rk, where, halting suddenly, he said--

"Ewart, you've placed yourself in a pretty fine predicament!"

"What do you mean?" I asked in surprise.

"Well, I saw you yesterday afternoon driving down the Prager-strasse
with the very gentleman to whom you ought to give the widest berth."

"You mean Gibbs?"

"I mean that cunning old fox, Inspector Dyer, of Scotland Yard."

"What!" I gasped. "Dyer--is that the famous Dyer?"

"He is. I once, to my cost, had occasion to meet him, and it's hardly
likely that I'd forget his face. I saw you coming along with him, and
you could have knocked me down with a feather."

"But I--well, I really can't believe that he's a detective," I declared,
utterly incredulous.

"Believe it, or disbelieve it--it's a fact, I tell you. You've been
given away somehow, and Dyer has now just got you in his palm."

Briefly I explained how I had met Upton, and how Mr. Gibbs had been
introduced.

"Upton may not be what he pretends, you know," Blythe replied. "They
want us very badly at Scotland Yard, and that's why the affair has been
given over to Dyer. He's the man who generally does the travelling on
the Continent. But you know him well enough by reputation, of course.
Everyone does."

Mr. Gibbs's intense interest in the car and its maker was thus accounted
for. I saw how completely I had been taken in, and how entirely I was
now in the renowned detective's hands. He might already have been round
to the garage, unlocked the "bonnet" with a false key, and seen the name
"Napier" stamped upon the engine.

How, I wondered, had he been able to trace me? No doubt the fact that we
had shipped the car across from Parkeston to Hamburg was well known to
Scotland Yard, yet since that night it had undergone two or three
transformations which had entirely disguised it. I was rapidly growing a
moustache, too, and had otherwise altered my personal appearance since I
posed as Bindo's chauffeur in Scarborough.

"The Count, who is lying low in a small hotel in Duesseldorf, wants you
to meet him with the car in Turin in a fortnight's time--at the Hotel
Europe. A Russian princess is staying there--and we have a plan. But it
seems very probable that you'll be waiting extradition to Bow Street if
you don't make a bold move, and slip out of Dyer's hands."

"Yes," I said thoughtfully. "If Gibbs is really Dyer himself, then, I
fear, that although I've been discreet--for I make a point of never
telling my business t