rupert into the retiring group, and the door closed.

Outside, the reporters became themselves. While ambulances dashed up, motor cycles, official cars and private vehicles arrived to halt around the little house, the Mercury's mechanician was hurried apart and his story coaxed from him in detail.

The last automobile to come up, an hour after the accident, was a gilt-monogramed foreign limousine. From it descended a gentleman who, after a comprehensive glance over the disordered, crowded orchard, crossed straight to where Rupert sat hunched on a kitchen chair opposite the shattered car.

"Rupert," he appealed, catching the mechanician's shoulder. "Rupert, what's been happening here?"

Very deliberately Rupert lifted his dark face, its grimness not lessened by flecks and bars of court-plaster; across the apathy of physical exhaustion his black eyes gleamed vivid, hard resolve.