he other.

"What like of man was he?" asked T. X.

The brief description the man gave sent a cold chill to the
Commissioner's heart.

"Kara for a ducat!" he said, and swore long and variously.

"Cadogan Square," he ordered.

His ring was answered promptly. Mr. Kara was out of town, had indeed
been out of town since Saturday. This much the man-servant explained
with a suspicious eye upon his visitors, remembering that his
predecessor had lost his job from a too confiding friendliness with
spurious electric fitters. He did not know when Mr. Kara would return,
perhaps it would be a long time and perhaps a short time. He might come
back that night or he might not.

"You are wasting your young life," said T. X. bitterly. "You ought to be
a fortune teller."

"This settles the matter," he said, in the cab on the way back. "Find
out the first train for Tavistock in the morning and wire the George
Hotel to have a car waiting."

"Why not go to-night?" suggested the other. "There is the midnight
train. It is rather slow, but it will get you there by six or seven in
the morning."

"Too late," he said, "unless you can invent a method of getting from
here to Paddington in about fifty seconds."

The morning journey to Devonshire was a dispiriting one despite the
fineness of the day. T. X. had an uncomfortable sense that something
distressing had happened. The run across the moor in the fresh spring
air revived him a little.

As they spun down to the valley of the Dart, Mansus touched his arm.

"Look at that," he said, and pointed to the blue heavens where, a mile
above their heads, a white-winged aeroplane, looking no larger than a
very distant dragon fly, shimmered in the sunlight.

"By Jove!" said T. X. "What an excellent way for a man to escape!"

"It's about the only way," said Mansus.

The significance of the aeroplane was borne in upon T. X. a few minutes
later when he was held up by an armed guard. A glance at his card was
enough to pass him.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"A prisoner has escaped," said the sentry.

"Escaped--by aeroplane?" asked T. X.

"I don't know anything about aeroplanes, sir. All I know is that one of
the working party got away."

The car came to the gates of the prison and T. X. sprang out, followed
by his assistant. He had no difficulty in finding the Governor, a
greatly perturbed man, for an escape is a very serious matter.

The official was inclined to be brusque in his