he stopped before the man with the umbrella.

"I am greatly obliged to you for your kindness. But you understand? I go
on alone."

The man in black regarded him blandly.

"That is not a part of the arrangement," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"That I am to go with you."

"I asked you to make no such arrangement."

"It is a pity that perhaps I misunderstood."

Renwick angrily approached the garage owner and tried to make him
understand, but he only proceeded with his work with greater alacrity,
bowing and pointing to the man in the doorway.

"You observe," said the tall man, "that you will only complicate
matters?"

Renwick glared at the other, but he returned the look with an impudent
composure, and Renwick, in fear of losing his self-control, at last
turned away. Nothing was to be gained by this controversy. After all,
what difference did the fellow's presence make? As a source of danger he
had already proved himself a negligible quantity. So Renwick with an ill
grace at last acquiesced, and within an hour they were on their way,
crossing the Danube and turning to their right along a rough road by the
Fruska mountains.

The first accident happened before the machine reached Sarengrad, a
blowout which made another tire a necessity. The second, a broken leaf
of a spring, which made rapid travel hazardous. But it was not until
nightfall, in the midst of a desolation of plains, that carburetor
trouble of a most disturbing character developed. Renwick paced up and
down, offering advice and suggestion and then swearing in all the
languages he knew, but the chauffeur only shrugged and sputtered, while
the tall man gurgled soothingly. An hour they remained there when
Renwick's patience became exhausted, and he gave way to the suspicion
which had for some time obsessed him, that the pair of them were
conspiring to delay him upon his way.

He came up behind the tall man who was bending over the open hood of the
car, and catching him roughly by the elbow, swung him around and faced
him angrily.

"I've had about enough of this," he said. "Either that car moves in five
minutes or one of you will be hurt."

He moved his hand toward his pocket to draw his weapon but his wrist was
caught in midair by a grip of steel that held Renwick powerless. The
Englishman was stronger than most men of his weight and made a sharp
struggle to get loose, but the man in black disarmed him as he would
have disarmed a child, and calml