toms. Fritzing's goggles and
other accessories of flight inspired so much interest in the customs
that they could hardly bear to let him go and it seemed as if they
would never tire of feeling about in the harmless depths of
Priscilla's neat box. They had however ultimately to part from him,
for never was luggage more innocent; and rattling past Buckingham
Palace on the way to Paddington Priscilla blew it a cheerful kiss,
symbolic of a happiness too great to bear ill-will. Later on Windsor
Castle would have got one too, if it had not been so dark that she
could not see it. The detective, who felt himself oddly drawn towards
the trio, went down into Somersetshire by the same train as they did,
but parted from them at Ullerton, the station you get out at when you
go to Symford. He did not consider it necessary to go further; and
taking a bedroom at Ullerton in the same little hotel from which
Fritzing had ordered the conveyance that was to drive them their last
seven miles he went to bed, it being close on midnight, with Mr.
Pearce's address neatly written in his notebook.

This, at present, is the last of the detective. I will leave him
sleeping with a smile on his face, and follow the dog-cart as it drove
along that beautiful road between wooded hills that joins Ullerton to
Symford, on its way to Baker's Farm.

At the risk of exhausting Priscilla Fritzing had urged pushing on
without a stop, and Priscilla made no objection. This is how it came
about that the ostler attached to the Ullerton Arms found himself
driving to Symford in the middle of the night. He could not recollect
ever having done such a thing before, and the memory of it would be
quite unlikely to do anything but remain fixed in his mind till his
dying day. Fritzing was a curiously conspicuous fugitive.

It was a clear and beautiful night, and the stars twinkled brightly
over the black tree-tops. Down in the narrow gorge through which the
road runs they could not feel the keen wind that was blowing up on
Exmoor. The waters of the Sym, whose windings they followed, gurgled
over their stones almost as quietly as in summer. There was a fresh
wet smell, consoling and delicious after the train, the smell of
country puddles and country mud and dank dead leaves that had been
rained upon all day. Fritzing sat with the Princess on the back seat
of the dog-cart, and busied himself keeping the rug well round her,
the while his soul was full of thankfulness that th