, our convenience writhed. To complete our
discomfort, if ever one of us jibbed, the others were sure to lay the
lash about his shoulders. The beginning of the end arrived one fine
February day.

An early breakfast had made us ready for lunch. As we were taking our
seats--

"Are the cars locked?" said Daphne.

Adele held up a key.

"Pong is," she said.

My sister fumed to Jonah.

"And Ping?"

My cousin shook his head.

"No," he said shortly. "I omitted the precaution. If this was Paris,
instead of Pau, if the cars were standing in an undesirable
thoroughfare, instead of in the courtyard of the English Club, if----"

"It's all very well," said Daphne, "but you know what happened to the
Rolls."

Berry frowned.

"Any reference," he said, "to that distressing incident is bad for my
heart." He turned to Jonah. "As for you, you've lodged your protest,
which will receive the deepest consideration. I shall dwell upon it
during the soup. And now push off and lock the vehicle. I know Love
laughs at locksmiths, but the average motor-thief's sense of humour is
less susceptible."

When his sister threw her entreaties into the scale, my cousin took the
line of least resistance and rose to his feet.

"For converting a qualified blessing into an unqualified curse," he
said bitterly, "you three alarmists take the complete cracknel. Since
the locks were fitted, I've done nothing but turn the key from morning
till night. Before the beastly things were thought of, the idea of
larceny never entered your heads."

The indignation with which his words were received would have been more
pronounced if we had had the room to ourselves. As it was, Jonah made
his way to the door amid an enraged murmur of expostulation, whose
temper was aggravated by suppression almost to bursting-point.

There was much to be said for both points of view.

It was a fact that since the theft of the Rolls we had never felt easy
about leaving a car unattended. Yet, though we had often discussed the
matter, nothing had been done. Now, however, that we were in a strange
country, where the tracing of a stolen car would, for a variety of
reasons, be an extremely difficult undertaking, and staying withal only
a handful of miles from the Spanish frontier, we all felt that action
of some sort must be taken without delay.

An attempt to enlist the services of the Sealyham as a custodian had
failed ignominiously. In the first place, unles