f Mr. John Douglas at all, but must be that of the
bicyclist from Tunbridge Wells. No other conclusion was possible.
Therefore I had to determine where Mr. John Douglas himself could be,
and the balance of probability was that with the connivance of his wife
and his friend he was concealed in a house which had such conveniences
for a fugitive, and awaiting quieter times when he could make his final
escape."

"Well, you figured it out about right," said Douglas approvingly. "I
thought I'd dodge your British law; for I was not sure how I stood
under it, and also I saw my chance to throw these hounds once for all
off my track. Mind you, from first to last I have done nothing to be
ashamed of, and nothing that I would not do again; but you'll judge
that for yourselves when I tell you my story. Never mind warning me,
Inspector: I'm ready to stand pat upon the truth.

"I'm not going to begin at the beginning. That's all there," he
indicated my bundle of papers, "and a mighty queer yarn you'll find it.
It all comes down to this: That there are some men that have good cause
to hate me and would give their last dollar to know that they had got
me. So long as I am alive and they are alive, there is no safety in
this world for me. They hunted me from Chicago to California, then they
chased me out of America; but when I married and settled down in this
quiet spot I thought my last years were going to be peaceable.

"I never explained to my wife how things were. Why should I pull her
into it? She would never have a quiet moment again; but would always be
imagining trouble. I fancy she knew something, for I may have dropped a
word here or a word there; but until yesterday, after you gentlemen had
seen her, she never knew the rights of the matter. She told you all she
knew, and so did Barker here; for on the night when this thing happened
there was mighty little time for explanations. She knows everything
now, and I would have been a wiser man if I had told her sooner. But it
was a hard question, dear," he took her hand for an instant in his own,
"and I acted for the best.

"Well, gentlemen, the day before these happenings I was over in
Tunbridge Wells, and I got a glimpse of a man in the street. It was
only a glimpse; but I have a quick eye for these things, and I never
doubted who it was. It was the worst enemy I had among them all--one
who has been after me like a hungry wolf after a caribou all these
years. I knew there was tr