funniest buzz when I start it--and it's Mr. Weaver's car, and
he doesn't know--I--I borrowed it without asking, and--"

"That car is all right," I bluffed from my saddle. "It's simply obeying
instructions. It comes under the jurisdiction of my private Providence,
you see. I ordered it that you should be here, and in distress, and
grateful for my helping hand." How was that for straight nerve?

"Well, then, let's have the helping hand and be done. I should be at home,
by now. They will wonder--I just went for a--a little spin, and when
I turned to go back, it started that funny noise. I--I'm afraid of it.
It--might blow up, or--or something."

She seemed in a strangely explanatory mood, that was, to say the least,
suspicious. Either she had come out purposely to torment me, or she was
afraid of what she knew was in my mind, and wanted to make me forget it.
But my mettle was up for good. I had no notion of forgetting, or of
letting her.

"I'll do what I can, and willingly," I told her coolly. "It looks like a
good car--an accommodating car. I hope you are prepared to pay the
penalty--"

"Penalty?" she interrupted, and opened her eyes at me innocently; a bit
_too_ innocently, I may say.

"Penalty; yes. The penalty of letting me find you outside of King's
Highway, _alone_," I explained brazenly.

She tried a lever hurriedly, and the car growled up at her so that she
quit. Then she pulled herself together and faced me nonchalantly.

"Oh-h. You mean about the black velvet mask? I'm afraid--I had forgotten
that funny little--joke." With all she could do, her face and her tone
were not convincing.

I gathered courage as she lost it. "I see that I must demonstrate to you
the fact that I am not altogether a joke," I said grimly, and got down
from my horse.

I don't, to this day, know what she imagined I was going to do. She sat
very still; the kind of stillness a rabbit adopts when he hopes to escape
the notice of an enemy. I could see that she hardly breathed, even.

But when I reached her, I only got a wrench out of the tool-box and yanked
open the hood to see what ailed the motor. I knew something of that make
of car; in fact, I had owned one before I got the _Yellow Peril_, and
I had a suspicion that there wasn't much wrong; a loosened nut will
sometimes sound a good deal more serious than it really is. Still, a
half-formed idea--a perfectly crazy idea--made me go over the whole
machine very carefully to make sur