ead for home, and don't stop for anything--on two legs or on
four. That's the first thing--most important; then, when you know you're
safe, telephone Scotland Yard to send a raid squad down by road, and do
it quick."

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CHASE

The events which led to the presence of Mr. Nicol Brinn at so opportune
a moment were--consistent with the character of that remarkable man--of
a sensational nature.

Having commandeered the Rolls Royce from the door of the Cavalry Club,
he had immediately, by a mental process which many perils had perfected,
dismissed the question of rightful ownership from his mind. The fact
that he might be intercepted by police scouts he refused to entertain.
The limousine driven by the Hindu chauffeur was still in sight, and
until Mr. Nicol Brinn had seen it garaged, nothing else mattered,
nothing else counted, and nothing else must be permitted to interfere.

Jamming his hat tightly upon his head, he settled down at the wheel,
drawing up rather closer to the limousine as the chase lay through
crowded thoroughfares and keeping his quarry comfortably in sight across
Westminster Bridge and through the outskirts of London.

He had carefully timed the drive to the unknown abode of Fire-Tongue,
and unless it had been prolonged, the more completely to deceive him,
he had determined that the house lay not more than twenty miles from
Piccadilly.

When Mitcham was passed, and the limousine headed straight on into
Surrey, he decided that there had been no doubling, but that the house
to which he had been taken lay in one of these unsuspected country
backwaters, which, while they are literally within sight of the lights
of London, have nevertheless a remoteness as complete as secrecy could
desire.

It was the deserted country roads which he feared, for if the man ahead
of him should suspect pursuit, a difficult problem might arise.

By happy chance Nicol Brinn, an enthusiastic motorist, knew the map
of Surrey as few Englishmen knew it. Indeed, there was no beauty spot
within a forty-mile radius of London to which he could not have driven
by the best and shortest route, at a moment's notice. This knowledge
aided him now.

For presently at a fork in the road he saw that the driver of the
limousine had swung to the left, taking the low road, that to the right
offering a steep gradient. The high road was the direct road to Lower
Claybury, the low road a detour to the same.

Nicol Brinn men