flying in a pitch dark night. Coat, trousers, and
waistcoat rested in separate swamps at least ten miles apart. Gray
whiskers and gray wig I tore into little pieces, and dropped the bits
out of the open window.

I had taken the precaution to secure a compartment in the front of
the train, and when it came to rest at Parkeston Quay Station, the
crowd, eager for the steamer, rushed past me, and I stepped out into
the midst of it, a dapper, well-dressed young man, with black beard
and moustaches, my own closely cropped black hair covered by a new
bowler hat. Anyone looking for Paul Ducharme would have paid small
attention to me, and to any friend of Valmont's I was equally
unrecognisable.

I strolled in leisurely manner to the Great Eastern Hotel on the Quay,
and asked the clerk if a portmanteau addressed to Mr. John Wilkins had
arrived that day from London. He said 'Yes,' whereupon I secured a
room for the night, as the last train had already left for the
metropolis.

Next morning, Mr. John Wilkins, accompanied by a brand new and rather
expensive portmanteau, took the 8.57 train for Liverpool Street, where
he arrived at half-past ten, stepped into a cab, and drove to the
Savoy Restaurant, lunching there with the portmanteau deposited in the
cloak room. When John Wilkins had finished an excellent lunch in a
leisurely manner at the Cafe Parisien of the Savoy, and had paid his
bill, he did not go out into the Strand over the rubber-paved court by
which he had entered, but went through the hotel and down the stairs,
and so out into the thoroughfare facing the Embankment. Then turning
to his right he reached the Embankment entrance of the Hotel Cecil.
This leads into a long, dark corridor, at the end of which the lift
may be rung for. It does not come lower than the floor above unless
specially summoned. In this dark corridor, which was empty, John
Wilkins took off the black beard and moustache, hid it in the inside
pocket of his coat, and there went up into the lift a few moments
later to the office floor, I, Eugene Valmont, myself for the first
time in several days.

Even then I did not take a cab to my flat, but passed under the arched
Strand front of the 'Cecil' in a cab, bound for the residence of that
nobleman who had formerly engaged me to see after the safety of the
King.

You will say that this was all very elaborate precaution to take when
a man was not even sure he was followed. To tell you the truth, I do
n