Winchester would be to run right into the arms of the police.

The only way to save myself was to abandon the car and get back to
London by rail. As I contemplated this I was already passing beside
the high embankment of the South Western Railway, where half a mile
farther on I found a little wayside station. Therefore I turned the
car into a small wood, and destroying my genuine license and hiding
the genuine number-plate, I took the next train to Winchester, and
thence by express to Waterloo after a very wild and adventurous night.
That I had been within an ace of capture was palpable. But why?

I was in the service of the man who controlled that vast criminal
organization which the police of Europe were ever trying to break up.
But why should I be sent to meet the mysterious hunchback Tarrant on
Clifton Bridge?

"There seemed to have been a little flaw in our plans, Hargreave,"
said the alert, good-looking man as I sat with him in his cosy
chambers in Half Moon Street that morning. "The police evidently got
wind of the fact that old Morley was meeting you, and Benton tried to
impersonate him. I know Benton. He's always up against me. He might
have succeeded had he made the hump on his back a hard one, eh?" he
laughed, as though rather amused than otherwise.

"But he didn't know the password," I remarked in triumph.

"No! It was fortunate for you that I had arranged it with old Morley,"
said the man with the master-mind. "One must be ever wary when one
treads crooked paths, you know. The slightest slip--and the end comes!
But, at any rate, last night's adventure has sharpened your wits."

"And it has cost us the 'A. C.'!" I remarked.

"Bah! What's a motor-car more or less when one is working a big
thing!" he exclaimed. "Never let ideas of economy stand in your way,
or you'll never make a fortune. In order to make money you must always
spend money."

I often recollected that adage of his in later days, when the pace
grew even hotter.

Rayne paused for a few minutes. Then he said:

"I've already heard from old Morley on the telephone half an hour ago.
He was on the bridge and watched the fun. Then he discreetly withdrew
and went back to his hotel in Clifton. He declares that you acted
splendidly."

"I'm much gratified by his testimonial," I said.

"I've arranged that he shall meet you to-night here in London--outside
the Three Nuns Hotel at Aldgate. Go to Lloyd's and get a car. At
half-past seven it will