us.'

'Yet I think we can manage it. Where are you bound for?'

I told him my rooms in Westminster and then to my old flat in Park
Lane. 'The day of disguises is past. In half an hour I'll be Richard
Hannay. It'll be a comfort to get into uniform again. Then I'll look up
Blenkiron.'

He grinned. 'I gather you've had a riotous time. We've had a good many
anxious messages from the north about a certain Mr Brand. I couldn't
discourage our men, for I fancied it might have spoiled your game. I
heard that last night they had lost touch with you in Bradfield, so I
rather expected to see you here today. Efficient body of men the
Scottish police.'

'Especially when they have various enthusiastic amateur helpers.'

'So?' he said. 'Yes, of course. They would have. But I hope presently
to congratulate you on the success of your mission.'

'I'll bet you a pony you don't,' I said.

'I never bet on a professional subject. Why this pessimism?'

'Only that I know our gentleman better than you. I've been twice up
against him. He's the kind of wicked that don't cease from troubling
till they're stone-dead. And even then I'd want to see the body
cremated and take the ashes into mid-ocean and scatter them. I've got a
feeling that he's the biggest thing you or I will ever tackle.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Valley of Humiliation

I collected some baggage and a pile of newly arrived letters from my
rooms in Westminster and took a taxi to my Park Lane flat. Usually I
had gone back to that old place with a great feeling of comfort, like a
boy from school who ranges about his room at home and examines his
treasures. I used to like to see my hunting trophies on the wall and to
sink into my own armchairs But now I had no pleasure in the thing. I
had a bath, and changed into uniform, and that made me feel in better
fighting trim. But I suffered from a heavy conviction of abject
failure, and had no share in Macgillivray's optimism. The awe with
which the Black Stone gang had filled me three years before had revived
a thousandfold. Personal humiliation was the least part of my trouble.
What worried me was the sense of being up against something inhumanly
formidable and wise and strong. I believed I was willing to own defeat
and chuck up the game.

Among the unopened letters was one from Peter, a very bulky one which I
sat down to read at leisure. It was a curious epistle, far the longest
he had ever written me, and its size made me under