The car completed its descent and with a following cloud of dust began to travel across the plateau. Against some distant region of cloud a system of mountains was revealed, glittering spear upon spear. One would have said that these must be the ultimate expression of loftiness, but soon the clouds parted and there, remote from them, was the shining horn of the great peak, the Cloud Piercer, Aorangi. The passenger was so intent upon this unfolding picture that he had no eyes for the road and they were close upon the forks before he saw the signpost with its two arms at right angles. The car pulled up beside them and he read their legends: “Main South Road” and “Mount Moon.”
The air was lively with the sound of grasshoppers. Its touch was fresh and invigorating. A tall young man wearing a brown jacket and grey trousers came round the car to meet him. “Mr. Alleyn? I’m Fabian Losse.” He took a mail-bag from the driver, who had already begun to unload Alleyn’s luggage, and a large box of stores for Mount Moon. The service car drove away to the south in its attendant cloud of dust. Alleyn and Losse took the road to Mount Moon.
“It’s a relief to me that you’ve come, sir,” said Losse after they had driven in silence for some minutes. “I hope I haven’t misled you with my dark hints of espionage. They had to be dark, you know, because they are based entirely on conjecture. Personally I find the whole theory of espionage dubious, indeed I don’t believe in it for a moment. But I used it as bait.”