A Question of Proof

A Question of Proof by Nicholas Blake Page B

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Authors: Nicholas Blake
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endlessly past like conveyor belts, the tyres purred on a different road surface, and the Daimler kept its distance. They bucketed over the top and a steep hill fell away at their feet. Michael went down it like an airplane diving. The speedometer needle surged up from fifty to sixty, to seventy, to seventy-five. Armstrong, putting his head outside, found his eyelids fluttered up and down by the wind’s pressure. The Daimler looked bigger now, and they could see the figure inside bumping up and down hunched over the wheel. Strangeways held Hero closer, remarked that this was better than the movies and began singing an aria from ‘Israel in Egypt.’ Hero’s golden hair was floating above her head as though she were sitting over an electric fan, her eyes were sparkling and her mouth curved ecstatically. Even the superintendent forgot his fright in the general excitement, and to the astonishment of the company began to deliver hunting cries in a high tenor.
    A red triangle flicked past; a blind crossroads ahead. The Daimler was over them. A baby Austin nosed out from behind a barn on the right; the owner gave a startled glance at the projectile leaping at him down the hill, flurried with his hands, and stopped almost in the middle of the crossroads. Michael’s left hand dropped on the brake and his right forced the wheel steadily over to the right. They swung behind the tail of the Austin, then Michael jerked the wheel to the left and braked hard. The tires screamed, a wall sprang at the right side of the car, seemed to halt in midspring as Michael put the wheel right over again, was snatched away. They were through.
    ‘Michael
darling
!’ said Hero.
    ‘God’s truth!’ said Nigel.
    ‘Well done, sir,’ said the superintendent, opening his eyes again, then pointed ahead. The Daimler was lurching from side to side of the road like a maddened bull. Urquhart must have fatally glanced back, expecting his pursuers to be smashed at the crossroads. A tyre burst. The Daimler went off at a tangent into the ditch. Her huge body pirouetted on its front wheels, was tossed up into the air like a toy, twirled over the hedge, and fell devastatingly into the field beyond, jerking clear a small black figure, a suitcase and several cushions, which came to earth scattered and severally, as though vomited out of a volcano. They all listened, expecting to hear the dreadful thump of the body, though even the Daimler’s crash had been scarcely audible through the roar of their own engine. When the body dropped out of sight behind the hedge, they winced and felt as if they were going to be hit hard in the wind. Michael pulled up and scrambled with the superintendent into the field. The Daimler looked like a scrap-heap. Urquhart, too, was in a sorry mess, but a bush had broken his fall and he was not dead. They got him quickly into the nearest village, where a doctor attended him till the ambulance came from Staverton.
    Armstrong proposed to remain by Urquhart’s bedside in the hospital till he recovered consciousness; if he ever should. But he thanked Michael, a little awkwardly, for his help and promised to come up to the school that evening if he could, and tell them all about it.
    ‘Is he – James – the man, the one you’re looking for?’ said Hero, as Armstrong was preparing to depart.
    ‘Well, no, he’s not the murderer, ma’am. At least, I should be very surprised if – but if he ever gets over this, he’ll see the inside of a prison all right, I can promise you that.’
    With this they had to rest contented for seven hours or so. After dinner that night, when the headmaster and his wife, Michael and Nigel were discussing the affair in the drawing room, the superintendent was announced. He walked gravely up to Percival Vale, ‘I’m afraid this will be a terrible shock to you, sir. Mr. Urquhart is dead. Before he died he made a confession. One which, I may say, confirmed my own theory about him. He had been playing fast and

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