dero I mounted into the car, a new forty
six-cylinder "Napier" that we had purchased only a week before, to drive
to Barnack, an old-world Northamptonshire village near Stamford, where I
had to meet the audacious rascal Count Bindo. From Piccadilly Circus,
I started forth upon my hundred-mile run with a light heart, in keen
anticipation of a merry time. The Houghs, with whom Bindo was staying,
always had gay house-parties, for the Major, his wife, and Marigold, his
daughter, were keen on hunting, and we usually went to the meets of the
Fitzwilliam, and got good runs across the park, Castor Hanglands, and
the neighbourhood.

Through the grey, damp afternoon I drove on up the Great North Road,
that straight, broad highway which you who motor know so well. Simmons,
Bindo's new valet, was suffering from neuralgia; therefore I had left
him in London, and, sitting alone, had ample time for reflection.

The road surface was good, the car running like a clock, and on the
level, open highway out of Biggleswade through Tempsford and Eaton Socon
along to Buckden the speed-indicator was registering thirty-five and
even forty miles an hour. I was anxious to get to Barnack before dark;
therefore, regardless of any police-traps that might be set, I "let her
rip."

The cheerless afternoon had drawn to a close, and rain had begun to
fall. In a week or ten days we should be on the Riviera again, amid
the sunshine and the flowers; and as I drew on my mackintosh I pitied
those compelled to bear the unequal rigour of the English winter. I
was rushing up Alconbury Hill on my "second," having done seventy
miles without stopping, when of a sudden I felt that drag on the
steering-wheel that every motorist knows and dreads. The car refused
to answer to the wheel--there was a puncture in the near hind tyre.

For nearly three-quarters of an hour I worked away by the light of one
of the acetylene head-lamps, for darkness had now fallen, and at last I
recommenced to climb the hill and drop down into Sawtry, the big French
lamps illuminating the dark, wet road.

About two miles beyond Sawtry, when, by reason of the winding of the
road, I had slackened down to about fifteen miles an hour, I came to
cross-roads and a sign-post, against which something white shone in the
darkness. At first I believed it to be a white dog, but next moment I
heard a woman's voice hailing me, and turning, saw in the lamp-light as
I flashed past, a tall, handsome figur