Page:Edgar Wallace--Tam o the Scoots.djvu/139

 Craig raised his eyebrows, for the spirit of mischief was on him.

"Von Mahl," he said with well-assumed incredulity; "why, I thought—oh, by the way, is to-day the sixteenth?"

"To-morrow is the sixteenth," snarled von Mahl. "What happens to-morrow, Herr Englishman?"

"I beg your pardon," said Craig politely; "I'm afraid I can not tell you—it would not be fair to Tam."

And von Mahl went out in a sweat of fear.

From somewhere overhead came a sound like a snarl of a buzz-saw as it bites into hard wood. Tam, who was walking along a deserted by-road, his hands in his breeches pockets, his forage cap at the back of his head, looked up and shaded his eyes. Something as big as a house-fly, and black as that, was moving with painful slowness across the skies.

Now, there is only one machine that makes a noise like a buzz-saw going about