engine, sprang into the
driving-seat outside. With a low hum the big car glided forth
into the cold, starry night.

From the upper floor of the Dyke Inn came the sound of a woman's
terrified sobs. Below there reigned the silence of death.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE TWO DESERTERS

Desmond drove to Wentfield Station in an angry and defiant mood.
He was incensed against Francis, incensed against the Chief, yet,
if the truth were told, most of all incensed against himself.

Not that he admitted it for a moment. He told himself that he was
very hardly used. He had undergone considerable danger in the
course of discharging a mission which was none of his seeking,
and he had met with nothing but taunts from his brother and abuse
from the Chief.

"I wash my hands of the whole thing," Desmond declared, as he
paced the platform at Wentfield waiting for his train. "As
Francis is so precious cocksure about it all, let him carry on in
my place! He's welcome to the Chief's wiggings! The Chief won't
get me to do his dirty work again in a hurry! That's flat!"

Yet all the while the little gimlet that men call conscience was
patiently drilling its way through the wall of obduracy behind
which Desmond's wounded pride had taken cover. Rail as he would
against his hard treatment at the hands of the Chief, he knew
perfectly well that he could never wash his hands of his mission
until Barbara Mackwayte had been brought back into safety. This
thought kept thrusting itself forward into the foreground of his
mind; and he had to focus his attention steadfastly on his
grievances to push it back again.

But we puny mortals are all puppets in the hands of Fate. Even as
the train was bearing Desmond, thus rebellious, Londonwards,
Destiny was already pulling the strings which was to force the
"quitter" back into the path he had forsaken. For this purpose
Fate had donned the disguise of a dirty-faced man in a greasy old
suit and a spotted handkerchief in lieu of collar... but of him
presently.

On arriving at Liverpool Street, Desmond, painfully conscious of
his unkempt appearance, took a taxi to a Turkish bath in the West
End. There his first care was to submit himself to the hands of
the barber who, after a glance at his client's bandaged head,
muddy clothes and shaggy beard, coughed ominously and relapsed
into a most unbarber-like reserve.

Desmond heard the cough and caught the look of commiseration on
the man's face.

"I rather think