Read Blood Royal for Free Online

most of the turnings blind.
    We had gone, I suppose, some three miles and had just descended the very deuce of a hill, when we rounded a sudden bend to see the police car at rest in the midst of the way. Where it stood, the road was sunk in a little swell of the forest which lay hereabouts, and we could not draw alongside to see what the matter might be.
    As George brought the Rolls to a standstill, the sergeant stepped into the road and opened the hinder door.
    “Your Highness will descend immediately.”
    We all stared at him.
    “And no one else will move,” said a voice on my left.
    Instinctively we all looked round.
    The other policeman was still on the running-board, half sitting on the near spare wheel, with one hand grasping the windscreen and the other a Service revolver of which he seemed none too sure.
    “God in heaven,” said the Duke weakly. “And I thought you were police.”
    The first speaker bowed.
    “We flatter ourselves,” he said, “a very natural mistake.”
    As the Duke rose, the man on my left incautiously lowered his weapon, and I hit him full in the stomach with all my might. It was, of course, a foul blow, and he crumpled and then fell sideways without a sound.
    The rest was easy.
    Rowley had closed with the sergeant before he could draw, and, when I descended, my man had dropped his revolver and was writhing in pain.
    “Tie them up,” said I, and ran for the other car.
    This began to move forward when I was but six feet away, and, though I made a great effort, before I could manage to board it, I was outrun.
    At once George brought up the Rolls and, almost before I was in, began to give chase.
    For this piece of folly both he and I were to blame, for I was as eager as he to lay all three men by the heels. Looking back, I am ashamed that we should have been so childish, for we had won our battle and cleared our way and had only to go about to be in Vigil itself in little more than an hour. Instead of this, we went pelting through country we did not know, along roads which were so narrow that, unless the other let us, we dared not pass, in the hope, I suppose, of his being checked by traffic or meeting with some misadventure which would give him into our hand. Meanwhile we had left the servants to shift for themselves and were now but two to cope with whatever befell.
    Such foolishness had its reward.
    A sudden jarring told us a tyre was punctured, and, before we could come to a standstill, two more had met the same fate.
    This was, of course, out of reason, unless the man we were chasing had strewn something sharp in our way. So he had done. One of his barbs or snags is before me now – a four-spiked horror of steel, which, however idly you throw it, will always stand upon three spikes and thrust the fourth into the air. Such things were once used in warfare to lame the enemy’s horse, and I afterwards found that in the Riechtenburg army they were field service stores.
    We had two spare wheels, and, as luck would have it, a tube, so half an hour’s hard labour would make the car fit for the road, but I fear we were out of temper with all the world, and, when the Duke protested that we should “get on to Vigil and let the — tyres go,” I ignored the suggestion and Hanbury answered curtly that, even if it had not been ours, we should never so abuse such a car.
    With that, we took off our coats and got to work, and the Duke flounced back on his seat and closed his eyes.
    The Grand Duchess was down by my side.
    “What can I do?” she said.
    With the back of my hand I wiped the sweat from my brow. Then I took up one of the snags that had punctured our tyres.
    “If you will walk back,” said I, “and look for some more things like this. I don’t know how many he dropped, but it’s hardly likely he got us the first go off.”
    Before I had finished, she was gone and was searching the road.
    By the time the Rolls was ready she had not returned: we, therefore, turned the car round with