"If the Bishop he doth take me,

RCA. They knew, therefore, that I must have been talking direct to Hillcrest. They knew, because I had told them, that the eight-watt radio we had with us had a range of not more than 150 miles under normal conditions, so that the chances were high that Hillcrest was actually speaking from the IGY cabinor a point even nearer. I had also told them that Hillcrest and his four companions wouldn't be returning from their field trip for another two or three weeks, so that this premature return could only be accounted for by some unforeseen and extraordinary event. It wasn't hard to guess what that event must have been. That I should ask Hillcrest to find out the reason for the crash followed inevitably, but what was not inevitable, what pointed most clearly of all to the shrewdness of the killers, was their guess that whoever knew the reason for the crash would be most reluctant to go into specific detail: and they had robbed me of the only clue that might have helped me discover what that detail was and so also, I felt sure, the identity of the killers. But the time was far past now for crying over spilt milk. I pressed the switch to Transmit'. "Thank you. But please radio Uplavnik again, emphasise desperate urgency of finding out crash reasons. . . . How far behind do you estimate you are now? We have made only twenty miles since noon. Cold extreme, bad radiator trouble. Over." "We have made only eight miles since noon. It seems" I threw the switch over. "Eight miles?" I demanded harshly. "Did I hear you say eight miles?" "You heard." Hillcrest's voice was savage. "Remember the missing sugar? Well, it's turned up. Your fine friends dumped the whole bloody lot into the petrol. We're completely immobilised." CHAPTER NINEWednesday 8 P.M.Thursday 4 P.M. We were on our way again just after nine o'clock that night. It had been my original intention, by dreaming up a variety of excuses and even, if necessary, by sabotaging the engine, to stay there for several hours or at least what I reckoned to be the longest possible time before the killers became restive, suspected that I was deliberately stalling, and took over. Or tried to take over. For it had been my further intention that, after an hour or two, Jackstraw should produce his rifleit was strapped to his shoulders night and dayand I digital camera lens distortion problem my automatic, and hold them all at the point of the gun until Hillcrest came up. If all had gone well, he should have been with us by midnight. Our troubles would have been over. But it had not gone well, our troubles were as bad as ever, the Sno-Cat was bogged down and with Mahler now seriously ill and Marie LeGarde frighteningly weak and exhausted, I couldn't remain any longer. Had I been made of tougher stuff, or even had I not been a doctor, I might have brought myself to recognise that both Marie LeGarde and Theodore Mahler were expendable pawns in a game where the stakes, I was now certain, were far greater than just the lives of one or two people. I might have held everybodyor the major suspects, at leastat gunpoint until such time, twenty-four hours if need be, as Hillcrest did come up. But I could not bring myself to regard our sick passengers as expendable pawns. A weakness, no doubt, but one that I was almost proud to share with Jackstraw, who felt exactly as I did. That Hillcrest would come up eventually I felt pretty sure. The dumping of the sugar in the petrolI bit my lips in chagrin whenever I remembered that it had been I who had told them all that Hillcrest was running short of fuelhad been a brilliant move, but nothing more, now, than I had come to expect of men who thought of everything, made every possible provision against future eventualities. Still, even though furiously angry at the delay, Hillcrest had thought he could cope with the situation. The big cabin of the Sno-Cat was equipped with a regular workshop with tools fit to deal with just about every mechanical breakdown, and already his driver-mechanic-1 didn't envy him his murderous task even though he was reportedly working behind heated canvas apronshad stripped down the engine and was cleaning pistons, cylinder walls and valves of the unburnt carbon deposits that had finally ground the big tractor to a halt. A couple of others had rigged up a makeshift distillation unita petrol drum, almost full, with a thin metal tube packed in ice leading from its top to an empty drum. Petrol, Hillcrest had explained, had a lower boiling point than sugar, and when the drum was heated the evaporating gas, which would cool in the ice-packed tube, should emerge as pure petrol. Such, at least, was the theory, although Hillcrest didn't seem absolutely sure of himself. He had asked if we had any suggestion, whether we could help