expect you about six.
Good-bye," he said, and then rang off.

Full of excitement, I got out the car from the garage, filled the petrol
tank, saw to the carbide, and then set out across the suspension bridge
at Hammersmith, and went through Kensal Green and Hampstead over to
Highgate, where I got upon the North Road.

It had been raining, and there was plenty of mud about, but the big,
powerful car ran well notwithstanding the terrific noise it created.
Indeed, she was such a terror and possessed so many defects that little
wonder its maker had not placed his name upon her. As a hill-climber,
however, she was excellent, and though being compelled constantly to
change my "speeds," I did an average of thirty miles an hour after
getting into the open country beyond Codicote.

Through crooked old Hitchin I slowed up, then away again through Henlow
and Eton Socon up Alconbury Hill and down the broad road with its many
telegraph lines, I went with my exhaust open, roaring and throbbing,
through Stilton village into the quiet old cathedral town of
Peterborough. Inquiry in the Market Place led me across a level crossing
near the station and down a long hill, then out again into a flat
agricultural district until I came to the handsome lodge-gates of
Edgcott Hall.

Up a fine elm avenue I went for nearly a mile, until I saw before me in
the crimson sunset a long, old Elizabethan mansion with high twisted
chimneys and many latticed windows. The door was open, and as I pulled
up I saw within a great high wall with stained windows like a church and
stands of armour ranged down either side.

A footman in yellow waistcoat answered my ring, and my inquiry for
Captain Kinghorne brought forth my master, smartly dressed in a brown
flannel suit and smiling.

"Hulloa, Nye!" he exclaimed. "Got here all right, then. Newton will show
the way to the garage," and he indicated the footman. "When you've put
her up, I want to see you in my room."

The footman, mounted beside me, directed me across the park to the
kennels of the celebrated Edgcott hounds, and behind these I found a
well-appointed garage, in which were two other cars, a "sixteen" Fiat of
a type three years ago, and a "forty" Charron with a limousine body, a
very heavy, ponderous affair.

A quarter of an hour later I found myself with the Honourable Bob in a
big, old-fashioned bedroom overlooking the park.

"You understood me on the 'phone, Nye?" he asked when I had closed